So I got my first Gan 356i smart cube yesterday. First I had problems getting it to charge, the base adapter always shows a green light no matter if the cube is connected or not. There is no user manual of any kind, neither in the box, or online, anywhere. It turns out you need to have the white face 'up' when plugging the cube into the base charger (this is printed in tiny text on the bottom of the plastic). I downloaded the app and you need to shake the cube violently for 5 seconds for it to wake up and get detected and it needs to be charged for several hours before it can be detected.
Once it was detected I started solving. The orientation of the cube displayed didn't match the orientation I was holding it in, I tried various 'reset' options and eventually it sort of matched up. It did generally work as promised, tracking/matching my moves on the app, although the reconstruction is totally weird and not really correct. The reconstructions constantly show that I did tons of S moves and E moves which I never did, and they incorporate strange rotations that were not actually done, not to mention the app says I do over 60 rotations per solve when the real number is around 4-5. The timing function worked great, it always starts/stops right at the perfect moment which is awesome.
My biggest complaint, unfortunately, is a big one, and that is the cube comes with 3 sets of springs, all of which are WAY TOO TIGHT. Even on the lightest tension the cube is extremely hard to turn (my fingers would get exhausted after 20 solves when normally a 100 solve average creates no issues). Maybe more solves will break it in-- otherwise in my mind it is nearly useless for actual solving (maybe ok for some training analysis). I was losing about 2 seconds per solve on a 13-14 second average time because of the extremely tight faces. I tried removing the springs entirely and the cube exploded instantly and is extremely hard to put back together unlike most cubes. I might try to go on to mcmaster.com and see if I can buy other random springs that are of a similar size but much softer; with the correct tensions the cube would feel like a Gan 356 X, which I do like, although nothing (for me) ever beat the GTS 2M when set up properly.
I'm curious if anyone else has come up with an easy solution to the tension problem on the 356i.
One thing I do like is the ability to see your movecount instantly (and tps), this clearly shows how movecount decreases on slower solves with better lookahead, although to be fair I'm not sure I believe the movecount since the reconstruction includes all sorts of E and S moves that I never did.
EDIT: with the white face 'up' for charging, it occurred to me that after my cube exploded the white center piece may no longer be in the same place. As such I no longer know which side must be 'up' for it to charge.
Once it was detected I started solving. The orientation of the cube displayed didn't match the orientation I was holding it in, I tried various 'reset' options and eventually it sort of matched up. It did generally work as promised, tracking/matching my moves on the app, although the reconstruction is totally weird and not really correct. The reconstructions constantly show that I did tons of S moves and E moves which I never did, and they incorporate strange rotations that were not actually done, not to mention the app says I do over 60 rotations per solve when the real number is around 4-5. The timing function worked great, it always starts/stops right at the perfect moment which is awesome.
My biggest complaint, unfortunately, is a big one, and that is the cube comes with 3 sets of springs, all of which are WAY TOO TIGHT. Even on the lightest tension the cube is extremely hard to turn (my fingers would get exhausted after 20 solves when normally a 100 solve average creates no issues). Maybe more solves will break it in-- otherwise in my mind it is nearly useless for actual solving (maybe ok for some training analysis). I was losing about 2 seconds per solve on a 13-14 second average time because of the extremely tight faces. I tried removing the springs entirely and the cube exploded instantly and is extremely hard to put back together unlike most cubes. I might try to go on to mcmaster.com and see if I can buy other random springs that are of a similar size but much softer; with the correct tensions the cube would feel like a Gan 356 X, which I do like, although nothing (for me) ever beat the GTS 2M when set up properly.
I'm curious if anyone else has come up with an easy solution to the tension problem on the 356i.
One thing I do like is the ability to see your movecount instantly (and tps), this clearly shows how movecount decreases on slower solves with better lookahead, although to be fair I'm not sure I believe the movecount since the reconstruction includes all sorts of E and S moves that I never did.
EDIT: with the white face 'up' for charging, it occurred to me that after my cube exploded the white center piece may no longer be in the same place. As such I no longer know which side must be 'up' for it to charge.