beatObox for Gear S.

[mountainbikermark]

Free on the Gear Store
This is a handy little companion app if you like to control the music player on your phone with your watch . I've used it with both the its own music player as well as Power Amp with perfect success. It did not work to start/stop/change with Pandora and other reviews have stated it doesn't work with Spotify but a few reviewers stated it did work with Google streaming. I haven't tried it with Amazon streaming because I just don't use that service at all.
To use your music player other than the one in the app you start the music player on the phone then the app on the watch controls it. If you start the music player within beatObox on the watch it chooses its own instead of the choice you might prefer instead, such as Power Amp, if it was the last used. It's a free app so no biggie for me to find that out but some might be incensed, such as a few reviewers of the app on the Gear Store.
It has a few built gesture controls I'll show a screen shot of so it's simpler to control the music than the stock watch controller . Where it blows away (yeah I'm a simple man) the stock Samsung music controller on the watch is it embeds the track info as it's playing, something Samsung totally left off of their stock controller if controlling the phone. It doesn't pass along album art but who watches their watch when listening to music anyway. I've never understood the great need for album art myself.

Another plus over stock is a built in 5 band eq or pre set with the usuals that everybody has if they have any pre sets. Rock, classical, jazz, etc. With Power Amp it's like having an eq enhance the eq of PA so I just left it to normal when using it.

The settings are pretty straight forward and easy to use and understand, no big words and going around your elbow to get to your thumb.

This one looks like it'll also mutate easily to the new round of their watch lineup with a smaller screen for its purpose since it won't been a gigantic (relative) screen to be used

Screen goes dim after user set time or you can swipe up to make it go back to home then tap the home button to make screen sleep but it still runs in the background until you stop it either by stopping the music player on the phone or stopping it on the watch.

Time will tell if it's a battery hog but just the gesture controls alone make it useful when on the go for a quick change of things without a whole bunch of taps to get to where you want to change something. Track info is also a big plus over the stock Samsung music controller

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[mountainbikermark]

I wanted to do a follow up on this app after using it for a while.
The phone companion app is easy enough to ignore when you start the app on the watch. Just close it out on the phone , using the back button, and be done if you'd rather use your regular music player without affecting things on the watch or the music playing. It's just a music controller on the watch is all.
I enabled the raise wrist to illuminate option just to try it out. It works better than the using the option to show the clock. All I have to do is twist my wrist and it lights up. The cool thing is the auto bright I have the watch set to still applies so in a dark room it only lights a little but outside it shines brightly.
I've been able to blow my friends away with the app when the screen is dimmed. It looks like the watch screen is off unless you really look at it but the gestures still work. My Apple watch buddy was amazed that I was able to control my songs on my Bluetooth speaker using a sleeping (as I let him erroneously continue to believe) smartwatch.
Track changes, volume changes, etc are instantaneous when gestured. This was fantastic at work at oh dark thirty this morning.
It is no more a battery hog than any of the other apps I run for lengths at a time and actually is MUCH MORE battery friendly than using the music player built into the watch. The Bluetooth connection for playing music is between the phone and speaker/headphones so if I walk out of connected range with the watch the music still plays I just can't change tracks or what not while out of range. This is no biggie since my headphones don't go as far as the watch connection does and I'm usually beyond hearing range of any speaker I might have going also if I'm not using headphones.
Here's what it looks like when dimmed in a normally lit room. It actually looks brighter in the photo than in reality.

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[bkdodger]

I like this gear... I'm debating if picking up one of the older ones if I get a good price...

S6E+ tapatalk

 

[shaila309]

Dear beatObox user,

A modified version of music controller app beatObox for your Gear watch is now available.

What's New:
- Added support for Lollipop (Android OS 5.0+)
- Minor bug fixes, UI improvements
- Enhanced connectivity between watch and phone

Please note that beatObox is now a paid app to keep continuing the support. Hope that's OK.

Cheers.

 

[naloxone]

Dear beatObox user,

A modified version of music controller app beatObox for your Gear watch is now available.Cheers.

Hi, Shaila, is it possible to release this app in standalone version (I mean use it with third party's player, eg Onkyo or PlayerPro)? I don't like to install a player along with this remote control app, because I already got two excellent players.

 

[mountainbikermark]

Hi, Shaila, is it possible to release this app in standalone version (I mean use it with third party's player, eg Onkyo or PlayerPro)? I don't like to install a player along with this remote control app, because I already got two excellent players.

I use it with Power Amp. It chooses last player used and feeds from that on the watch so no need to use the Obox player on the phone instead of your current one.

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[naloxone]

I use it with Power Amp. It chooses last player used and feeds from that on the watch so no need to use the Obox player on the phone instead of your current one.

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Yes, but I mean that I have to have BeatObox player installed on my smartphone. If I uninstall it from my smartphone, remote control app will be uninstalled from my Gear S, too. So the question is - how do I get it on my watch without installing BeatObox player on my smartphone? I don't like to waste RAM and ROM space.

 

[mountainbikermark]

Yes, but I mean that I have to have BeatObox player installed on my smartphone. If I uninstall it from my smartphone, remote control app will be uninstalled from my Gear S, too. So the question is - how do I get it on my watch without installing BeatObox player on my smartphone? I don't like to waste RAM and ROM space.

In that case I'd suggest skip Obox and get Wearable Widgets from the Google Play Store and set up a widget for your favorite music player. That way the widget controls your phones music player from your watch. I use WW to control Power Amp and Pandora from my S1

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[naloxone]

I beg your pardon. I've just installed it. Works fine but it closes my watch screen permanently. Now I can control Play/Pause and FF/Rewind, but I can't see the time and date
Even if I close player on my smartphone, the widget stays open on my watch, so I can't see anything but album cover and three control buttons
There's no perfection in this world!
PS And I can't browse the folders on my smartphone like I could with BeatObox

 

[mountainbikermark]

I beg your pardon. I've just installed it. Works fine but it closes my watch screen permanently. Now I can control Play/Pause and FF/Rewind, but I can't see the time and date
Even if I close player on my smartphone, the widget stays open on my watch, so I can't see anything but album cover and three control buttons
There's no perfection in this world!
PS And I can't browse the folders on my smartphone like I could with BeatObox

make sure you've installed this

And NOT this

.
It'll look like this

on your watch face with complications (fancy term for a launcher on your watch) until you tap it. If you've got just a normal face it'll look like that icon in your app drawer of the watch.

Then it'll act like an app and open when tapped but control widget(s) you've set up on your phone like these
Power Amp

Color Note Today

Pandora

without adding any music players and its file size is pretty small
I don't really mind the extra music player BeatObox (13 MB file size) adds but it is a huge battery hog on the watch, unlike the Wearable Widgets app in the op.
Fwiw, BeatObox seems to have been abandoned by the developer so I doubt there'll be anymore updates.


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