The Zenwatch and the Digital Dash

In my last post about my Slide Wear project, I mentioned that I was having trouble coming up with any kind or practical application for my Zenwatch 2 in conjunction with the Digital Dash project.  Well, I still haven't found anything practical, but I did come up with something kind of fun.

The other day when I was browsing G+ communities related to my watch, I came across a custom face that some guy had created based on his fondness for BMW motorcycles.  The logo caught my eye and got me thinking that I could probably make my own themed watchface as well.  He mentioned that he had made his in an app called "Watchmaker".  I started doing a bit of research into that app and found some truly amazing faces that people had created.  The app not only has incredible flexibility in design, but also includes a focused version of the Lua programming language; it's pretty much like Tasker for your watch.

I went to the Google Play Store and saw the app was currently 50% off.  That pretty much clinched the deal right there, but when i saw this in the feature list:

• Tasker - Full tasker integration to set watchface, change variables, run tasks

I was hooked. I had the app on my phone within minutes.

The watchfaces in this picture (shown in both their bright and dimmed states) are the first things I did with Watchmaker.

Can you guess where I'm going with this?

If you're one of the 26 people who read my post entitled "A Few More Changes" you know that I added a feature to the Digital Dash that allows it to know which vehicle it's connected to and display the appropriate logo on the tablet's main interface.  Given that I already had that code in place, it wasn't hard to add a single line that sent an AutoRemote direct message to the phone with the formal XXX=:=Face (where XXX is either BMW or JAG).

A Tasker profile on the phone recognizes this command and uses the parameter to call an appropriate task that sets my watch to full brightness and activates the proper face so that my watch is themed appropriately to the vehicle I'm driving.

I thought about adding an exit routine that would automatically revert back to my regular watchface when the Digital Dash shut down, but decided against it.  I'd rather have the watch stay themed if I stop for lunch or something during a roadtrip and shut the system down.

Instead, I used Watchmaker's "Tap" function to set up a manual reversion.  If I touch the vehicle logo on the watchface, it sends a command to run a Tasker task.  That task uses AutoWear to create a simple confirmation screen:

If I truly do want to revert to my normal watchface, I have five seconds to touch the AutoWear icon.  In that case, it runs another task that sets my display brightness back to normal and loads my regular watchface.

If, however, I don't touch the icon, the screen will dismiss itself automatically after five seconds without making any changes.  I did it this way to avoid accidentally changing face with an inadvertent touch.

The one other thing I did was extend the system's brightness control to include the watch.  Now if I dim the tablet screen for night driving, it also dims the watch as well as the phone.  Setting the tablet back to full brightness restores that setting to the other devices as well.

I realize that this is a pretty pointless enhancement, but it's also kind of fun and I'm glad I did it.

My First AutoWear Project

A few weeks ago, I picked up an Asus Zenwatch 2.  I'd been wanting to experiment with wearables, and it seemed like the best choice.  I do like having lots of information pushed to my wrist, but I really wanted to see what I could do with it that wasn't a just an off-the-shelf function.

I had bought the AutoWear Tasker plugin even before I had the watch and knew that it could do some pretty cool things, but I had trouble coming up with any kind of practical use that I could develop.  I've tried to think of some way to tie the watch into my Digital Dash project, but nothing really seemed appropriate.  So I went in a different direction.

I work in educational technology at a university and am occasionally asked to give presentations to other members of the technology community about what's happening in my area.  I decided it would be neat to be able to give those presentations directly from my phone and control them with my watch, so that became my first AutoWear project.

The port on my Galaxy S4 can put out HDMI video using a special cable that I picked up awhile back and all the presentation rooms are equipped with HDMI-capable projectors, meaning that I don't need to haul a laptop (or even a tablet) around.  My phone, my watch, and the cable are all I need.

The project, which I call "Slide Wear", is pretty simple and straight-forward, but has all the functions I need to give a normal presentation.

To start, I hook up my phone to the projector.  Then I shake my wrist to bring up AutoWear's voice control screen on the watch and say "Start Slideshow".  (Kind of geeky, I admit, but I'm usually talking to technologists who don't mind that type of thing.)

Once I say the command phrase, the phone turns on, gets forced into landscape mode, and displays the first slide in my presentation.  At the same time, it pushes a simple interface card to the watch that shows the current time, the number of the slide being displayed, and the number of slides remaining in the presentation.  The time is shown using AutoWear's built-in <time> command, so it isn't just a static display; it's an actual clock that you can use to keep your presentation on track.  The watch also gets put into a screen-always-on mode so that it doesn't go to sleep and remove the card.

The card has several functions associated with it:

Tap - A single tap anywhere on the screen advances in the presentation and displays the next slide.

Double-Tap - Double-tapping backs up and displays the previous slide, if there is one.

Long-Tap - A Long-tap brings up a new interface card that shows a scrolling list of all the slides in the presentation, complete with miniature thumbnails.  Tapping on any entry in the list causes that slide to be displayed on the screen, essentially giving you random access to any part of the presentation.

Vertical Swipe - a vertical swipe on the main interface screen causes the currently displayed slide to fade out, leaving a bank display.  This can be useful if you want to have a discussion in the middle of a presentation and don't want people to be distracted by what's on the screen.  Swiping again will cause the slide to fade back in.  Even though the screen might be blanked, the interface on the watch is still active.  That means you can do something like blank the screen and while you're talking, tap to advance to the next slide.  Then, when you swipe again, the new slide is shown, giving you a way to do a dramatic reveal.

Horizontal Swipe - Swiping the main interface screen to the left will reveal a large, circled "X".  Tapping that ends the show.  The phone is shutdown automatically and the watch is returned to normal operation.

Whenever you Tap, Double-Tap, or choose a thumbnail from the scrolling list, a new main interface card is pushed to the watch with updated information on the currently displayed slide number and the number of slides left to go.

This project was fun to put together and (I think) serves as an interesting way to show a different side of what wearables can do.