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Wyze $20 Smart Watch

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Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#191

Post by macNchz »

rubidium wrote: post #172
MikeKusold wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garmin has been crushing it with their smartwatches. * App store with 3rd party apps and faces. * Always on screen * Physical buttons (Vivoactive is mostly touchscreen oriented, but all their "athlete" watches use buttons) * Week long battery life - Even running GPS tracking for 12 hours straight leaves enough battery for the next day. The biggest downside to the Garmin is trying to figure out which watch to buy. The…

I’ve enjoyed the Garmin instinct. It “just works”.

Yeah I love my Instinct...great as a basic everyday watch (always on, easy to read, never have to think about charging it), full-featured as a GPS running watch, nice addition in the backcountry as it integrates with my inReach satellite device. Sending and receiving text messages from my wrist while on the side of a mountain 50 miles from the last trace of cell service is kind of fun.

I resisted the idea of a smartwatch for years and bought this mostly for outdoor stuff, but I've found myself wearing it all the time.

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#194

Post by bigiain »

outworlder wrote: post #170
jerlam wrote: post #85

Smartwatches have fallen so far from their peak. In 2015, Pebble had a watch that had: - an app store, third party apps, third party watch faces, and a developer ecosystem - always on screen that didn't require a button press or specific arm gesture, and worked in bright, normally lit conditions - physical buttons instead of tiny buttons on a tiny screen barely larger than the finger pressing it - week long battery l…

I had a Pebble Time Steel. Loved the thing to death. The battery was a bit degraded and I got tired of not being able to acknowledge Pagerduty notifications (even though I could receive them), as well as not having any fitness features whatsoever (other than the steps counter). So I bit the bullet and bough an Apple watch. Within two days, I stop using the Pebble. Yes it's nice, but against what's essentially a super…

> Pebble had the right idea. But they executed too slowly and too late.

They were also _way_ too small to compete with the industrial design, manufacturing capability, and marketing clout of Apple. Or even Samsung. They were inevitably gonna get crushed.

And I say this as a four time Pebble Kickstarter backer who could see it even back then. A couple of kids with an amazing YC pitch deck and ambitions-untempered-by-experience-or-reality? They were never gonna "win" if Jony Ives and Foxconn ended up in their market segment. I don't regret a cent I spent with Pebble. I hope the founders made out like bandits when they sold out, and I hope it launched them onto spectacular career trajectories. But they never really stood a chance of being the top player in any sophisticated consumer electronics space...

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#195

Post by danimal88 »

Would love to see a write-up on COGS. Others have said they are buying commodities from xiaomi and reselling but it's not like there is magic here. 50 employees and real working capital needs means real overhead. Obviously they are living on VC to some extent, but how is there enough money long term to sustain a business with zero or negative margin? Boom and bust?

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#196

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

woofie11 wrote: post #188
untog wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to their webcam: absolutely yes. You can get the exact camera they sell on Alibaba. That said, the software on the Alibaba versions is awful. I think their business model makes sense here: buy commodity hardware, make your own, better, software. (though to be honest their iOS app isn't great. But still)

I'd pay good money if I had Chinese hardware with secure, privacy-guaranteeing software. I'd buy the smart watch right now if it was either open-source, it came with a strong privacy policy. As is, I see no reason to upload my health information to a random corporation. Indeed, I can see plenty of business models where I could give away smartwatches and cameras for the wealth of data I'd collect. Selling still makes…

have a look at gadgetbridge, no need to upload anything anywhere

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#198

Post by steve_adams_86 »

bibabaloo wrote: post #138
jerlam wrote: post #85

Smartwatches have fallen so far from their peak. In 2015, Pebble had a watch that had: - an app store, third party apps, third party watch faces, and a developer ecosystem - always on screen that didn't require a button press or specific arm gesture, and worked in bright, normally lit conditions - physical buttons instead of tiny buttons on a tiny screen barely larger than the finger pressing it - week long battery l…

I don't agree with all their business practices, but if you're looking for an alternative, Garmin watches do all of that well these days. I'm quite happy with my Forerunner 735XT.

Mind if I ask what issue you have with their practices? I try to be a conscious consumer so I’m curious if anything you know would concern me as well.

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#199

Post by lrae »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #193

Is Wyze owned by Amazon? Web site says started by folks from Amazon, but Copyright says Wyze marks owned by Amazon.

And Google is an affiliate of Amazon? ;)

It's just not well formatted. If you look into the source code it's supposed to look like

> © 2020 Wyze Labs, Inc

> Amazon, Alexa, Echo Spot and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

> Google, Inc., Google, Google Home, Google Home Mini, G logo, The Google Assistant built-in, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google, Inc. All rights reserved.

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#200

Post by greenkey »

antiterra wrote: post #175
MikeKusold wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garmin has been crushing it with their smartwatches. * App store with 3rd party apps and faces. * Always on screen * Physical buttons (Vivoactive is mostly touchscreen oriented, but all their "athlete" watches use buttons) * Week long battery life - Even running GPS tracking for 12 hours straight leaves enough battery for the next day. The biggest downside to the Garmin is trying to figure out which watch to buy. The…

What I have heard and experience makes me not so sure. For example, a kid’s Vivofit regularly crashes on the countdown timer and skips or repeats numbers on the stopwatch. Then there’s the thing where they paid $10 million to unlock a ransomware attack.

Yes, I had friends affected that were unable to access years of running data during that attack, which made them think maybe having a local copy of their data was a better idea.

That’s not specific to Garmin, though. It could happen to almost anyone.

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