Dear Samsung,

I know the chances of Samsung reading forum threads are slim, but figured maybe I'd take a chance. Coming from two full years of wearing a Gear 2 Neo watch I feel like I've got a good grasp and appreciation for the day to day functionality and real world usage of a smartwatch. Having had the Gear S3 for a week now, I have a few things that I think need to be improved! Some little, some big, but all software related and fixable. All things that I think would make this watch the even better and that I think are realistic to be fixed via software updates.



Here you go...



1) With Samsung Pay enabled, when you take off the watch your watch locks and is unlocked only by a PIN. This is great. Nice security feature. However, please make it so that it's not quite as sensitive or quick to lock. Like maybe once it's off a wrist for 3 seconds, it locks. Right now I have to have the watch super tight because if it's loose at all and jiggles on my wrist it often locks up. Annoying. Especially if you're wearing a band that is more of a relaxed fit (like a metal band). But I'm using the included Frontier band and unless it's tight, it locks up several times a day. Please fix this.



2) Ambient Light Sensor - Please have more customization options. Allow users to set one setting for how bright the watch can get during the day and then another after sunset. If you set the watch currently to a certain brightness it doesn't dim below that setting even at night when it's dark and doesn't need the extra brightness. I'd rather users be able to have a higher setting during the day when you need it and a lower setting after sunset when you simply don't need it super bright any more. It would also be great to be able to customize how bright or how dim you'd like the "always on" watch face as well both during the day, and then a 2nd setting after sunset.



3) Notification Customization - there are a few options in the Gear Manager for notifications, but not enough. There's 10 when there should be 30. At the heart of this watch it's a notification device. And yet we can't customize how notifications appear. We only have YES or NO for all our apps. But it'd be great if users could define how notifications appeared on the watch and for how long. Also maybe custom rings and vibrations for EACH app (at least the main Samsung ones) and not just custom rings and vibrations for ALL the apps at once which is all you can adjust right now. And while you're at it, please allow the "Notification Dot" to appear on the "always on" watch faces too.



4) Once the watch gets fully depleted it can power off and yet still show you the time in digital format for an extended period of time even though the watch is off. That's a handy feature! However, can we set it so that it's 12 hour format, not 24 hour "military time" format please?



5) Group Texts are a mess!! - They're a mess. I'm using a Samsung S7 Edge with the Samsung Messaging app and while individual texts are "just okay" (more on that in a minute) when you get a group text it's a mess on the watch. If you get multiple texts from just one person, it's SHOULD be displayed as one text in your notifications icon with the number of new texts below it so that you can read the whole string first, not just the last text sent. You can get to that, but it's not the first thing you see when you navigate left to the notifications. And when you get a group text right now they come not as one group text, but from just one individual at a time. Instead they should come as a single group text and then when you open it, it shows ALL the various responses listed in order with the names of who said what. The way it is right now is strange and complicated. PLEASE FIX!



6) SVoice isn't nearly as good as Google Now on Android Wear watches. SVoice is improved from years past, but it's still rather slow and limited in what you can ask. It'd be great to have the ability to google search questions. Even basic searches like "when is the next Los Angeles Lakers game?" comes up as "I could not find that event" whereas the Google Now voice search will give you the answer with details. Hope this is improved.



7) Improve the speed of Bluetooth re-connection. (EDIT: After further testing...this one is not such an issue. Just wish it had more range, but that's more likely a limitation of BT, not the watch itself)



8) The charging dock is great HOWEVER it'd be nice to have the ability to have the always on watch face continue to show while it's docked so that it can be used as a nighttime clock. It's great that the display turns sideways, so why not make it more useful and allow users to have the watch face show in a dimmed always on mode?



9) Samsung Pay error messages. Samsung Pay is a true game changes for mobile payments. Most people who don't have Samsung phones have no idea that it's any different from Android or Apple pay. Couldn't be further from the truth. It works almost anywhere but when it doesn't, the app doesn't really tell you WHY it didn't work. I wish the watch and the phone app gave more detailed error messages once you tap on a payment devices or card strip and it doesn't go through. Often times a second try will be successful, but it'd be nice to know why it failed the first time so that while you're standing there in line trying to make it work, you know whats causing it to fail. It's hard enough to convince tellers that "no this is not Apple pay and it should work on your card reader without NFC". So when it succeeds it's great to see their reactions. But when it fails, it's awkward and I always feel dumb asking to try it again when they insist it won't work.



10) I'd still like to see an option where the watch screen can be flipped for those that wear the watch on the right wrist. Apple watch has a simple "left handed" and "right handed" option that flips the screen. Seems simple enough. Oh well.



Like I said before some of these are small and some are bigger, but I think all are reasonable requests from someone who has been using Samsung smartwatches for years now. Thank you for your time.



Sincerely,

Gear S3 User