I don't usually waste my time commenting on things like this, but this was so frustrating I had to let everyone know how Samsung **bleep** the pooch on this upgrade. After the latest 8.0 update, my Galaxy Watch 7 feels like it took a huge step backward in functionality.
SmartThings Routines Tile: This used to be perfect โ four buttons, each clearly labeled with at least an abbreviation of the routine name. Nice and simple, scroll to the tile and hit a button. Now thereโs no text at all. Unless I make each icon unique, I canโt tell one routine from another. The only way to see whatโs what is to open the full SmartThings app, tap All routines, and scroll. Thatโs several extra steps for what used to take one glance.
SmartThings Devices Tile: Another downgrade. It used to handle four devices plus a (โฆ) button to access the full list. Now I can only fit two devices, and the (โฆ) shortcut is gone. There are โnewโ tiles that open the full device list, but they only handle one device at a time and remember the last one used โ not the one I want pinned as default. It now takes four tiles to do what one tile used to do.
Heart Rate Tile: Used to give full info at a glance. Now thereโs a pointless โpreviewโ tile that only gives minimal information, which you have to tap just to see the full tile that you used to see instantly. I don't want to spend all day scrolling and tapping my watch. I want to look at it and go. This "splash screen" tile is just lipstick on a pig, which made the pig uglier.
New Design (Oval Backgrounds): Whoever decided to shrink the usable display area on a round watch with an oval shaded background needs to rethink that choice. It wastes screen space, drains battery lighting up extra pixels, and hides the clear functional layout we had before. I don't want anything that distracts me from whatever information I am trying to take in. That includes lighting up extra pixels just to make it look fancy. Fancy is nothing more than a distraction.
5. The new vertical tile stacking: I don't need a dozen tiles lined up over/under each other, that's what scrolling right/left is for. Having to scroll left, right (and now) up and down is just too much.
This downgrade annoyed me off so bad that I deleted all the tiles except the music controls and SmartThings controls, because this โdowngradeโ made the watch much less intuitive and flat-out frustrating. Please bring back the old SmartThings tiles โ the functional ones that actually made sense. Or you are going to force me to use the chatbot coding tools available and return to creating my own tiles.
6 find my phone stopped working, I keep getting a message that the watch hasn't finished registration on Samsung account. Yet when I log into Samsung the watch is listed
This issue with the watch not finishing registration to the Samsung account happed when the phone updated to OneUI7.0. When I reported it, I was told to do some convoluted steps which included uninstalling the wear app and resetting the watch. I didn't want to do that since it's their error and the watch is still connected to my phone and showing in both my Samsung account and Smart Things, and findable in the Google find hub even if it's not findable in Samsung find. I will keep reporting it until they fix it.
Maybe you can somehow email someone within the dev team and explain to them this? I know they are a big company but if your complaining about this, then I'm sure there are others.
Ever since the latest galaxy 7 watch update, the watch screen keeps freezing and is unresponsive. Also, it logs naps when I'm watching TV, and starting my sleep time 1 to 2 hours after I get to sleep. I've reset the watch, but the problems persist.
The issue with the watches logging naps when one is relaxing watching TV is not a new issue. This happens because when you are relaxed, your HR and respiration go to a level low enough to be registered as sleep. When you catch the "nap" being recorded, you can just go into the health app and delete the errant statistic. You can always remove your watch when you are watching TV. If it's registering your sleep start time later than you go to bed, it may possibly be because you are not as asleep as you think you are or are moving around trying to make yourself comfortable.
Working in design myself, the new pill shaped battery icon is a major design flaw, how anyone would think that striking through a number as the charge goes down is a good idea is beyond me. Obviously no thought whatsoever for the end user and I guess no real world testing or feedback was ignored, very very poor. Also with little option to personalise it, in this day and age is a very odd choice. Well now the same has been done to my watch and not only the battery icon, but the tiles are all pill shaped so no longer fit the screen. If I wanted an odd shaped watch, I would have bought one. Developers spent decades trying to fill the entire screen of phones and watches, now we're reverting back to smaller odd shaped images with black borders? I'm guessing they're just bored and can't think of anything constructive to do. A lot of us haven't got time to be messing around trying to customise our devices back to what we're used to. Within our family we have someone that mentally struggles with change which puts unnecessary added strain on all of us, which so far as I'm concerned, was completely unnecessary, it's always the smallest things that can have the biggest impact, the watch is no longer the watch a purchased and enjoyed, I've lost interest and reverted to my old model for now. My advise, avoid updating for as long as you can. We will not be upgrading our devices to Samsung again, the watch update was the final straw.
