An Easier Way to Find Your Phone using Your Android Wear Device

In the past, I explained a method of ringing your phone using from your Smartwatch using Tasker.

Yesterday, Google made my whole post obsolete. And I couldn't be happier.

Now, you can tell your watch to your phone without using Tasker. According to Google, all you have to do is say "Ok Google. Start. Find my phone". Personally, this did not work for me. It instead brought up the option of opening the Google blog post I described above.

Instead, I use "Ok Google. Start app find my phone", and it seems to work nearly every time. Of course, if you're using Android Wear Mini Launcher, you can just swipe right across the top of the watch one time and find the "Find my phone" app directly.

Launching the app will cause your phone to ring at full volume. Assuming your phone is close enough to be connected to your watch, this is an incredibly easy way to find it. Especially useful for finding that phone buried under the mountain of paperwork on your desk.

Tasker for Attorneys: Have Your Android Wear Watch Find Your Misplaced Phone

When I have my Galaxy Gear Live connected to my phone, it automatically turns the volume and vibration off on the phone. Of course, if I then misplace my phone under a pile of papers in the office, I can't find my phone. With the volume down, I can't just call it. How can I find it quickly and easily?

Fortunately, Tasker can come to the rescue.

First, get Tasker. Yes, it is a paid app. But it is worth the price of admission for the control and automation it can bring. To increase the usability with your Android Wear Watch, get WearTasker as well.

In Tasker, the first order of business is to create a variable. On the Tasker home page, go to the VARS tab. Add a new variable and call it %FOUNDPHONE.

Next, create a new task and call it “Kill Ringer”. The only action that we’ll add to this task is to set a variable. So, add a new action, choose the “Variables” action category, and choose variable set. The name will be %PHONEFOUND. Set it to 2. Save this task.

Next, in Tasker, go to the TASKS tab and create another new task. Give it a name you find useful.

In your new task, add an action. Choose the Variables action category. Then choose Variable Set. The name of the variable to set is %FOUNDPHONE. Set it to 1.

The next action to add is to increase your phone's volume. Select the Audio action category, and choose ringer volume. Set the volume to 7 or higher so that it will ring loudly.

Now, add another action. Choose the “Media” action category. In there, choose “Play Ringtone”. The type should be “ringer” and stream should be “Alarm”. Under if, the first box should be %FOUNDPHONE, the sign should be equals, and the third box should be 1. This step is important. If you don’t set the ringtone to only play when the variable = 1, then it might ring in an unceasing loop. That would be annoying, to say the least.

The next action we’ll add is a pop up. This way, when you find your phone, you’ll be able to easily quiet the ringer. Add a new action, choose the “Alert” action category, and then choose “Popup Task Buttons”. Under the Text, put in something like “Found my phone”. For mode, choose text. For task, you’ll put in Kill Ringer. Lastly, set the Timeout (Seconds) slider to 60.

What this does is create a popup on your phone with a button that says “Kill Ringer”. When you push the button, it runs the first task we created, which sets the %PHONEFOUND variable to 2, which stops the ringer. Also, the popup will disappear after 60 seconds.

The last task we want to add is to again set the %PHONEFOUND variable. This time, set it to 2. This way, if the previous popup disappears due to the timeout, your phone will stop ringing.

Now, leave Tasker and go to WearTasker. Click the floating action button at the bottom and choose “Add task”. The task to add will be the one we just finished creating in Tasker. Save and exit.

WearTasker will update your watch with this task. When you open WearTasker on your watch, it will have a button with the name of your task. Pressing it will run the task, increasing your phone’s volume and causing it to ring.

Now, when you misplace your phone in your office with the volume low, you’ll be able to quickly and easily find it.

Recent Updates to Android Wear were Much Needed

Recently, the Android Wear operating system got an update that was somewhat overdue in coming.

One of the first things of note was the fact that there is no longer a card covering the main watch face. It was ok having a card covering half of the face at times; however, it really detracted from the idea of having a watch. Now, instead of having a card always peeking up, you just have to swipe up to bring the first card up.

Second, Google Play music is now available on the watch. With a pair of Bluetooth headphones, you can listen to music straight from your watch.

Third, when streaming music, there always was a card that showed you what was playing, and if you kept swiping, to the left you would find other controls. Now, a swipe to the left brings up four different buttons: one to skip forward, one to skip backwards, and two to adjust the volume.

All in all, this was an update that really increases the usability of Android Wear supported devices.

I Didn't Realize How Much I Use My Smart Watch Until ...

We are in the middle of packing up the house to move. To put it mildly, things are a bit crazy at home and my mind has been less than focused recently. Today, that led to me forgetting my watch at home.

I thought, no big deal, I'd forgotten to put on my old "dumb" watch lots of time and it never really impacted my day.

How wrong I was. It's only been a couple of hours, and I'm finding myself very annoyed having to pull out my phone to check messages and emails. In short, I've been surprised at just how much the Samsung Gear Live has made its way into my everyday life. It's not as bad as forgetting the phone at home, but it is a lot closer to that than just forgetting the old analog watch.

What does this mean? That I'm addicted to technology? Yeah, of course, I already knew that. That I like the watch and it is more useful than I've let on in the past? I think so. I think I'm at the point of saying that most people would enjoy the Android smart watches and find them useful, not just the early adopters.

Though, I still don't think it is $350.00 worth of useful.

ANDROID WEAR AND THE SAMSUNG GEAR LIVE

I've had my Samsung Gear Live smartwatch running Android Wear for about a week now. To be honest, I absolutely love it; however, you have to understand what it is and not what you might want it to be.

It is not a second phone. Don't think of it as such. You don't make or take phone calls from it. You aren't going to be surfing the internet on it. You aren't going to get as much out of it unless it is connected to your phone.

What it is is an extension of your phone and a second, more convenient screen. With the exception of a few apps, what the phone does is provide information that would be available on your phone if you wanted to take it out of your pocket. That might sound like the ultimate in laziness; what, am I too lazy to get my phone out? However, it's not like that at all.

If you're running, you can see your pace, time, and distance by glancing at your phone.

If you're cooking, you can follow your recipe without having to constantly unlock your phone.

You can control your music from your wrist.

And new apps are coming out regularly, which I'll talk about in the future.

I think this is still really best only for early adopters. However, I think that we are going to see wearable devices increase in popularity and usefulness in the not too distant future.