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Open Source Smartwatch

pine64.org

81–90 of 251 posts

Re: Open Source Smartwatch

#81
post #12

I would totally buy it if I could order it locally in Europe. When I ordered a PinePhone from Hong Kong, it was just too much of a hassle for my liking. Waiting for an indefinite amount of time until it gets shipped and then deal with customs. I wonder how many customers there are per country. Would it make sense to have local distributors around the world? Or maybe at least one per continent?

>Waiting for an indefinite amount of time until it gets shipped and then deal with customs.

I got my Pinebook from Hong Kong and was stunned at how quick it came. I was expecting a month or two, and if memory serves it was closer to a just a couple of weeks.

I wonder why phones are more of a hassle to order from Hong Kong than laptops?

Re: Open Source Smartwatch

#82

Interesting. Shame there’s no GPS, though. As a cyclist I’d love a hackable GPS device that isn’t a (fragile, bulky) smartphone.

Agree. GPS is primarily the reason why i got a smartwatch. It’s so much better now that i don’t have to carry my phone with me when i cycle or run.

Bluetooth with onboard music (on some newer fitness watches) really sealed the deal for me. After going through a Pebble some years ago, I realized that I didn't actually care about the "smart" features as long as my next watch had excellent GPS performance, Spotify or some other music platform, and an always-on display to tell the time.

Re: Open Source Smartwatch

#83

I have a pinetime and the form factor is great (until I lost the back plate, next one will be sealed). All the opensource activity around the watch is also great. The biggest drawback to me is only 64k of ram. Thats a Commodore64's worth of ram. The 240x240 screen is 57kbytes, it must have its own display ram. Also NordicSemi never seemed to be particularly opensource friendly. I'm hoping for a future RISCV edition o…

Apache have a fully open source Bluetooth LE stack for most of the Nordic Semi chips, in part because they actually documented their radio hardware unlike most other manufacturers.

Re: Open Source Smartwatch

#84
post #54

I’m not so sure if this is significant other than for the fact that it’s being distributed by PINE64. There are plenty other junk reprogrammable “smartwatch kit” that reuse Huami/Xiaomi-brand smartwatch enclosures while genuine Huami goes on to collect data more strategically at a larger scale. Recently I got a Mi Band 5 and learned they transfer BLE pairing over platforms - they make devices generate new MAC when un…

>junk reprogrammable “smartwatch kit” that reuse Huami/Xiaomi-brand smartwatch enclosures

This strikes me a really over the top expression of contempt which just isn't necessary or constructive at all. I generally understand Pine64 products to be developed to the point that they are capable of being used by end-users from day one without hacking or fiddling, are basically ready-to-order in the same way as any commercicial product but with a general understanding that they were hacked together, and may require the kind of hacking that only enthusiasts are interested in doing over the medium to long term. To my mind that is enough to elevate it above junk (are there other distributors comparable to Pine64 that I don't know about?), and I feel that it's quite strange that that should even have to be debated at all.

>while genuine Huami goes on to collect data more strategically at a larger scale.

You're saying that as though it's a good thing, which I don't understand.

>Gives me different chills than the fact that its sole purpose is to take my health data anyway.

I also couldn't parse this.

Re: Open Source Smartwatch

#86

Interesting. Shame there’s no GPS, though. As a cyclist I’d love a hackable GPS device that isn’t a (fragile, bulky) smartphone.

I think GPS is a significant cost in the power budget. Many users would prefer longer battery life. The option to enable GPS would be nice, but it cuts into cost and size budgets.

Amazfit Bip (S) has a GPS and still lasts for about 2 weeks in the same form factor.

Re: Open Source Smartwatch

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the Amazfit Bip (S) watch. Cheap, sleek, waterproof, gorilla glass always-on display, battery lasts a month, does GPS tracking without smartphone connection and you can sync it via Gadgetbridge to keep all your data private without any account/cloud services.

Unfortunately they no longer make them. Or at least I could not find any to be bought.

You cna get them easily with Aliexpress still.

Re: Open Source Smartwatch

#88
post #10

Note that this is still under development. From the store page: >The 3-Pack sealed PineTime aimed solely for project deployment purpose only, this is not for end user who is looking for ready to wear Smart Watch.

> Note that this is still under development

just like the Pinephone.

Re: Open Source Smartwatch

#89
post #3

Promising specs! I'd rather have multi-day battery life than fancy graphics, maybe even an e-ink display.

Me too. It says "All-week 180 mAh battery" which I'm not sure what it means but I doubt a 180 mAh lasts an entire week.

Using the recent infinitime OS v0.9, I get 2 to 3 days of normal usage per charge.

Re: Open Source Smartwatch

#90
post #3

Promising specs! I'd rather have multi-day battery life than fancy graphics, maybe even an e-ink display.

It doesn't say, but since it mentions IPS, it doesn't have an always-on LCD ?

It says it’s a raise to turn on type of display. How the original Apple Watch worked.
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