Saturday, January 7, 2017

Gummy the Gear Girl

Santa (via my children) managed to find me in Hawaii. 

A Christmas Surprise
The kids delivered to me  a new tech toy - A Galaxy Gear Smartwatch. Specifically it's a Gear S2 classic 1k Rose Gold Plated. I am now on a new steep learning curve.

Unboxed - even the youngest grandchild is smilin

My son (a Gear Guy) gave me a quick tutorial and since then I have been trying to get my head around the gadget and its controls.

So far I have managed to charge it, update the software and change some settings from my phone. I have changed the watch face (there are many free and premium to choose from). I can manage to turn the Gear on and off and read messages. I have even recorded a voice memo but am not sure how to play it back. I have liked some Facebook posts, read some tweets and deleted some emails but commenting on FB posts and typing email responses is still beyond me. Will my arthritic fingers get the hang of it?

I haven't yet tried to "Access and dial your contacts from your Gear S2 without having to open your compatible Samsung smartphone" but I'm keen to give it a go. Dick Tracy eat your heart out.

I also want to disable the Samsung Pay app - I'm not quite ready to use my phone to pay purchases. I am also not keen on finding out how fit or unfit I am but it was interesting to find that I walked over 11,000 steps on New Year's Eve. As I prefer the sounds of silence I probably won't use the Gear to play music - but it can.

I always have trouble finding my phone in my bag or in the house and often miss calls and notifications, the buzzy notifications I get on my wrist will save me diving for my phone and missing out on calls.

How will this gadget help me with my genealogy? It will help me keep on top of social media and, once I master it, it will record those random thoughts and ideas that flash into my head before I forget them. I am not sure if I can use the OK Google command to find stuff yet but will investigate that. The stopwatch function may keep me to time when giving presentations. Having my calendar with its reminders on my wrist will be useful.

I'm off to find some tutorials to help Gummy (that's what the grandkids call me) the Gear Girl understand her new toy.

I'm wondering if any of my genimates are Gear Guys or Girls.


POSTSCRIPT Since I scheduled this post yesterday afternoon I have learnt a few more tricks, I have used the Gear's voice activation feature to make a phone call and to strt off a text message which I typed - the text prediction is amazingly good. I set up a group of Buddies (favourites) for easy calling and texting and I have played music. Reading the online help that came with the device has made things clear to me (when all else fails read the instructions). I moved the apps around on the apps screen putting the ones I am most likely to use on the first screen of apps, I used my phone to delete some of the apps that I can't see myself using.

When I was out shopping today two young people who served me admired my smartwatch and asked ma about it. This Granny was pleased to be able to inform some younguns.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jill, I though you could investigate using voice instead of typing. I have been trying this out for FB and comments but get lots of errors to fix. Might be my kiwi accent or I just need to pronounce words better. Have fun with your new toy. Fran

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