This MIGHT Change My Mind - TicWatch E3
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
1,565 words · ~7 min read
0:00
- Get the hell out of my life. Who needs you?
0:03
(melancholy piano music) Beat it, leave me alone. The deplorable state of Wear OS
0:07
is one of the main reasons that I haven't been using Wear OS watch,
0:11
in spite of the fact that I daily drive Android. But, I'm hoping that this unboxing
0:17
sponsored by Mobvoi for their TicWatch E3
0:20
is going to help me turn the corner here, because there's a lot of things
0:24
that are looking up right now. I mean, first and foremost, is obviously Google's acquisition of Fitbit,
0:29
which should give Google a big shove in the right direction in terms of development.
0:33
One of the other big things that's happened is we're finally getting some better hardware.
0:37
So this watch right here, the TicWatch E3,
0:40
is actually only the second on the market to use the Snapdragon Wear 4100.
0:44
That processor is a dramatic improvement
0:48
over the previous 3100, going all the way from a 28 nanometer manufacturing process down to just 12.
0:55
So everything from CPU to GPU to connectivity
0:59
is multiple generations of improvement better.
1:03
I mean, we're going from Bluetooth 4.2 to Bluetooth 5.0.
1:07
So let's go ahead and get this thing unboxed. The main highlights from Mobvoi,
1:10
before we actually fire it up are that, of course, it's using the Snapdragon Wear 4100 processor.
1:16
It's got a 2.5D curved display, it's IP68 water resistant.
1:22
They actually asked me to clarify that IP68 means fresh water,
1:28
not salt water. And that's true not just to this watch,
1:31
that's anything that has a water resistance rating.
1:34
You know, you go and put any electronics in a conductive liquid, you're gonna have a pretty bad time.
1:39
It's got 20 plus professional workout modes with their TicMotion technology,
1:43
and it's got 24/7 heart tracking, blood oxygen saturation monitoring,
1:47
stress and sleep tracking, and VO2 max tracking during runs.
1:51
So basically, that means that it's gonna check your maximum rate of oxygen consumption
1:55
while you're working out. Let's go ahead and get this unboxed. You got your Do Not Eat.
2:01
You got you Quick Start Guide. They've got your, ah, yes.
2:04
Okay, so they're using a magnetic attaching charging cable.
2:09
I mean, obviously, with any kind of watch, you don't want a USB cable. So it's got magnetic action, like that.
2:15
I think that passes the easy to attach test.
2:19
Okay, let's try and turn it on now. Oh, whoops.
2:22
I started it up in the diagnostic thing.
2:27
Whoopsie-daisy. Oh, wow. Product name, Rice Fish.
2:31
So there you go, ladies and gentlemen, you hold both buttons
2:34
if you wanna bring up that menu. Hey, there we go.
2:38
All right. Now obviously, compared to their own TicWatch Pro 3,
2:41
there are a couple sacrifices that had to be made in order to hit this aggressive price point
2:45
while still keeping the specs very compelling.
2:49
So it does have a plastic housing. And obviously with that comes a smaller display.
2:53
But, guys, specs are important in something like this.
2:57
Like, look how fluid that scrolling is. If that's the sacrifice they had to make,
3:02
this thing is $199 US. That is so much smoother
3:07
than any other Android Wear or Wear OS experience that I've had.
3:12
It actually feels smooth. Finally, right?
3:16
(mellow music) Okay, there we go.
3:20
Welcome to Wear OS. I have to confess, it's actually been a little while.
3:24
There's your voice interaction.
3:28
All right, there's your quick settings. There's your activity, weather.
3:33
Blur that, it's calendar events. (Linus laughs)
3:36
Unable to detect heart rate. Please authorize heart sensor. Okay, well we can do that.
3:40
Sure. Okay. Let's find out what my heart rate is.
3:46
79 beats per minute. Is that good?
3:50
I don't know. Okay, so you can swipe up to move tiles.
3:54
You can add tiles, like simple calculator.
3:59
Timer, a bunch of workout stuff. Voice memo.
4:03
That's a nice, simple watch face.
4:08
Cool, hey, my battery life's pretty nice. It's a 380mAh power battery.
4:13
And that is just so much more responsive than the old processors.
4:17
Let's see what happens if I click on a Trello thing.
4:20
Yes, no reply, open on phone. (mellow music)
4:26
I don't think so. There we go. All right, cool.
4:29
It's supposed to review some thumbnails.
4:33
All right. Now, one of the first things that I'm gonna adjust
4:36
with any smartwatch is Always on Display. So it does support Always on Display,
4:40
which means I just need to go find it because it doesn't seem to be enabled by default.
4:44
Whoops. Settings. Display. Right there.
4:48
Front and center, always on screen, and done. Yay.
4:54
All right, so let's see what the Always on Display looks like now.
4:58
There we go. Perfect. A watch that actually works as a watch.
5:01
That's absolutely critical. Hey, Colton, text me.
5:05
Okay, so I'm gonna pretend to be popular,
5:08
and like I get messages. (phone chiming) Hey.
5:12
"Hi, I'm big fan." (smooth hip hop music)
5:17
Hi, is this Colton Potter? Never call this number again.
5:20
Thank you. - [Colton] I'm your biggest fan.
5:23
(people laughing) - I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
5:27
Love you, Colton. Now let's try using Google Assistant with the E3. Okay Google, set an alarm for 5:30 PM on Friday
5:33
to fire Colton.
5:39
- [Virtual Assistant] Sorry, I can't set alarms on your phone more than 24 hours
5:42
before they're supposed to go off.
5:46
- Oh my God. I have a system update that it just started doing.
5:50
While the watch was updating, I had some time to think and there's something
5:53
I've got to make right here. (phone line trilling) Calling Colton back.
5:57
- [Colton] Hello. - Hey, I'm sorry, babe. I didn't mean that. I think they're excellent finger paintings.
6:02
- [Colton] What? - Please don't go. - [Colton] Who is this?
6:06
(Linus laughing) - Um, bye-bye.
6:10
- Fine. Get the hell out of my life.
6:14
Who needs you? Beat it, leave me alone.
6:19
There's a couple other things I wanted to show. I want to go to the Play Store.
6:22
Apparently, there's like a zombie game you can play on this thing. Zombies Run Free.
6:27
- [Colton] Oh, perfect. Here we go. Oh, wait.
6:30
This is like, you run away from the zombies.
6:34
- [Jono] Wait, what? - Like you have to actually run.
6:38
I don't know if I wanna actually run like that. While I wait for this zombie game to install,
6:43
it uses standard watch strap like posts. So all you do is take your stack one off
6:48
and then you can- What is this? Did someone just, like, give me their watch strap?
6:52
Is this yours, Colton? - [Colton] Oh, just show the white one. Don't show the other one.
6:56
- What, no, that's fine. The point is that you can put a standard watch strap on it , right?
6:59
So you've got this grubby old watch strap. Thanks, Colton. I'm probably gonna get like germs from it.
7:05
Oh, nope. Yours is a little bit wider. - [Colton] Oh.
7:08
- Well that's the first time he's ever heard that before.
7:12
Got 'em. Well, this is funny. I had wanted to show you guys the interchangeable watch straps.
7:17
They just use standard 20 millimeter watch straps. But these are not 20 millimeters.
7:20
These are like 22 millimeter, 24 millimeters or something like that.
7:25
So see you later. Exercise time, ladies and gentlemen.
7:29
TicWatch's app has all your, I mean,
7:32
presumably historical sleep, heart rate, blood oxygen, stress data.
7:37
And then if you click Exercise and go to All Exercises, you can pick one.
7:41
So I'm a go- Let's see, I'm gonna go with Taekwondo.
7:46
Wait, how do I start it? Oh, I figured it out.
7:49
Obviously, you start the exercise on the watch. This is just the log.
7:53
And I was having a hard time figuring out what I was looking at because-
7:57
TicWatch a little bit of honest feedback, these should be in alphabetical order, please.
8:01
H, I, J, yeah, no, they're just in no order in particular,
8:06
I guess. Okay. Apparently we're doing jumping jacks.
8:11
Hey, look at that. They've even got a thing for it. All right, we're going.
8:14
(upbeat music) (tape rewind squeaking)
8:20
Hey, Colton, it's called a jumping jack. You ever try one? - [Colton] Oh, no.
8:23
I tried one and then I quit. (tape rewind squeaking)
8:27
- He does a lot of reps of like, the food to the mouth, you know? (people sarcastically laughing)
8:32
(tape rewind squeaking) Okay, is that a minute?
8:35
That's 59 seconds. I'm done, I'm done. Okay.
8:38
High intensity interval training. Here we go. 126.
8:42
Nothing abnormal today. That's what I peaked at though.
8:46
Sweet. That's my heart rating.
8:50
Okay. So that's pretty much it. That's the TicWatch E3, Snapdragon 4100, 200 bucks.
8:56
Guys, you can find that link in the video description. Thanks again to Mobvoi for sponsoring this video,
9:00
and we'll see you later. Make sure you subscribe to ShortCircuit. You can call my number whenever you want.