Motoactv

Looking into buying a Motoactv. Primary use would be for music while running/at the gym - I want a small media player like my Sansa Clip (that just broke) that I can use with Spotify, since my local music collection is now outdated due to streaming everything. Sounds like the Motoactv can do just that and can be had for under $100 now. Is there any issue with buying the 8GB vs 16GB vs Golf Edition? 8GB is enough for me, just looking for the most compatibility/stability with ROMs and it sounds like the 16gb has more issues for some reason. Thanks.

detonation said:

Looking into buying a Motoactv. Primary use would be for music while running/at the gym - I want a small media player like my Sansa Clip (that just broke) that I can use with Spotify, since my local music collection is now outdated due to streaming everything. Sounds like the Motoactv can do just that and can be had for under $100 now. Is there any issue with buying the 8GB vs 16GB vs Golf Edition? 8GB is enough for me, just looking for the most compatibility/stability with ROMs and it sounds like the 16gb has more issues for some reason. Thanks.

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No need to worry about golf edition. If you install a custom rom you will get golf added as part of the rom. There isn't a lot of difference between the 8 and 16 however in the beginning all the devs had 8gb so the roms had been developed for the 8gb version and the 16gb devices didn't always work. I would highly recommend you stick with an 8 GB. Hope this helps.

detonation said:

Looking into buying a Motoactv. Primary use would be for music while running/at the gym - I want a small media player like my Sansa Clip (that just broke) that I can use with Spotify, since my local music collection is now outdated due to streaming everything. Sounds like the Motoactv can do just that and can be had for under $100 now. Is there any issue with buying the 8GB vs 16GB vs Golf Edition? 8GB is enough for me, just looking for the most compatibility/stability with ROMs and it sounds like the 16gb has more issues for some reason. Thanks.

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PM sent

Has anyone been able to install Spotify as of recent? Doesn't show up via the market search tool and the apk from their site doesn't uninstall. I know they recently forced people to reinstall/transfer to a new version of their app, but I'm hoping that change didn't kill off support for older devices like this.

Edit: nevermind, used the web interface of the play store to search and push it to the device. All is good and the latest version surprisingly still looks good on such a small screen! And it plays on my bluetooth headset (was worried since someone said google music didnt)

Guys, I wanted to ask your opinion:

I own since 2012 the motoactv. I love the concept. I love to have it hacked so I can use spotify and other apps. I has so many features that is difficult to believe it was launched in 2011.

But it has two big problems. Poor battery life and it is too ugly to wear it in every situation. Other problems like abandoned device or no more support are important too.

So here we are. 2015 is getting closer and if we want something similar we don't have many options. We can get a chinese experiment or trust weak crowdfunding projects.

Or hope Android Wear gets where we want. Or may be today Apple blows up everything with a super smartwatch.

The Apple stuff is not in my radar since long time ago, but if a great device shows up with many features independent of the phone... who knows.

So. Do you think android wear will get to the point we can get rid of the MOTOACTV?

I know google said a couple weeks ago the next big update will bring support for GPS in watches and bluetooth music without the phone.

That is exactly the path many of us want.

In my mind all I want is a decent watch to wear all day with the extra independent features of GPS tracking and (why not) support for offline playlists from Spotify.

Do you think the new Sony Smartwatch 3 can get there?

I copy / paste my thougts from another thread:

Despite the first impression rants:

It's uglyyy!!!

Rubber everywhere!!!

Another generic square android wear device!!!

Childish!!!!

_______

It you take a look about the potential and features, the most interesting smartwatch with android wear is by far, the Sony Smartwatch 3.

The first with IP68 (you can swim with it).
The first with GPS and music features independent of the phone.
The first with transflective screen for much better visibility with sunlight.

It's the first android (wear platform) smartwatch you can take anywhere without your phone for sporting activities. The design is sportive, not childish. You can sweat with it comfortably.

And the potential is because the extra features (bluetooth music and GPS tracking) will be done with sony apps at the beginning, but Google said these features will by supported natively in future versions of Android Wear.

So, be careful now, because I'm pretty sure, all the android wear watches next year will have these features and every watch in first generation will be quicky obsolete.

So my first watch in my radar is the Sony. And you may understand it in my perspective. I like sport and I have the MOTOACTV. Great concept and features, but so ugly and so terrible battery life that I only wear it when I run.

So the Sony is the first I consider to be the NEXT.

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How to extract OS from Moto

I know this will sound strange but here it goes.

I originally had the motoactv 16gb, I rooted it and unrooted it and rooted it again. The problem I had with rooting it was that the motoactv after root would lose battery power by about 20% per day even if it was turned completely off. Additionally the motoactve would lose power rapidly when I used it. It would go from 100% to 50% in about an hour even when battery saving was set to marathon. I use a BT headphone, GPS when on the trail.

After I supposedly brought it back to stock it would still lose battery power when turned off. I did this with the Root Tool 2.0.1 and a 16bg root image(for rooting) and a 16gb unrooted image (to bring back to stock). I put these files in the image folder, inplace of the orginal fiels that the Root Tool contained I believe this to be the source of my problems (guess).

I continued to use it then one day I had an accident and the screen was cracked. I went online and purchased a motoactv that did not turn on. I was able to take the screen off the one that did not power on and replace the cracked screen on my rooted motoactv. I put the cracked screen on the one that did not power on and to my surprise I was able to bring it back to life with a little effort and searching posts. I think it was stuck in the bootloader but found the way to fix it here at xda.

At any rate I got a couple more motoactvs and eventualy got one with a good screen and now I have two working motoactvs, One with root and one stock. The stock one does not lose any power when turned off even if I leave it for a week. The power drain on the stock motoactv drains as I remember, I can go for a two hour bike ride or run with BT headphones and gps and it drains to about 70%. Obviously this is much better than the rooted motoactv. So what I would like to do is copy the operating system from the working motoactv and install it into the rooted motoactv so I can have two unrooted motoactv. No idea if this is possible but thought I would ask.

I have some .zip files with the unrooted image but I can not get the rooted motoactv truly back to factory using the unrooted image I have.

I have switched the battery with the other working motoactv with no root and same battery drain. I know it is not the battery so it has to be the root (or my tampering with the image files in the Root Tool) that has either caused the wifi or gps or BT radio to constantly drain (this is a guess).

So anyone with the know how to extract the OS image from the working non-rooted motoactv, I think in the past I have found instructions to do this but for the life of me I can not find them now.


Any advice?

Root tool with unrooted actv - backup; then restore the backup to the rooted one? I can't remember how it works but I believe the bootloader was always unlocked and this should be entirely possible without root.

Are they all 16gb units? We've always had problems with those from day 1, sadly. Battery on my 8gb drains normally, maybe 20 percent daily, as I was wearing it last week.

Anyone having issues getting their Motoactv to sync to itunes using the motoactv software?? I can't for the life of me get it to sync?!?! It's rooted running Dprom. Tried stopping the adb shell and it recognizes as a usb device, but the motocast software i have installed won't see it and pop up the menu i used to have to sync to itunes?? Thanks guys!!! STILL LOVE THIS WATCH! :laugh:

motoactv is amazing

Just got the moto 360.

Made me realize how amazing MOTOACTV is!

How could a 2011 device do so much? Wifi, Gps, bluetooth, internal storage, android play store. Gosh you can even install youtube in it.

MotoACTV has better features than moto 360 in many ways.

So if you guys have the chance to keep it, you should.

Moto 360 is beautiful. It really is. But neither android wear nor its features are any better than motoactv.

mtvdeo said:

Just got the moto 360.

Made me realize how amazing MOTOACTV is!

How could a 2011 device do so much? Wifi, Gps, bluetooth, internal storage, android play store. Gosh you can even install youtube in it.

MotoACTV has better features than moto 360 in many ways.

So if you guys have the chance to keep it, you should.

Moto 360 is beautiful. It really is. But neither android wear nor its features are any better than motoactv.

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Motorola could just release their api's for the early adopters of motoactv , they had it all first... Sad to just abandoned us behind... But nice comments tho!

So our motoactv wiki was going to be shut down due to wikispaces moving to a pay per use setting. Only higher education wikis for use in educational settings got to use it for free. So, on a prayer, I submitted ours for use as a higher education wiki. The result, sadly, was...


It was... Approved? Whatttt? we get to keep our wiki!

Surprising!

ClearD said:

So our motoactv wiki was going to be shut down due to wikispaces moving to a pay per use setting. Only higher education wikis for use in educational settings got to use it for free. So, on a prayer, I submitted ours for use as a higher education wiki. The result, sadly, was...


It was... Approved? Whatttt? we get to keep our wiki!

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That's fantastic, thanks again ClearD

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problem

Hi. I have a big problem. My MOTOACTV caught Fastboot Loop. When I hold down Volume Up + Volume Down + Start + Power, screen watch flashes only. So I connect Motoactv to current and showed logo with red battery 0%. I have to wait when it will be 100 % ? And then try command fastboot oem fb_mode_clear?


Thx for help.
Sorry for my english.

Yes, make sure you plug it into a wall outlet and not a computer USB cable. For some reason, charge mode cables work best instead of data mode. But you've got the idea, correct.

does anyone have the Easy Modder 1.2 still? mediafire link is dead :/

Maybe ClearD has it?

I'd have to dig, but maybe. If I can find it, I'll upload it.

I do just let me upload it to Dropbox then I'll send the link

mtvdeo said:

Just got the moto 360.

Made me realize how amazing MOTOACTV is!

How could a 2011 device do so much? Wifi, Gps, bluetooth, internal storage, android play store. Gosh you can even install youtube in it.

MotoACTV has better features than moto 360 in many ways.

So if you guys have the chance to keep it, you should.

Moto 360 is beautiful. It really is. But neither android wear nor its features are any better than motoactv.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

i LOVE my motoActv! I use it every single day. I hope their website never shuts down too. I really want someone to take this same device and just ramp it up to 2015, but without too much changes because it's truly awesome. It would be great it it was waterproof not slight rain drops proof so I can swim with it.

The only negative I have with it is that the belt clip didn't grip good enough and it fell and the screen now has cracks all over it, thank goodness I have a screen protector, 1+ year after the drop it still works perfect.