Martian Notifier hybrid smartwatch on DEEP Discount!

[PereDroid]

Ok all you Martian Notifier owners, I may jump ship and order one. Tanga also has it for $30. How much does running the watch decrease the charge on your phone's battery? I'm assuming it can't be much more than having any Bluetooth device connected to you phone but really have no idea.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Hard for me to say because I already had a watch. But I have to believe it's minimal...like you said no more then any BT device.

 

[mountainbikermark]

Ok all you Martian Notifier owners, I may jump ship and order one. Tanga also has it for $30. How much does running the watch decrease the charge on your phone's battery? I'm assuming it can't be much more than having any Bluetooth device connected to you phone but really have no idea.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

No difference in battery life on phone for me. I keep a watch and/or Bluetooth earpiece/headphones connected pretty much 24/7 and those might've made about a 2% difference before 5.1.1 but none now.
Edit; I ran a Watch Dog scan to see real world cpu usage.
Here's the results
Live Bluetooth usage

History of Notifier app for today with it not being connected.

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[cynkrzy]

Well I'll be...showed up early. It was in the mailbox. Must have been delivered yesterday.
On the charger now. It's bigger than I thought it would be. And the usb port cover was a challenge to get off...

I'll do the update once it's charged, then start playing with it. Rainy day so ought to have plenty of playtime

 

[cynkrzy]

Updated & On my wrist.
Haven't worn a watch in forever, this will take some getting used to...

Question: Did the LED turn green when it was fully charged ? Left mine charging for better than 2.5 hours never turned green, checked and it looked fully charged so took it off, updated it, set it up and now gonna go out shopping with my daughter.

Will have to read the manual when I get home to see how to dismiss notifications and such. I think the vibration is strong enough I won't miss those important calls from the "Chilluns" anymore.

I'd say it's a great value, especially since it does exactly what I was looking for.

Question is... will it hold up.

 

[PereDroid]

Yes, it turns green.

TapaTurboII

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I believe the bottom left button dismisses notifications. Don't quote me on that though. I don't wear a watch on the weekend because I'm either vegging or up to something that might damage my watch.

Monday will be my first full day wearing it, though I think I'll wear it this evening.

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[cynkrzy]

Been out and about with it shopping with my daughter. I like it a whole bunch. Does exactly what it says it does and all I wanted it to do. The 10 meter range should allow me to walk around at the office without carrying my phone. Be interesting to see how the leash feature works.
Thanks @Jonny Kansas for the heads up.

 

[mountainbikermark]

I think it depends on the app. Textra, the bottom left dismisses texts but gmail the bottom left deletes and upper left archives. I haven't gotten a phone call with it connected yet so I'm not sure how that one will be handled but I'd guess 1 button will answer on the phone (maybe even start up speakerphone?) and the other reject it
Edit; I made a call from my Gear S to my phone and the caller id showed up on the Notifier so I pressed the bottom left button and it rejected the call, sending it to voicemail. I repeated but pressed the upper left instead and it did nothing.

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[mountainbikermark]

I did a side by side test of Bluetooth range for both the Gear S 1 and Martian Notifier. When inside both devices disconnected at pretty much the same spot when walking from the den to the kitchen, about 30' away with a couple of walls in between, no direct line of sight. When I moved around the kitchen the S would reconnect but then drop again whereas the Notifier stayed disconnected. If I was disconnected more than a minute when I came back in range the Notifier reconnected immediately but the S had to go through its turn off remote access and reconnect which took about 20 seconds longer. When I went outside (brick veneer house) with both the S went about 5' further before disconnecting while in the side yard but about 3' less when going into the back yard. Again when coming back into range the Notifier won in connect time. I'll try with direct line of sight at work this week because the S goes well beyond 30' when at work with my phone upstairs in a wide open environment, often not disconnecting until I'm downstairs about 50' from my phone. I doubt I'll use the Notifier at work all that much, not to change the topic too much, because my S is more a pda used for work purposes than a butler. I'll still show it to my co-workers who are on the fence about a smartwatch and those who don't want to give up a traditional watch in order to see who's texting them. At the price it can be found in several places that might just sway them . I've already talked to an Apple watch owner I work with that seemed very interested in having basically the same butler but monster battery life to go with it. He uses his watch for notifications and start up Siri only and the Notifier can do those for him . Most reviews I read before purchasing were owners pairing with iPhones anyway and they were very pleased with the results even at its original price of over $100
I would venture to guess the range on most Android Wear devices is pretty much the same as with the Tizen , or other os , based watches since my Gear Fit has pretty much the same range as my S.
Battery life seems to be better than my S but not doubled, or more, that I was thinking would happen. I'm at 65% left since its initial charge and 40% on the S when I charged them both the same night . Granted the S has remained tethered almost the entire time so it's usually pretty darn good when tethered. It's when I use the GPS, Wi-Fi , built in music player or stay remotely connected all day that it becomes a battery hog, something the Notifier will not have . I'm very pleased with the battery results so far on the Notifier in that it'll be consistent. I'm not disappointed in the Bluetooth range because it's pretty much spot on with what I'm used to and find a watch with that much range to be a pleasant surprise. No way my Bluetooth earpieces go that far without buffering or totally disconnecting beforehand. Even the Whisper earpiece, which is class 1 (~33 meters), suffers from the phone's class 3 (~ 10 meters) limitation in range. Not since the old dumbphone days have I had class 1 Bluetooth range (a2dp only) for music so it's nice that my Notifier goes as far as it does.

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[mountainbikermark]

End of day 4. Notifier battery at 60%, S at 15%.
Fwiw I've been using the "propriety cable" to charge my Note4 and Note8. Right now it's plugged into my Kumashi portable battery to charge it up. Regular micro usb plugs won't fit the Notifier but the Notifier cable does work on other devices without any hassle.

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[TisMyDroid]

End of day 4. Notifier battery at 60%, S at 15%.
Fwiw I've been using the "propriety cable" to charge my Note4 and Note8. Right now it's plugged into my Kumashi portable battery to charge it up. Regular micro usb plugs won't fit the Notifier but the Notifier cable does work on other devices without any hassle.

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I did a side by side test of Bluetooth range for both the Gear S 1 and Martian Notifier. When inside both devices disconnected at pretty much the same spot when walking from the den to the kitchen, about 30' away with a couple of walls in between, no direct line of sight. When I moved around the kitchen the S would reconnect but then drop again whereas the Notifier stayed disconnected. If I was disconnected more than a minute when I came back in range the Notifier reconnected immediately but the S had to go through its turn off remote access and reconnect which took about 20 seconds longer. When I went outside (brick veneer house) with both the S went about 5' further before disconnecting while in the side yard but about 3' less when going into the back yard. Again when coming back into range the Notifier won in connect time. I'll try with direct line of sight at work this week because the S goes well beyond 30' when at work with my phone upstairs in a wide open environment, often not disconnecting until I'm downstairs about 50' from my phone. I doubt I'll use the Notifier at work all that much, not to change the topic too much, because my S is more a pda used for work purposes than a butler. I'll still show it to my co-workers who are on the fence about a smartwatch and those who don't want to give up a traditional watch in order to see who's texting them. At the price it can be found in several places that might just sway them . I've already talked to an Apple watch owner I work with that seemed very interested in having basically the same butler but monster battery life to go with it. He uses his watch for notifications and start up Siri only and the Notifier can do those for him . Most reviews I read before purchasing were owners pairing with iPhones anyway and they were very pleased with the results even at its original price of over $100
I would venture to guess the range on most Android Wear devices is pretty much the same as with the Tizen , or other os , based watches since my Gear Fit has pretty much the same range as my S.
Battery life seems to be better than my S but not doubled, or more, that I was thinking would happen. I'm at 65% left since its initial charge and 40% on the S when I charged them both the same night . Granted the S has remained tethered almost the entire time so it's usually pretty darn good when tethered. It's when I use the GPS, Wi-Fi , built in music player or stay remotely connected all day that it becomes a battery hog, something the Notifier will not have . I'm very pleased with the battery results so far on the Notifier in that it'll be consistent. I'm not disappointed in the Bluetooth range because it's pretty much spot on with what I'm used to and find a watch with that much range to be a pleasant surprise. No way my Bluetooth earpieces go that far without buffering or totally disconnecting beforehand. Even the Whisper earpiece, which is class 1 (~33 meters), suffers from the phone's class 3 (~ 10 meters) limitation in range. Not since the old dumbphone days have I had class 1 Bluetooth range (a2dp only) for music so it's nice that my Notifier goes as far as it does.

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MBM, thanks! Your reviews are making me want one, more & more. I'll know as soon as I finish my tax return.

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[Jonny Kansas]

I just got an email from Droid Life Deals yesterday or the day before. The Notifier is still on sale for this discounted price.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

End of day 4. Notifier battery at 60%, S at 15%.
Fwiw I've been using the "propriety cable" to charge my Note4 and Note8. Right now it's plugged into my Kumashi portable battery to charge it up. Regular micro usb plugs won't fit the Notifier but the Notifier cable does work on other devices without any hassle.

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That doesn't surprise me at all. Their "proprietary" cable is a micro USB. It's just extra long to get it all the way into the watch.

Are you wearing both watches at the same time? I thought about doing so, but I just don't know if I can commit to doing that all day long. One watch and my wedding band are enough jewelry for me during the day.

I find myself still taking the Martian off shortly after work like I've been doing with my Urbane as well, but strapping it on and firing it up this morning with 70% battery knowing I'm nowhere near needing to charge it is nice.

However, there's definitely a learning curve coming from AW. As someone pointed out, the buttons do different things depending on the app that's notifying you. I do like that it shows you which button will do what, but I wish it was a bit more uniform so I know I'm not deleting something that I just want to dismiss.

With AW, swiping away just dismisses and swiping to the other direction gives you more options. I'm definitely missing some of the voice controls and the ability to send a quick response to a text via voice from the watch.

I do like the idea that, if the smart watch portion's battery dies, I've still got a functional watch though.

I can't say for sure that this will replace AW, but I definitely agree with what many of us have already said. For the price and for someone just starting to get interested in the idea of some sort of smart watch, this is a great deal.

 

[mountainbikermark]

MBM, thanks! Your reviews are making me want one, more & more. I'll know as soon as I finish my tax return.

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You are welcome. I truly believe it's a nice bridge between a regular watch and what most consider a smartwatch . It's a blue collar looking watch in and of itself and seems pretty sturdy so far as well. It's not huge so it won't scream "dude wannabe" when worn the fairer gender and doesn't get swallowed up on my larger arm either.
In this new world of being connected just about all the time with a reality that it's not always prudent to look at our phones it's a really nice bridge. My teens keep their phones on silent all the time and suffer from missing important calls and/or texts so since they haven't figured out the solution to that problem the Martian Notifier might just be the answer they didn't even know was a question. It's just as friendly on iOS as Android and just as usable on a phone or a tablet. It doesn't need the very latest firmware on our devices, which is great for families like mine that have a plethora of devices that are all over the place in their operating systems and ages. Though it'll only connect to 1 device at a time, it's seamless switching from device to device, just a disconnect tap in the app on 1, tap connect on the next.
From what I've read it seems to be getting regular updates to the firmware to address and attempt to fix any bugs . As stated before by others the weather forecast pretty much didn't work before the current update whereas it's working now, though still a little buggy. Changing number fonts ability on the ticker in the last update was really nice as well. I can see the date at a quick glance now vs a steady look needed when I first opened the box.

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[Jonny Kansas]

I wish there was an option to show the date first when the button is pressed. I can read the analog time, so I don't need the digital time first. I like knowing the watch is connected to my phone, but don't need to know that first. The date, to me, is the most important thing that it scrolls through, though I'd like the weather to follow the date, then the other stuff could come through.