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Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

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Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#41

Post by aleph_minus_one »

mikae1 wrote: post #37
gbil wrote: post #22

The title is misleading at least, to compete with garmin you need the similar offering, with swimming/waterproofing being the huge outliar here but also the ecosystem and like it or not features like the notifications. Very valiant first effort for sure but after 6 years with a Garmin Fenix still holding 90% of its battery (and being able to replace it), I'm not their potential customer.

Can you analyze the data your watch and body generates locally using FOSS without uploading it all to surveillance capitalists? That'd be the true alternative.

> without uploading it all to surveillance capitalists

I by now often see the term "surveillance capitalists"/"surveillance capitalism" on HN.

While it is a great thing to fight surveillance organizations, don't forget that communist countries had/have (for the latter: People's Republic of China) much worse surveillance in place.

Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#42

Post by TMWNN »

gbil wrote: post #22

The title is misleading at least, to compete with garmin you need the similar offering, with swimming/waterproofing being the huge outliar here but also the ecosystem and like it or not features like the notifications. Very valiant first effort for sure but after 6 years with a Garmin Fenix still holding 90% of its battery (and being able to replace it), I'm not their potential customer.

> but after 6 years with a Garmin Fenix still holding 90% of its battery (and being able to replace it), I'm not their potential customer.

What kind of battery life did you have when you bought it, and how long is it now?

Does Garmin still upgrade the firmware?

Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#43

Post by TMWNN »

jerlam wrote: post #10
cuu508 wrote: post #9

Specs don't make it clear if it supports BLE sensors (HR strap, power meter,... ).

One of the tiles on the buy page says "HR BAND SUPPORT Connect compatible BLE chest straps". But one single connection type doesn't compare to Garmin's list of supported ANT and BLE accessories.

I have an Amazfit Balance, and previously several Amazfit Bips. I really like being able to use my watch as a BLE heartrate monitor with iSmoothRun on iPhone. I gather that being able to do so is not typical for smartwatches.

Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#44

Post by aleph_minus_one »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #19
hxbdbdb wrote: post #7

USB-C really does not make sense for such a device. It's significantly too bulky and is hard to get water proof

Is it hard to get waterpoof, considering that every modern smart phone is both usb-c and waterproof? Important to note that this watch doesn't claim to be waterproof.

> considering that every modern smart phone is both usb-c and waterproof?

I doubt that modern smart phones are waterproof. Who would trust use their smartphone while showering or being in a bathtube (including submerging the smartphone a few centimeters into the water)?

Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#45

Post by ck2 »

arnejenssen wrote: post #23

For me the value of Garmin (Forerunner) is their proprietary algorithm for calculating Stress Level from HRV. It is the basis for the Body Battery measure. I find it useful to see how food and activity affects my stress levels. I guess it would be possible to reverse engineer a similar stress level calculation. Perhaps AI-powered?

HRV from optical is garbage-in garbage-out

and post-2020 Garmin has totally lost their way with development/algorithms

Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#46

Post by rolisz »

scheme271 wrote: post #34
arnejenssen wrote: post #23

For me the value of Garmin (Forerunner) is their proprietary algorithm for calculating Stress Level from HRV. It is the basis for the Body Battery measure. I find it useful to see how food and activity affects my stress levels. I guess it would be possible to reverse engineer a similar stress level calculation. Perhaps AI-powered?

I'm not sure the body battery/stress measures are that great. Garmin is infamous for having an awful sleep algo and it still has a lot of trouble detecting naps. It doesn't bode well for being able to get stress data. I think it's good for generally determining high stress vs low stress and when you've overdone exercise recently but probably not much more.

Body battery is amazing. I had long COVID/ME/CFS, and looking at the body battery when waking up was an outstanding predictor of how my day was going to be. When I hit 5% body battery, I was really feeling horrible.

Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#47

Post by lobster2342 »

I just finished swimming, tracked by a Garmin Forerunner 910x which I bought back in 2015 and I have been constantly using since. Wrist band replaced once each side. Battery lifetime still amazing, even with longer bike rides and GPS. Data can be analyzed locally. Uptime since I bought it: almost 100%.

Amazing peace of Hardware.

Also their algorithms are cool. If the watch tells me to rest more than 24 hours, I know, I will be tired the next day.

The two features that I miss are built in heartrate monitor and temperature sensor. I payed around 500€ back then. Over the years I use this watch, the price became very reasonable.

Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#48

Post by lightedman »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #44
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it hard to get waterpoof, considering that every modern smart phone is both usb-c and waterproof? Important to note that this watch doesn't claim to be waterproof.

> considering that every modern smart phone is both usb-c and waterproof? I doubt that modern smart phones are waterproof. Who would trust use their smartphone while showering or being in a bathtube (including submerging the smartphone a few centimeters into the water)?

I dive in the ocean regularly with my Kyocera DuraForce Pro. I take underwater photos and videos with it. It works just fine.

Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#49

Post by catigula »

rolisz wrote: post #46
scheme271 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the body battery/stress measures are that great. Garmin is infamous for having an awful sleep algo and it still has a lot of trouble detecting naps. It doesn't bode well for being able to get stress data. I think it's good for generally determining high stress vs low stress and when you've overdone exercise recently but probably not much more.

Body battery is amazing. I had long COVID/ME/CFS, and looking at the body battery when waking up was an outstanding predictor of how my day was going to be. When I hit 5% body battery, I was really feeling horrible.

It's just a collation of sleep-end RHR/HRV. It's completely trivial and many manufacturers do this correctly; both are extremely reliable predictors of recovery metrics.

Garmin has absolutely shitty sleep tracking but it doesn't matter; any wearable more or less nowadays can get static heart rate correct, leading to more or less accurate recovery metrics.

"Collect every paper you can find on RHR/HRV/etc. recovery metrics. Develop an algorithm for predicting recovery score per day based on the research" as a prompt to a Codex or Claude agent can probably get you 98-100% of the way there.

Edit: As a proof of concept, I had ChatGPT Pro 5.6 write the algorithm with my Fitbit data. Looks great.

Re: Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

#50

Post by catigula »

gbil wrote: post #22

The title is misleading at least, to compete with garmin you need the similar offering, with swimming/waterproofing being the huge outliar here but also the ecosystem and like it or not features like the notifications. Very valiant first effort for sure but after 6 years with a Garmin Fenix still holding 90% of its battery (and being able to replace it), I'm not their potential customer.

All of that stuff is the norm in the industry. There isn't anything remarkable about it.
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