Fibonacci Clock

I've developed a new watch face, which I'm pretty excited about, and just released on the Play store.

The inspiration came from a Kickstarter project called Fibonacci Clock.  The description goes something like this...

The Fibonacci Clock has been designed for curious and inventive people who like a time piece that keeps them on their toes. Beautiful and fun at the same time, the clock uses the famous Fibonacci sequence to display time in a brand new way. 

The Fibonacci sequence is a sequence of numbers created by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci in the 13th century. This is a sequence starting with 1 and 1, where each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two. For the clock I used the first 5 terms: 1, 1, 2, 3 and 5.

The screen of the clock is made up of five squares whose side lengths match the first five Fibonacci numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3 and 5. The hours are displayed using red and the minutes using green. When a square is used to display both the hours and minutes it turns blue. White squares are ignored. 

To tell time on the Fibonacci clock you need to do some math. To read the hour, simply add up the corresponding values of the red and blue squares. To read the minutes, do the same with the green and blue squares. The minutes are displayed in 5 minute increments (0 to 12) so you have to multiply your result by 5 to get the actual number.

The two smaller squares display additional information when the watch is in bright mode. The top one displays which minute within the 5 minute increment, and the bottom one displays the seconds.

For example, the time above is...

• 5 (blue) + 3 (red) = 8 o'clock.
• 5 (blue) + 2 (green) = 7.  7 * 5 = 35.  Therefore: 8:35.
• The top small square is pointing down, which indicates 3 minutes.  Therefore: 8:38.

Tapping on the watch face reveals a reminder of how to tell the time...

Often, there are multiple ways to display a single time. There are, for example, 16 different ways to display 6:30. In the first version of this watch face, the highest value squares are always picked first (6 = 5 + 1), but I hope to update the watch with a randomiser in future.

If you want to download this watch face, it's available on the Play store.

Wear update - June 2015 (1.1.1.1956917)

There have been a few announces about the latest Wear update, including the Android Developers blog and on Google+, but here's my experience.

I was notified about the update late last night, but you need 80% battery before it will install (which is a nice feature, my phone once ran out of battery during a particularly grueling Android update!) so I charged it overnight and installed the update this morning.

Everything went smoothly with the update, and then my apps all updated as well, no problems there.  So, the new features...

Wifi

This was off by default.  You can access the settings on your watch by scrolling down on the screen, then swiping left till you get to them.  Scroll down until you find "Wi-Fi settings" and click on it.  You can add networks, but it will always open up Android Wear on your phone in order to enter the network security key.  This is a seamless process, and I quickly added my home network.  Obviously this will only work on devices that have the physical wifi hardware, but my Moto 360 does.  If you go into the phone app settings, there's also an extra option for "Cloud sync" now (assuming you've updated the app as well) which will now sync data between your watch and phone via the wifi - I found this was on by default.

Gestures

This was also off by default.  You can access the settings in the same way as above - this time you're looking for "Wrist gestures".  This is a simple ON/OFF toggle, so click to switch it on.  You'll then get a few tutorial notifications, guiding you through.  It's really simple though, you flick your wrist away quickly then turn your wrist slowly back towards you to scroll down through notifications, and you turn your wrist away slowly then flick your wrist quickly back towards you to scroll up.

There's more to the update as well, but these are my favourite new features.

Aria - change to Deus Ex Aria

A few weeks ago I posted about the upcoming Aria gesture control device for smart watches.  Well now, for trademark reasons, it's being re-branded as the Deus Ex Aria.

After a bit of a delay sorting this out, they're now planning to launch the Kickstarted campaign on Thursday 18th June!  In an attempt to make this the biggest launch possible, they're also organising a Thunderclap.

If you've not heard of Thunderclap before, it's a site that allows you to sign up to a campaign, link your Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr, and then at a pre-determined time, your account will be hijacked to tweet/post an update.  The idea is to get enough people all tweeting/posting at the same time that the hashtags become trending.

In this case, the campaign is scheduled for Thursday 18th June - 12pm BST, with the message...

Deus Ex Aria on Kickstarter. Add #gesturecontrol to your SmartWatch! #Kickstarter #Pebble #AndroidWear http://thndr.it/1G5v6rC

Will you be signing up?

My top 7 downloaded watch faces

It's been a while since I've added a new watch face to FaceRepo, where I post all of my free watch faces, but I do have a new one in the works!

For now, I thought I would post my top 7 downloaded watch faces...

1) Pong - downloaded 445 times (permalink)

The background is a black and white animated pong match which goes on indefinitely under the clock details - maybe one day someone will score?

2) J.A.R.V.I.S. Mod - downloaded 423 times (permalink)

I downloaded a watch called "J.A.R.V.I.S." by uptwolait and described as "Simple watch face with animated gif of J.A.R.V.I.S. booting in the background.". I loved it, but wanted to add additional details, including the wifi, weather and battery level.

3) Zooper Dark - downloaded 416 times (permalink)

I downloaded a watch called "Tribute Rod Kucheran" by Enzo and described as "Tribute of Amazing watch face made with zooper widget by Rod Kucheran". I preferred the darker ambient mode, so here it is.

4) Bar Mod - downloaded 369 times (permalink)

I downloaded a watch called "Bar" by cliffmaus and described as "See the time as a bar chart!". I loved it, but wanted to add additional details, including the date, weather and low battery indicators (they appear below 25%).

5) Academia Mathematical - downloaded 327 times (permalink)

This watch is inspired by the Academia Mathematical watch by DeWitt. The Academia Mathematical features a fascinating "dial" where the current hour and minute come to life from an apparently chaotic group of numbers. Both hours and minutes are indicated using the "jumping numbers" display principle through two vertically aligned apertures positioned in the top half of the smoked sapphire crystal. Four wheels, each with its own gilt Arabic numerals, are used to display the four-digit decimal time.

6) Nava Ora Unica - downloaded 320 times (permalink)

The Ora Unica, designed by Denis Guidone for the Milanese Nava Design of Italy, is an accessory that takes fun of the time, for design lovers that make the imagination and the irony their distinguishing feature. At first glance, you might be confused as to how to tell time on the Ora Unica, but it’s actually quite simple. Just look at the position of the inner end of the squiggle for the current hour, and the outer end for minutes. Simple, elegant, and truly unique.

7) Nava Ora Unica Black - downloaded 253 times (permalink)

The black version of the Ora Unica is also pretty popular!

I hope you enjoy these watch faces, especially as they are free!  Most of them are not protected either, so you can tweak them as you like.  If any of them are protected, let me know and I'll send you a non-protected version.

Navigating to and launching apps

Navigating on a smartwatch screen can be tricky, pokes and swipes can go awry, and finding the right app at the right time can be fiddly at best.

I recently found a nice little launcher app called Wear Mini Launcher.  It can be configured to your liking, but in essence it provides a nice little tray with smaller icons squeezed onto the screen, which means there's a lot less scrolling to find the one that you want.  Mine is configured to show 9 apps on the screen at once, as opposed to the 3 apps which the standard menu displays.

I've recently heard about a new launcher called QiLaunch Wear from a company called Quantum Interface.  It's currently in beta, but they claim it is a much faster and easier way to navigate.

You place your finger on the watch face and the apps appear on the screen and start scrolling through. Simply click on the app that you want, with no need to scroll yourself.  It analyses the motion of your finger to predict your intent, the interface reacts to changes of speed and direction.

For an idea of how this might look, check out this YouTube video...

I'm interested in trying this out, so I've signed up for the private beta.  If I get accepted, I'll try it out and post again with my opinion.