[Eir]

I was so thrilled to find out that the new version of the BB10 OS will include support for Bluetooth, for the Android player, that I hardly slept last night :-)

I downloaded the leaked version from this forum, and with some few tricks, I got my Sony SmartWatch connected and functional with my Z10.

I sure hope that BlackBerry and Sony would be interested in this, it brings value both to the phone and to the SmartWatch, I think they're really great devices.

The other Sony Smart Accessories should also work without any fuss, I just didn't have the time to make the necessary tweeks and prepare a demo for you.

For the purpose of the demo, I used some of my SmartWatch apps: the Dialer, the SMS Composer and the Sound Meter.






EDIT: List of what is working and what not.

Accessory	Working?
SmartWatch 1	yes
SmartWatch 2	yes
Smart Wireless Headset Pro	Voice and music works, apps not (at least yet).
Stereo Bluetooth� Headset SBH50	not supporting apps
Smart Bluetooth� Handset SBH52	not supporting apps

App	Developer	Working?	Notes/Limitations
Call Handling	Sony	partially	Number not displayed, commands not functional
Music Player	Sony	yes	Only with an Android music player app
GMail extension	Sony	yes	Only with the GMail Android app.
Weather extension	Sony	yes
Walkmate	Sony	yes
Dialer for SmartWatch	Eir	yes	Only when SmartWatch is the active frame
Reader for SmartWatch	Eir	yes
SMS Reader/Log	Eir	no	No access to the call log for Android apps, BB10 limitation
SMS Composer	Eir	partially	Message composition works, sending not
Sound Meter	Eir	yes
ModeChanger	BFrontier	no	Android apps have no permission to change sound mode.
Torque	Ian Hawkins	not yet	Did not manage to create a package acceptable by BB10.
Planetarium	AndScaloid	not tested

[Kingdmen]

Slightly relevant: I can't imagine how nervous I'd be with one of those smart watches - be it pebble or Sony. I always hit things with my watch. Those watches loom fragile.

Other than that, I'd definitely be interested in buying one. I just need to be less clumsy...

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[donmateo]

I have a Gucci watch that I only wear on special occasions for that very reason. I'm always nervous I'll damage it somehow, especially with how animated my gestures are when I talk. haha

I'll stick with my phone. Thanks for the info, though!

[Eir]

Fellas,

I don't think you realize how cool it is to get notified on your wrist, by vibration, to be able to have your phone in your pocket or bag and still do everything throughout the day: check the weather, read messages and reply to them, call phones, switch to silent mode... Once you try the SmartWatch, what you previously knew could easily become a thing of the past.

Ok, for the fancy stuff, and the watch as jewellery - accessory, that is another topic.

[lord_hibiskus]

Hmmm dare to explain all steps of installation? I have smartwatch 1 and can't install smartwatch apk. I did manage to install smart connect, which recognized watch, but it's not working since I can't install smartwatch app. I actually tried smartwatch2 app also, but it was a no go.

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[Brutal Efficiency]

Hmmm dare to explain all steps of installation? I have smartwatch 1 and can't install smartwatch apk. I did manage to install smart connect, which recognized watch, but it's not working since I can't install smartwatch app. I actually tried smartwatch2 app also, but it was a no go.

Posted via CB10

Would need 10.2.1055

BlackBerry Bold 9900; Q10; Z10 [BBM#6]

[lord_hibiskus]

Would need 10.2.1055

BlackBerry Bold 9900; Q10; Z10 [BBM#6]

Yup, already got it, was as excited as OP about possibility of running Smartwatch on z10

[Double_J75]

The typing experience and lag on the watch would kill me. Still a interesting idea and thanks for sharing.

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[Atmarix]

Slightly relevant: I can't imagine how nervous I'd be with one of those smart watches - be it pebble or Sony. I always hit things with my watch. Those watches loom fragile.

Other than that, I'd definitely be interested in buying one. I just need to be less clumsy...

Posted via CB10

My exact same situation...

Posted via CB10

[Eir]

Yup, already got it, was as excited as OP about possibility of running Smartwatch on z10

Glad to hear that someone else shares the same enthusiasm for this matter :-)

Hmmm dare to explain all steps of installation? I have smartwatch 1 and can't install smartwatch apk. I did manage to install smart connect, which recognized watch, but it's not working since I can't install smartwatch app. I actually tried smartwatch2 app also, but it was a no go.

So, the tricks. Here they are:

First, as you noticed, you cannot install the SmartWatch app on your BB10, because BB10 does not support Android apps that have no single launchable activity. I didn't get the point of this restriction, so I just altered the Manifest.xml within the SmartWatch app to declare its preferences activity as a launchable one. That is achieved by adding these lines to the activity description:

                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
        	<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

You can unpackage and repackage an apk with a programme called apktool. Yes, changing the declaration is sufficient. So much for that BB10 restriction...

The second obstacle on your way is that now you have the SmartWatch app with a different signature (yes, you need to sign the apk, or you won't be able to install it on the BB10) than the SmartConnect app. So, you need to unpackage, repackage and sign the SmartConnect app too.

Then, you can install those two apks on your BB10 and connect the SmartWatch :-)

For all other SmartWatch apps you want to install, you'll need to add the above quoted lines to the Manifest.xml and sign them.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

People don't be afraid to wear the watches you have. To OP nice to see it working.

[lord_hibiskus]

Thanks for reply! Actually i had Sony Liveview smartwatch before (version before Smartwath 1), and I was impressed with possibilities with it(or i am just geek loving gadgets ), so after I sold it I got Smartwatch 1.
Anyway, since apktool requires some programming skills (which I dont have), would it be possible for me to send you smart connect and smartwatch app, so you do it for me? , or write some instructions for noobs

p.s. does this mean that every smartwatch addon needs to be corrected this way?

[Eir]

Thanks for reply! Actually i had Sony Liveview smartwatch before (version before Smartwath 1), and I was impressed with possibilities with it(or i am just geek loving gadgets ), so after I sold it I got Smartwatch 1.

You're most welcome

The SmartWatch is a great device, sorry for advertising so much for Sony, but that device really changed the way I look at watches.

Anyway, since apktool requires some programming skills (which I dont have), would it be possible for me to send you smart connect and smartwatch app, so you do it for me? , or write some instructions for noobs

The instructions for noobs are above... I do realize that for most people that's too much, so I'm thinking of posting the re-signed files somewhere, so that others can just download and install them.

But! This is just a proof of concept, and what I really hope is that BlackBerry and Sony would find this thing of interest, and would make the minor changes that would enable to have all things fully functional. Which they aren't now.

p.s. does this mean that every smartwatch addon needs to be corrected this way?

Exactly.

Well, I have a bunch of SmartWatch apps which I publish and sell on Google Play, and it would be possible for me to make them installable on BB10, that could be achieved through the BlackBerry World easily. So if this concept is adopted by BlackBerry, the whole process could become as simple as for any Android device currently.

[Eir]

The typing experience and lag on the watch would kill me. Still a interesting idea and thanks for sharing.

Well, you can use message templates, which make the whole process much quicker. Check out this video demo, the template usage is in the first part of it, in the second is the message composition, which has improved significantly since that version of the app.

[lord_hibiskus]

Well it wasnt that hard, I found apktool tutorial on xda developers and followed steps, and now smartwatch is working and thats cool. Now i see problem with limited functionallity, since every addon needs to be apktooled, running it on BB10 means that every addon will take 1 spot in active frames? Allthough, tbh i can live with 3-4, gmail, calendar, sms, calls, so gonna test them all tonite to check usability

[Crackberrykills]

That was pretty cool.

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[lord_hibiskus]

UPDATE: Smartwatch 1 extensions/apps are not working with anything BB10 native: calls, calendar, messages, audio player etc, and thats bad side.
BUT, if you install Android subsitutes they work. I only managed to succeed with smartwatch music player extension and Poweramp mp3 player. Tried also gmail, but gmail apks dont work on z10. Also, poweramp and smartwatch extension need to bi in active frames both. Will try to sideload extensions as bars, but i dont hink it will matter. So so far this is kinda Alpha stage .
CONCLUSION: Creating BB10 native headless Smartwatch app, or if thats not possible, than making SW extensions native with BB10 and making them headless, so they dont can stay in tray without ocuping active frames

[patmur2010]

I'm interested in downloading a working app for my Smartwatch 1 but don't have the skills to make coding changes. A download link would be much appreciated...

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[Z30Man]

wow.

Posted via my BlackBerry Z30.

[lord_hibiskus]

i can upload some files, but currently they are pretty much useless, cause they dont work with bb10

[Eir]

UPDATE: Smartwatch 1 extensions/apps are not working with anything BB10 native: calls, calendar, messages, audio player etc, and thats bad side.
BUT, if you install Android subsitutes they work. I only managed to succeed with smartwatch music player extension and Poweramp mp3 player. Tried also gmail, but gmail apks dont work on z10. Also, poweramp and smartwatch extension need to bi in active frames both. Will try to sideload extensions as bars, but i dont hink it will matter. So so far this is kinda Alpha stage .
CONCLUSION: Creating BB10 native headless Smartwatch app, or if thats not possible, than making SW extensions native with BB10 and making them headless, so they dont can stay in tray without ocuping active frames

Well that is not 100% true, at least not for the SmartWatch 2 (I still didn't have the time to play around with the older SmartWatch). Yes, many things still don't work, but just to set things straight:

GMail works, you need to install the GMail apk, and two more, Google related, there's detailed explanation in another thread in this same forum, sorry, I don't have the link at hand. Afterwards, the GMail SmartWatch Extension works just fine.

Calls work partially, you're notified of an incoming call, but the number is not displayed.

Audio player works, as you say, if you have an Android audio player app.

Conclusion: when lord_hibiskus says "apps are not working with anything BB10 native", he means "apps are not fully working with the native BB10 apps", because many native things do work, like I just described, and as you can see that in the video demo I showed, the Sound Meter app works just fine by reading the BB10 microphone input, and that's also native.

[patmur2010]

i can upload some files, but currently they are pretty much useless, cause they dont work with bb10

Well, if there is no way for you guys to make these apps work on more than one device I guess I'll give what you suggested a try (when I can find the time). Thanks for the advice, I should be able to figure something out.

P.S. If it is so easy to "fix" these apps, why can't you just publish a BlackBerry version and post on the site? I'm assuming it is your apps (I'm not talking about sony's of course), keep in mind I'm not a developer?

Posted via CB10

[patmur2010]

What about the Arduino firmware? Is this better somehow?

http://developer.sonymobile.com/2013...l-chain-alpha/

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[lord_hibiskus]

After some days of practicing, all I found is that smartwatch 1 is very "temperamental" as someone said somewhere. For instance, i installed call extension last night and it wasn't working, but today all of a sudden it started to work even if extension apk wasn;t in active frames. Gmail app together with extension are also confusing, sometimes they work sometimes they dont.
Patmur2010 idea with open smartwatch project is excellent. Cause theoretically, bb10 is easiest os to implement on smartwatch. Why? Because all developer needs to do is to, make app that sends all HUB notifications to the smartwatch. This way we dont need separate extensions for gmail, fb, twiter, viber, bbm etc etc...

[Eir]

After some days of practicing, all I found is that smartwatch 1 is very "temperamental" as someone said somewhere. For instance, i installed call extension last night and it wasn't working, but today all of a sudden it started to work even if extension apk wasn;t in active frames. Gmail app together with extension are also confusing, sometimes they work sometimes they dont.

As far as I figured out, when you install an app, you need to restart the SmartConnect and the SmartWatch app, and in my case also the SmartWatch itself, so that the app gets installed and working. Maybe that was the cause?

And yes, you see that some extensions do work. I think we should make a list of what is working and what not. I will start by adding apps to the top post.

Patmur2010 idea with open smartwatch project is excellent. Cause theoretically, bb10 is easiest os to implement on smartwatch. Why? Because all developer needs to do is to, make app that sends all HUB notifications to the smartwatch. This way we dont need separate extensions for gmail, fb, twiter, viber, bbm etc etc...

Short answer: forget it.

Longer answer: a firmware for that watch should handle the connection to the host via Bluetooth, all the drawing on the screen, handle all the touches and swipes and should provide a new API so that developers can make NEW apps... I don't know if you realize, but that is A LOT.

What is more realistic, is that this opportunity (of connecting the SmartWatch to the BB10) is fancied by BlackBerry and Sony, so that the small problems which currently exist are fixed, and in no time you could have the whole Smart Accessories ecosystem available for BlackBerry 10 devices. I support this option, and that's why I made this proof-of-concept and I've already written to both BlackBerry and Sony. I received no replies yet.