On the watch
Twangle has a tuner for Wear OS watches. It listens with the watch's own microphone and needs nothing from your phone, so tuning is a raised wrist away.
Tune on your wrist
- Open Twangle on the watch. The first time, it asks for the microphone: allow it while using the app.
- Play a string. The note shows large in the middle, with a dot on the arc round the edge: left of the top is flat, right of it sharp.
- Turn the peg as the word under the note says, Tighten or Loosen, until the arc turns green and the word says In tune. The watch gives one tap on your wrist as the note comes in tune.
Under the word the watch writes how far off the note is, for example 12 cents flat. While it hears nothing it says Play a note.
The watch is a chromatic tuner: it names any note, for any instrument, with A at 440 Hz and the note names your watch's language uses. Its one setting is the vibration guide, below.
Tune by feel
The small round switch at the bottom of the tuner's page, under the cents, turns on the vibration guide (TalkBack calls it Vibration guide). While the watch hears a note it taps your wrist: one tap to tighten, two to loosen, quicker as the note gets close, then quiet for the last few cents and one long buzz when it is in tune, in place of the single tap. With TalkBack on it is on by itself, until you switch it yourself, and the watch keeps your choice. The taps make no sound, and the watch holds its reading still while it taps, so they never move the reading. The phone has the same guide (the tuner, Tune by feel).
Open it in one tap
- The tile. Swipe left from the watch face past your tiles, tap + (Add tiles) and pick Twangle. Its Tune button along the bottom opens the tuner, its Metronome button the metronome. (The words differ a little from watch to watch.)
- The watch-face shortcut. On a watch face with small slots for other apps, touch and hold the face, edit it, pick a slot and choose Twangle. It shows Twangle's mark, and a tap opens the tuner.
Good to know
- The watch listens only while the tuner is on its screen. The tile and the shortcut never use the microphone, and the moment the screen dims or goes off, Twangle lets go of it.
- While it hears you play, the screen stays on, so it doesn't go dark in the middle of a string. Three minutes after the last note the watch's own screen timeout takes over again.
- With TalkBack, the watch says the reading in words, for example A 2, 12 cents flat, Tighten, or E 2, in tune.
- Nothing you play is recorded or sent anywhere, on the watch as on the phone.
The metronome
Swipe left from the tuner for a plain metronome, made for playing along: the beat as a tap on your wrist, the first beat of the bar stronger, and a click from the watch's speaker if you want one. Four beats to the bar, the tempo turned with the watch's bezel or crown from 30 to 250 beats a minute, and one button to start and stop. The tile's Metronome button, with the tempo you used last (for example 96 BPM), opens it. The watch keeps your tempo and your click choice for next time, and stops when you swipe back to the tuner or leave the app. Left playing, it stops by itself after 30 minutes without a touch, so a forgotten metronome doesn't drain the battery.