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The quest for a simple smartwatch

binarymoon.co.uk

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Re: The quest for a simple smartwatch

#81

Post by daliusd »

darreninthenet wrote: post #77
input_sh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's about a dozen of screens you can toggle between (time, date, next alarm, number of steps, distance and so on). Short press of the only button toggles between them, long press does some action (example: cancel next alarm). However I don't have anything on that screen by default to extend battery life closer to a month. Two more features I highly appreciate: - I don't think I could go back to an alarm on my pho…

Sorry last question - does it do sleep tracking?

It does. Sometimes it does that incorrectly though.

Re: The quest for a simple smartwatch

#82

Post by pintxo »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #75
jbverschoor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how this feature works and not how this is notified to the user

The third party app remembers the location when it last received pulse from the beacon that is in the car and when you open it, leads the user back to it. Disclosure: I actually happen to kno exactly how this feature works, as I added support for iBeacons in apps for iOS and Android in one of our projects. Not for the functionality described above, but for waking the app once a user walks to a proximity of a beacon.…

Afaik, iOS does save a location, and marks it as a parked car, when it looses the bluetooth connection to a device it identified as being a car. So no additional hardware needed for this to work.

Re: The quest for a simple smartwatch

#83

Post by alanpearce »

kyletns wrote: post #11

All I want is an analog watch that shades the face of the watch when I have calendar events coming up. That's it. No screen, no pings, no nothing. Just the ability to check my watch and see how long till my next appointment. Unfortunately, [this kickstarter watch]( https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1540240985/calendar-wat... ) is now dead.

I used to have a Garmin running the Simply Late[0] watch face to achieve a similar goal. I wish there was something better on a more everyday-looking watch.

[0]: https://sl8.ch/

Re: The quest for a simple smartwatch

#84

Post by lemming »

Xenonym wrote: post #21

The Withings Steel HR seems to fit the bill perfectly - it has a screen for phone notifications, a step tracker and basic fitness function, and I regularly get two weeks and more of battery life out of mine. Only problem might be that you find it’s small circular screen too small - but I think that’s a feature of its minimalist aesthetic, not a bug. https://www.withings.com/us/en/steel-hr

My wife and I both had these, we loved them and I agree it fits the description perfectly. However, both of them failed for us right around the time the warranty expired in the same way - the watch worked fine but refused to charge. My wife managed to get hers replaced, but mine failed just after a year and they refused to replace it. I decided not to get another one because of this, but I do miss it and there’s really no other I’ve found like it.

Re: The quest for a simple smartwatch

#85

Post by Tildey »

yurishimo wrote: post #78
lopis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google (Maps?) has done the car parking location for 10+ years. But like many things Google, Google software is not well integrated with itself, and discoverability is bad. It's perfectly possible that this feature has been removed and re-added several times during the last decade, as is the fate of many Google projects.

It still works but only in certain circumstances. You need to navigate to a destination that is far enough away and visited less frequently as to be categorized as a visit. Maps will not save your parking location in front of your office, for example. If I leave an airtag in my car, I will always know where it is because my phone is constantly looking for the BT signal.

Just to add, in the Find My app, you can whitelist (or blacklist depending on how you look at it I suppose) addresses that it won’t notify you about.

So I don’t get a notification when I leave my iPad at home, but I do whenever I leave it at work, for example.

Re: The quest for a simple smartwatch

#87

Post by pbronez »

0xEF wrote: post #74
xnorswap wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I loved my Pebble. The LCD screen meant it was readable in any light and also had fantastic battery life.

I still only use Pebble watches. You can pick them up on eBay for $30 USD, and the Rebble.io community helps keep them alive. I have yet to see another smartwatch do what they did, which is a bit baffling to me. Watchy came close, being fully programmable with an e-ink screen, but the bulk of the housing was atrocious.

Oh man I had no idea there was a project keeping pebbles alive. The rebble project looks great. Very impressed by the documentation on their site.

Re: The quest for a simple smartwatch

#89

Post by somethingsome »

I was very very positively surprised by the Amazon smartwatches, I brought a amazfit GTS 2 Mini Fitness Watch, and it fulfill the main points of the article, it was very cheap also (65€). The app is nice, not perfect but does the job at tracking steps, the GPS is accurate, heart, stress levels, sleep, etc.. Perfect synch with the phone, I receive the phone notifications, good waterproofing and the battery last something like 6-7 days.

The oled screen simulates a classical watch, so it's not hybrid, but for me it doesn't matter that much, I barely notice.

The app could be better integrated with other fitness app, but it works with the ones I use.

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