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Ask HN: Which smartwatch is the best in self-hacking/quantified self?

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Re: Ask HN: Which smartwatch is the best in self-hacking/quantified self?

#11

Post by disabled »

meowster wrote: post #8

If anyone else can answer: What is the best smartwatch that maintains privacy? I have a Pebble Steel, but it will not sync with Gadget Bridge no matter what settings I try.

Any of these:

* Garmin (required to adhere to GDPR)

* Empatica E4 (required to adhere to GDPR) (for more advanced use)

* Microsoft Band 2 (open source API on Github)

* Suunto (required to adhere to GDPR)

Personally, the Garmin Fenix 6 or Garmin Enduro (if the new Enduro gets good reviews) are the ones I would recommend for general use.

Apple may do various appealing things, but they are not obligated to adhere to GDPR. The app creators for the Apple Watch are certainly not required to adhere to GDPR.

Ironically, the ones that adhere to strict privacy regulations tend to have more solid technology. These technologies have been utilized for impressive research in journal articles.

Re: Ask HN: Which smartwatch is the best in self-hacking/quantified self?

#12

Post by disabled »

rapjr9 wrote: post #10

I worked on a research project for several years (ending around 2018) using smartwatches to record a variety of physiological measures like stress. We were always looking for an open platform to use, and tried a variety of Android Wear watches and the Apple watch, but found little with the features we wanted. Microsoft used to make a smartwatch that had open access to almost all the sensors via Bluetooth, but they st…

> Do a search for the new devices promising blood pressure (Samsung I think) or blood glucose monitoring (Apple). One of those might fit your needs when they become available. Beyond that have a look at medical web sites to see what hospitals are using (although those devices tend to require a prescription and are usually only sold to hospitals).

This device is FDA approved to what you described (not blood glucose yet--but is technically capable): Biobeat Watch BB-613: https://www.bio-beat.com/copy-of-clinical-trials-and-researc...

It is Israeli technology and they do excel at things like photoplethysmography (PPG) and coulometry, from a historical standpoint.

But, the Empatica E4 is 100% capable of doing what you described above. You just have to use Lab Streaming Layer to interface with whatever you are programming in, such as Python. You basically reimplement prior research papers in your own code. However, it does not have an SpO2 sensor.

Re: Ask HN: Which smartwatch is the best in self-hacking/quantified self?

#13

Post by rapjr9 »

meowster wrote: post #8

If anyone else can answer: What is the best smartwatch that maintains privacy? I have a Pebble Steel, but it will not sync with Gadget Bridge no matter what settings I try.

I use a Garmin Vivosmart 4 or a Xiaomi Mi Band (v4 or v5) and simply don't connect it to the smartphone. That gets you access to the data on your wrist, but no log of the data. Great privacy with no data collection. If you want data collection maybe you can find an app that doesn't upload to the cloud or write your own; some fitness tracking apps can talk to a variety of devices and don't use the cloud. The Gadget Bridge web site has a list of which devices are compatible with it:

https://github.com/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge

They do list the Pebble Steel. I'd try the Mi Band 5. The Vivosmart 4 is somewhat unstable in my experience.

Re: Ask HN: Which smartwatch is the best in self-hacking/quantified self?

#14

Post by antoniuschan99 »

If anyone is interested in blood pressure the closest I can find is the Richtek 1025. It’s an analog front end that can get ecg and ppg values which you can then use to get blood pressure values. I was looking and found an optical sensor that may work: biofy sfh 7072 biometric-sensor

Here’s some docs on the rt1025: https://www.richtek.com/Home/Design%20Support/Technical%20Do...

And a youtube video on their dev kit:

https://youtu.be/rM3a4xL3d50

Re: Ask HN: Which smartwatch is the best in self-hacking/quantified self?

#17

Post by runjake »

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #7
runjake wrote: post #3

Garmin. Garmin has always had about the best track record with data accessibility, by far. Apple Watch is probably a very distant second -- especially now since they've really nerfed the health data exporting. Launch Health app, click on user photo, click "Export All Health Data", wait forever, have "fun" parsing it. Fitbit's always been a jerk about holding the data ransom for paid membership tiers.

Do you have any specific recommendations from Garmin? They seem pretty good, but I have no idea which one to choose.

It just depends on your sports and desires. I use the classic 920XT, but I'd really love something like the 920XT (classic fav among triathletes) but with wrist-based HRM (in addition to chest strap compatibility).

The Garmin Instinct is pretty decent, but its going to depend on your list of desires.

Re: Ask HN: Which smartwatch is the best in self-hacking/quantified self?

#18

Post by randomchars »

kgin wrote: post #4
runjake wrote: post #3

Garmin. Garmin has always had about the best track record with data accessibility, by far. Apple Watch is probably a very distant second -- especially now since they've really nerfed the health data exporting. Launch Health app, click on user photo, click "Export All Health Data", wait forever, have "fun" parsing it. Fitbit's always been a jerk about holding the data ransom for paid membership tiers.

Looks like you can schedule HealthKit exports with this app https://apps.apple.com/us/app/health-auto-export-json-csv/id...

There's also this: https://apps.apple.com/hu/app/healthfit/id1202650514

It let's you schedule exports of some of your data to multiple sources. I use it to sync to Google Sheets, where I can easily build diagrams and data from it.

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