I wonder if Purism has any long term plans for a smart watch.
Wyze $20 Smart Watch
231–240 of 290 posts
Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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-e…
Eh, that depends on how you define "win". If you mean sell as many units as Apple and never get bought? Sure. But as someone who also owned an OG Pebble, if the "Pebble-way" was actually better, it would have won. Winning might have meant getting acquired, or even just competitors making devices similar in spirit to theirs, but it'd still be a victory. The "Apple Watch way" was the anti-thesis to the Pebble philosoph…
The mistake we made was thinking we had to compete with Apple. Unfortunately, we realized that a little too late -- had we kept to our own pace we'd still be around, and by now would have figured out how to reach a more mainstream market.
Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
> $200 smart watch, and 1/10th of those people avoid obesity, we can avoid $20,000 a year Oh, I completely agree that that is a realistic and worthwhile scenario. I just think that lifetime health costs in dollars do not decrease. Let’s say we get 1/10th less diabetes due to subsidised watches. The total number of people with chronic diseases remains constant because we just get a different chronic disease on average…
I'm with you on this one: my intuition on the subject is screwy and I don't trust it. Some people spend the last ten or twenty years of their life in and out of the hospital, and some just fall over from an aneurysm after otherwise perfect health. Obesity (really type II diabetes, which morbid obesity pretty much guarantees) really pushes people into the first camp. But sure, a smart watch won't keep cancer from meta…
> and staying out of the obesity BMI band only decreases lifetime cancer risk
Three times as many people die from cancer now than in 1900!
Our percentage risk of dying from cancer decreases significantly after about 65 - but only because because heart disease and mental health issues become so deadly: https://flowingdata.com/2016/01/05/causes-of-death/
Nice infographic on actual versus perceived versus media: https://twitter.com/randal_olson/status/986272007770615811?l...
A mite morbid topic, but interesting to me because the facts seem so contrary to my intuitions. PS: I am not a specialist in the topic, the above is just from a quick google.
Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch
#234Been a Wyze customer for couple of years now. Bought many of their cameras from their store and Home Depot. The cameras are real good and much much cheaper than other big brands (Ring/Nest etc). It seems they are basically building a Xiaomi kinda of brand in the US (Xiaomi is extremely popular in countries like India where they have huge market base with well styled products similar to Apple line).
I'd suggest giving Eufy 2k cameras a try. I was also a long time Wyze fan but I've recently switched to Eufy after trying out their 2k cameras. Compared to Wyze, it offers better resolution (thus 2k in their name), on-device pet/human detection (Wyze charges monthly fees for cloud-based detection), and way better app experience. It's slightly more expensive but well worth the price for me.
Very slightly more expensive when you hit a sale like this past cyber monday they were $28 each. To build on the plus sides vs wyze, they notify you almost instantly while wyze cams take 12-15 seconds. It has custom detection zones that can be any shape/size polygon, not just a square. I was most disappointed with the wyze outdoor having a hardcoded detection zone... and then unlimited detection time with no cooldown between detection which is also part of wyze's subscription service
Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
PineTime is the only watch that is cheap and can be programmable. However, it's software isn't mature enough for daily use. https://pine64.com/product/pinetime-dev-kit/?v=0446c16e2e66
Do you have one? What are the problems with it so far?
I have a few, its a functional smartwatch that is super snappy and responsive to touch. It does not have the largest feature set, but I can see the time, my heartrate, control the music player on my phone, etc.
The feature set is expanding as people develop for it, and you have a choice in OSes (much like the Pinephone or a Thinkpad can run dozens of diverse OSes)
Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch
#236I see no way anyone could make this bit of hardware this cheaply without some pretty nasty exploitation going on somewhere up the chain. Count me out.
You might be surprised at how human ingenuity sometimes finds a way to make expensive hardware using just as much exploitation…
Um, having trouble understanding what you mean...?
Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch
#237I see no way anyone could make this bit of hardware this cheaply without some pretty nasty exploitation going on somewhere up the chain. Count me out.
As if by buying the 1000+ USD Apple phone you are not supporting the same system. Newsflash, there is no ethical tech shopping, there will always be someone exploited along the line.
Reading this on a Fairphone. It's worth trying for something better, dude, even if you aren't ever likely to get to perfection.
Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch
#238Smartwatches 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…
What is it you're looking for in a smartwatch?
Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch
#239Earlier 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…
What about Apple's privacy do you disagree with?
Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had 3 Pebbles, and a Kickstarter pledge in for a fourth that they cancelled and refunded me when they sold out. I spend the refund money on a small but fun collection of old soviet mechanical watches. The kinda ubiquitous Vostok Amfibia, a "Big Zero", and a pretty poor fake of the Sturmanski Yuri Gagarin wore. I get much "more joy" from these - even the fake Yuri watch - than I ever got from a "smart watch". My usu…
2nding mechanical watches, though my preferred value brand is Orient, but nothing wrong with Vostok. Seiko seems overpriced these days, Orient seems like the new Seiko (though Orient and Seiko are both owned by the same holding company, which happens to be Epson (yeah, as in Epson printers)).
While mechanical and real watches are fun, smartwatches' biggest selling point for me is body telemetry. Steps taken, floors climbed, pulse, activity tracking, etc.
I've disabled everything notifications and phone-control wise on my MiBand. I exclusively use it for a body telemetry device and I love it.
While I miss my proper watches, I just can't leave the MiBand at home.