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Some notes on ditching a smartphone for a smartwatch. Intention is to be completely standalone but still have some key useful features.

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Standalone WatchPhone Framework

πŸ•’ Ditch your smartphone, not its functionalities.

This guide will help with transitioning to using a smartwatch as your primary device, independant from needing a smartphone. Starting with the Galaxy Watch 5, but open to adding other watches.

Why Go Standalone?

Using a smartwatch as a standalone device gives you essential functionalities without the temptation to dive into endless social media feeds or aimless gaming.

Key Goals

  1. Complete Independence from Smartphone: The smartwatch should be able to function without needing to sync to your phone.
  2. Essential Features only: Prioritize features that you'll actually use and that enhance, rather than detract from, your life.
  3. Ease of Use: The use of the watch should be as simple and immediate as possible.
  4. Long Battery Life: As long as possible

Complete Independence**

There are non-brand watches that just require a sim card, but I have not tested those. The Galaxy Smart watch that has an eSim unfortunatly does need initial setting up on a smartphone.

:Note The Galaxy Watch does not let you hotspot from it.

Essential Features

Here's a checklist of features that should ideally be supported by the smartwatch to make it a viable standalone device:

  • 🎡 Online Music Services (e.g., Spotify)
  • πŸ—ΊοΈ Map with GPS Location
  • πŸ“± SMS
  • πŸ“ž Phone Calls
  • πŸ’¬ Facebook Messenger
  • 🟒 WhatsApp
  • πŸ’Ό Slack
  • πŸ“§ Email
  • πŸ“’ Notetaking

Not essential: Health features and notifications.


Setting Up Your Galaxy Watch 5 (OJMA)

Here's the current status of Essential features for the Galaxy Watch 5:

  • Spotify
  • Map with GPS Location
  • SMS
  • Phone Calls
  • Facebook Messenger
  • [?] WhatsApp
  • Slack
  • Email
  • Notetaking

🎡 Online Music Services (e.g., Spotify)

Spotify is available on Google Play Store. Can be a bit confusing to use, but does allow you to use spotify connect and to like tracks.

πŸ—ΊοΈ Map with GPS Location

Google Maps.

πŸ“± SMS

Has Native Support

πŸ“ž Phone Calls

Has Native Support

πŸ’¬ Facebook Messenger

Currently unavailable (Could be sideloaded options - I need to investigate)

🟒 WhatsApp

Available on Google Play store; needs one-time setup via phone app

πŸ’Ό Slack

Currently unavailable (Could be sideloaded options - I need to investigate)

πŸ“§ Email

Gmail works.

πŸ“’ Notetaking

Google Keep works very well.

Tips

Notifications

  • Disable all the Phone notifications in the phone's Galaxy Wearables settings.
  • Hide status updates on the top of the screen. Go to settings, Advanced features, Staus indicators, select 'Hide after 2 seconds'.

Power saving

  • Clearing Cache - In the bootloader there is a Recovery option and within that is the wipe cache option. Be careful!

Contributing

Feel free to contribute by submitting pull requests or by adding issues for additional smartwatches you'd like to see covered.

sci-fi-watches-lead-1594243660

Hope that helps! Feel free to modify as you see fit. Cheers! 🌿

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Some notes on ditching a smartphone for a smartwatch. Intention is to be completely standalone but still have some key useful features.

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