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Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

#81

Post by MrQuincle »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #38

Some people have hacked the fitbit's synching to save to your personal computer instead of to their servers. I haven't done it since I went with the FitBit Ionic, and it auto syncs. I do like how easy it is to make apps for it though. Edit: Check out Shimmer: http://www.getshimmer.co/ Apparently syncs with different devices.

Are you sure? It looks like it does requests to the Fitbit servers.

I've done some reverse engineering myself at https://github.com/mrquincle/fitbit-fatbat, which gets part of the data from the early devices. However, I'm not aware of anyone cracking the encryption and obtaining the rest of the data.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

#82

Post by VectorLock »

curtpw wrote: post #44

There are a number of Chinese generic activity trackers containing the Nordic nrf52832 MCU and a GPS module which are easily hacked and would meet all your needs. Search for "nrf52832 gps bracelet" or "nordic gps bracelet" on Aliexpress, Banggood, ebay etc. For example: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/KINCO-OLED-GPS-Activity-Trac... Components: Nordic nrf52832/ARM Cortex M4 MCU, Kionix KX023 accelerometer, Ublox GPS…

Might be easily hacked, but has anybody hacked them?

I contacted a few sellers on Aliexpress because I wanted to see how many I had to order to get them to give me the source code so I could make a value-added product from them but it was beyond what I was willing to invest.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

#83

Post by kuon »

24gttghh wrote: post #33
kuon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://blog.getpebble.com/2016/12/07/fitbit/

I don't see how that has anything to do with "installing linux on a pebble"

I mixed answers, it was about me being surprised of Pebble going out of business. Sorry.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

#84

Post by dirtbox »

zodPod wrote: post #54
dirtbox wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, from your point of view, isn't a bad thing. It's no longer dependant on external servers, yet still enjoys a lot of support, is easy to code for, plus it's superb as smart watches go. Charging 3 times a month rather than every night means you can track your sleep with it effectively as well.

What is the battery life difference you mention? The lack of external servers or do you mean because it'll have linux on it now?

It lasts up to 10 days on one charge and the app has been decentralised, meaning it's not reliant on external servers.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

#85

Post by dirtbox »

24gttghh wrote: post #22
dirtbox wrote: post #13

Pebble. Someone installed linux on one and they're extraordinarily cheap to pick up now.

Source? Are you referring to Rebble.io?

Someone posted a proof of concept a year or two ago on reddit.com/r/pebble Beyond that I don't know any specifics.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

#86

Post by sliverstorm »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #74
sliverstorm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't SDK licensing pretty normal, outside of open source?

> outside of open source Yes? By definition, if it's not open source, then you're looking at a proprietary license of some sort.

What I meant is the outside-of-companies open source community.

It's not weird for a company to license their SDK, no matter what it's for. Par for the course rather.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

#87

Post by dirtbox »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #78
dirtbox wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, from your point of view, isn't a bad thing. It's no longer dependant on external servers, yet still enjoys a lot of support, is easy to code for, plus it's superb as smart watches go. Charging 3 times a month rather than every night means you can track your sleep with it effectively as well.

It is a bad thing, because electronics get old and eventually die. There isn't really any other company like Pebble on the market (Garmin is probably the only contender here), featuring quality hardware, e-Paper screens and a hacker-friendly ecosystem. So when your watch dies, you'll be forced to downgrade. (I'm a happy owner of Pebble Time, and I dread the day it lets out the magic smoke.)

Hah. You're not wrong about calling it a downgrade. Absolutely everything I've tried has been a downgrade from pebble. It's as if everyone is deliberately avoiding what was, for me at least, perfection.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

#88

Post by i_am_nomad »

theli0nheart wrote: post #50

Pretty much any Garmin device does exactly what you're looking for. All of the activity data on my fēnix 5 / VA HR is visible when I plug in via USB. The data is encoded in the FIT file format, which has a public SDK [1] (you do need to accept a license agreement to view it, though, if that matters). There are wrappers for most languages and if you want to just translate the data to CSV, there are pre-made tools to d…

Seconded on Garmin, Tactix Bravo owner here. They’ve made a serious effort to support their developer community, and as such I’ve written a few apps and watchfaces for it. And as you say, there are many options for viewing and manipulating the data - IIRC, you can even download it from their servers after you’ve synced it, if you prefer.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a fitness wristband that is hackable?

#89

Post by Crespyl »

zodPod wrote: post #54
dirtbox wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, from your point of view, isn't a bad thing. It's no longer dependant on external servers, yet still enjoys a lot of support, is easy to code for, plus it's superb as smart watches go. Charging 3 times a month rather than every night means you can track your sleep with it effectively as well.

What is the battery life difference you mention? The lack of external servers or do you mean because it'll have linux on it now?

I understood the comment to be referring to other fancier smartwatches that are designed around ~daily charging.
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