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I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

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Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#61

Post by Iulioh »

globular-toast wrote: post #59
DecentShoes wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is insanely common. I have about 6 devices with this problem, and I consider it unforgivable. Not only did you not include USBC charging, you went out of your way to trick me and lie and pretend you did. I would have preferred just using micro usb at that point. Powkiddy committed fraud and said the RGB30 can charge from USB-C, but they lied, it can only charge from USB A to C cables. Using it is a massive pain…

I feel like the USB committee might be somewhat to blame. When most people think USB-C they're just thinking the cable. Why can't it just do regular slow charging with C to C cable?

It's not the usb c committee problem, the devices you are buying are out of spec

This is because the cable is 2 sided so it can't assume polarity

So it's a tradeoff for not having to guess how to insert the cable

Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#62

Post by snops »

globular-toast wrote: post #59
DecentShoes wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is insanely common. I have about 6 devices with this problem, and I consider it unforgivable. Not only did you not include USBC charging, you went out of your way to trick me and lie and pretend you did. I would have preferred just using micro usb at that point. Powkiddy committed fraud and said the RGB30 can charge from USB-C, but they lied, it can only charge from USB A to C cables. Using it is a massive pain…

I feel like the USB committee might be somewhat to blame. When most people think USB-C they're just thinking the cable. Why can't it just do regular slow charging with C to C cable?

It can, it just needs the two resistors, which is the cheapest possible thing the standards committee could have asked manufacturers to do.

USB-C gets complicated at the high end, but for basic functionality I think the standards committee did a very good job at making the cheapest way to do it the correct way, e.g. a USB-C to 3.5mm audio adaptor can be entirely passive, it just needs the right resistor in it.

Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#63

Post by vladvasiliu »

KORraN wrote: post #37
incone123 wrote: post #25

I have a Garmin with a monochrome LCD face. Ok, it can't compete on price but battery life is a couple of weeks (and can top up with solar) so the proprietary cable is not a big problem.

I was also a happy Garmin Instinct Solar user. It is until after two years it started to turn off whenever it vibrates. I disabled vibrations, but it's reduced to an expensive step counter now.

Were the vibrations actually useful? I have an old Garmin something or other on my wrist right now, and I disabled vibrations because unless I'm sitting around doing nothing and I can hear them, I'd never notice them.

Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#64

Post by jval43 »

mancerayder wrote: post #14

As someone who loathes jewelry on myself and has no interest in the watch culture, nonetheless I have an interest in smart watches I can monitor things with. I'm turned off by big ugly blocks with childish straps.. is there anything remotely attractive?

Try on the smaller versions (sometimes called "women's" versions), a few mms less make a huge difference.

Many smartwatches are simply too large, compared to regular watches.

Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#65

Post by JimmyBiscuit »

wslh wrote: post #7

It's always good to remember that battery life in sports watches (aren't they smart?) can last a whole week, and some models even have complementary solar charging.

I have a Garmin Instinct 2 Solar. The Solar feature is more of a gimmick, unless youre out in the sun the whole day for weeks it doesnt really make a difference.

But it doesnt matter much, the battery lasts 3 weeks. Its a great watch if you like the old-style digital watch screens

Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#66

Post by edent »

maxglute wrote: post #60

Hoping for open source watch OS some day, so many OEM / white label cheap smartwatch/fitness bands. Already exists for cheap cloud cameras. Could be the F91W of our time. Also I'd gladly ditch USB C for a few programmable media buttons. Standardize on some sort of bogo pins and buy 20 adapters or split cables to keep the water proofing.

You're in luck! https://banglejs.com/

Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#67

Post by FredrikSE »

scblock wrote: post #15
mancerayder wrote: post #14

As someone who loathes jewelry on myself and has no interest in the watch culture, nonetheless I have an interest in smart watches I can monitor things with. I'm turned off by big ugly blocks with childish straps.. is there anything remotely attractive?

Garmin is my typical recommendation for decent fitness watches with good battery life. The venue and vivoactive have bright high res screens with raise to wake or always on (with a big battery life hit). There are also things like the lily or the vivomove. The straps are usually standard watch straps and easily changed.

I have the Forerunner 965 with the screen always on. Still manage about a week with several hours of gps tracking.

Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#68

Post by teekert »

__rito__ wrote: post #28
ofrzeta wrote: post #11

I have an Amazfit smartwatch that gets charged by a simple USB cable with two pins that magnetically attaches to the back of the watch. When I was on vacation and forgot that cable I was able to make my own by cutting a USB cable and attaching the wires to the contacts of the watch with tape. That simplicity is hard to beat. And this watch is water resistant.

I like Amazfit because it can fully function without sending any data whatsoever to a server. I can export data from the app very easily.

You mean with GadgetBridge and Android right? The official app does not have nice conditions when I last read through it. Note that I couldn’t find the 1 month battery mode anymore. Just the pro which sadly has a normal lcd screen and max 1 week battery.

Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#69

Post by xg15 »

imtringued wrote: post #58
sschueller wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens because these devices had USB microB before and the manufacturer just replaced the port without reading the spec. Even some mainstream products have this issue. I have an automatic door opener from a large company and the battery pack has the same issue. It is shipped with a special cable you have to use as no other USB-C cable works.

There is also another problem. The spec is large and it's not aimed at those who want to implement the simplest possible USB C compliant device. Based on the table of contents the most promising section is "2.3.4 USB Type-C VBUS Current Detection and Usage" but it doesn't actually talk about anything you actually need. You're supposed to click through to the section "4.6.2.1 USB Type-C Current" where it shows the ref…

Sounds like an "annotated spec" or some guides for implementers would be really useful.

Re: I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C

#70

Post by xg15 »

ackfoobar wrote: post #5

> The watch is simply missing the two 5.1k resistors connecting the CC1 and CC2 pins of the USB-C connector to ground that are required to indicate to whatever is plugged in that it wants 5v power. This is so annoying. Back when USB-C was less prevalent, I bought a pair of wireless earbuds over another for the same reason as the title - because it used USB-C. But then I cannot charge it with my macbook, unless I add…

Would it be possible to build some kind of adapter or C-to-C cable that just contains the missing resistors? (And also probably would have to block any USB PD communication, in case you plug in any device that actually does try to use PD. So the goal would be that the charger always sees a 5V requesting device without PD support while the device always sees a "dumb" 5V charger - regardless of what capabilities the device and charger really have)

It would still suck to have to use a special cable for charging, but at least it's better than not being able to use any modern charger.

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