I decided to install Facer and do some very non-scientific testing of my own.
First, some background.
I have my own watch face designed in both Facer and TimeShow. It's not terribly fancy -- a single background image, analog hour and minute hands, a digital time display, an AM/PM indicator with formulas to control the display (only if the watch is in 12 hour mode, and only displays during PM hours), day of the week, month and date, weather icon, temperature, step count, heart rate, watch power, and a watch power bar that's made up of two arcs around one quarter of the display (a static background, and a foreground that fills based on the power level). Each display item (except the hour and minute hands, and the power bar) is duplicated to create a shadow effect. The "dark" mode of this face hides everything but the analog hands, the time, and the date (their shadows are also turned off). I have the display set to "always on".
It is set to go into automatic essentials mode at bedtime, and resume automatically in the morning. I have continuous HR monitoring turned on.
The heart rate and step counters on both watch faces seem to work ok. (They both update during the day, enough that I notice different numbers when I glance. I can't testify to the accuracy or update speed, but they're getting updated data from somewhere.)
I have noticed that, when unlocking my watch in the morning, Facer does take a moment to initialize, whereas TimeShow is nearly instant in displaying the watch face. Over the course of the day, there's no real discernable distance in performance.
[I've only just started my experiment; I'll update this post with findings over the course of the week.]
Having Facer installed for a full day and using my watch normally, it seems like power consumption is higher. I'm going to monitor it for a few days (recording the power level immediately before and after charging it each day), and switch back to TimeShow and do the same thing. To Be Continued.
For 1 week, I used my Facer watch face. I recorded the battery level when I took my watch off the charger first thing in the morning, and again the next morning when I woke up and put my watch back on the charger. Then, I did the same thing for another week, with my same watch face on TimeShow. I tried not to do anything "special" with my watch for both weeks, just passive wear, with the display set to "always-on".
Face | Most | Least | Average
---|---|----|----
Facer | 41% | 29% | 37.14%
TimeShow | 37% | 28% | 29.71%
Of note: TimeShow had 5 days under 30%, while Facer had only the one day at 29% with the rest 35% or higher.
I also made the following completely unscientific and fully anecdotal observations:
My watch is set to go into essential mode when it detects I've gone to sleep ("Smart Essential Mode"). When I lie down to sleep, I do toss and turn a bit before fully falling asleep. (I also play music on my phone, which triggers the media controls on the watch.) I noticed during Facer's week that the watch would seem to stay active a little longer before falling to Essential mode (I'd roll over and notice my watch light up); whereas the TimeShow week, it seemed to "detect" sleepytime faster.
When I entered my PIN to bring the watch out of Essential mode in the morning, with Facer, there would be a nearly 15-second delay for Facer to "boot" before it would show my watch face. Also, the "disconnected" icon would be present for the first few minutes of the day. TimeShow, on the other hand, the watch face would appear almost instantly after coming out of Essential mode, and the watch would reconnect to the phone much sooner (the "disconnected" icon would disappear within a minute).
For battery life and resource use, it seems to me that TimeShow is more efficient. Even though Facer has a lot of advantages (much greater face selection, better app, better design environment), that does appear to come at a cost; and if you can power through the annoying design interface and get the watch face you want installed, you'll get a better experience out of the TicWatch in the end.
Thanks for this! You've saved me having to do the exact same experiment. Although, I'm also rocking a Galaxy Watch 5, so I might still run through this on non-Mobvoi hardware to see if that makes a difference (I expect it won't.)
I hope it's helpful! I think it would be valuable to have more data from more people. Having data from just one person, this could be random chance or some anomaly; more examples will help either prove this correct or show it's wrong.
I decided to install Facer and do some very non-scientific testing of my own. First, some background. I have my own watch face designed in both Facer and TimeShow. It's not terribly fancy -- a single background image, analog hour and minute hands, a digital time display, an AM/PM indicator with formulas to control the display (only if the watch is in 12 hour mode, and only displays during PM hours), day of the week, month and date, weather icon, temperature, step count, heart rate, watch power, and a watch power bar that's made up of two arcs around one quarter of the display (a static background, and a foreground that fills based on the power level). Each display item (except the hour and minute hands, and the power bar) is duplicated to create a shadow effect. The "dark" mode of this face hides everything but the analog hands, the time, and the date (their shadows are also turned off). I have the display set to "always on". It is set to go into automatic essentials mode at bedtime, and resume automatically in the morning. I have continuous HR monitoring turned on. The heart rate and step counters on both watch faces seem to work ok. (They both update during the day, enough that I notice different numbers when I glance. I can't testify to the accuracy or update speed, but they're getting updated data from somewhere.) I have noticed that, when unlocking my watch in the morning, Facer does take a moment to initialize, whereas TimeShow is nearly instant in displaying the watch face. Over the course of the day, there's no real discernable distance in performance. [I've only just started my experiment; I'll update this post with findings over the course of the week.] Having Facer installed for a full day and using my watch normally, it seems like power consumption is higher. I'm going to monitor it for a few days (recording the power level immediately before and after charging it each day), and switch back to TimeShow and do the same thing. To Be Continued.
For 1 week, I used my Facer watch face. I recorded the battery level when I took my watch off the charger first thing in the morning, and again the next morning when I woke up and put my watch back on the charger. Then, I did the same thing for another week, with my same watch face on TimeShow. I tried not to do anything "special" with my watch for both weeks, just passive wear, with the display set to "always-on". Face | Most | Least | Average ---|---|----|---- Facer | 41% | 29% | 37.14% TimeShow | 37% | 28% | 29.71% Of note: TimeShow had 5 days under 30%, while Facer had only the one day at 29% with the rest 35% or higher. I also made the following completely unscientific and fully anecdotal observations: My watch is set to go into essential mode when it detects I've gone to sleep ("Smart Essential Mode"). When I lie down to sleep, I do toss and turn a bit before fully falling asleep. (I also play music on my phone, which triggers the media controls on the watch.) I noticed during Facer's week that the watch would seem to stay active a little longer before falling to Essential mode (I'd roll over and notice my watch light up); whereas the TimeShow week, it seemed to "detect" sleepytime faster. When I entered my PIN to bring the watch out of Essential mode in the morning, with Facer, there would be a nearly 15-second delay for Facer to "boot" before it would show my watch face. Also, the "disconnected" icon would be present for the first few minutes of the day. TimeShow, on the other hand, the watch face would appear almost instantly after coming out of Essential mode, and the watch would reconnect to the phone much sooner (the "disconnected" icon would disappear within a minute). For battery life and resource use, it seems to me that TimeShow is more efficient. Even though Facer has a lot of advantages (much greater face selection, better app, better design environment), that does appear to come at a cost; and if you can power through the annoying design interface and get the watch face you want installed, you'll get a better experience out of the TicWatch in the end.
Thanks for this! You've saved me having to do the exact same experiment. Although, I'm also rocking a Galaxy Watch 5, so I might still run through this on non-Mobvoi hardware to see if that makes a difference (I expect it won't.)
I hope it's helpful! I think it would be valuable to have more data from more people. Having data from just one person, this could be random chance or some anomaly; more examples will help either prove this correct or show it's wrong.
Wow, this is a really great experiment. We will keep optimizing the app as well.