Are there any smartwatches comparable to the Apple Watches out there (heart rate, waterproof, cool watch faces, gay watchbands, plus maybe those heart illnesses detecting stuff, maybe blood oxygen and ecg too and maybe depth sensors for diving like the ultras if it’s not too much to ask) that either work independently from phones (no app needed) or at least work with an app that can be easily installed in any android device (more specifically that can work in an ungoogled Waydroid container on postmarketOS)?

I keep wondering what I’ll use instead of my Apple Watch if I move to a postmarketOS phone…

#postmarketOS #LinuxMobile #smartwatch #AppleWatch

Hmmmm I wonder how that Apple Watch protocols reverse engineering project is going

@luana i've just been considering buying a new pebble watch, the OS is open source and so is their dev SDK. The pebble time 2 has heart rate, step counting and sleep monitoring which covers what I'm interested in at least.

Haven't seen much yet in terms of the software but it seems to be configurable and like there are plenty of watch face options.

still a bit unsure on the aesthetics but the full color e-ink and RGB backlight are winning me over... plus the knowledge that worst case I could try and hack on the OS XD

@cas yeeeah the pebble doesn’t seem enough for what I’d want tbh. All the reviving and open sourcing it went through is really cool, but my main use for the Apple Watch rn is kilojoules counting in physical exercises and stuff which the pebbles don’t have

@cas apparently according to a reddit post it does have physical activity ‘calories’ tracking but it’s not very accurate? Can’t find much about this other than this single reddit post tho so idk

I was looking into the FitBits which seem to be waterproof and have all those sensors and stuff but apparently they’re owned by Google now??? Ugh

Hmmm the Garmins look interesting!

The Venu 4 (and Forerunner 970, tho that’s way too big for my wrist and more expensive) have most of what I want, and their phone app is optional!!

Not sure exactly what features I’d be missing with no phone connection (specially considering that it has no lte/mobile data), tho the phone app supports both iOS and Android so maybe once Bluetooth on Waydroid is a thing I could get that to work too!

I don’t think I’d be missing anything from my current Apple Watch (s5) or even from newer AWes other than the Ultras (which are also too big for my wrist, and too expensive). The Ultras have a depth sensor for diving which is really really cool, while the FR and Venu aren’t water resistant enough for that (Garmin has a way more specialised smartwatch for that, with a mostly non-overlapping featureset).

Both the FR and the Venu are rated for swimming, which is cool, but neither of those are proper for diving (I don’t really dive, tho that’s something I’m interested in trying out in the future). I think it should be safe enough for when I go around swimming in the pool or beach tho? Well, I don’t usually keep my Apple Watch on when swimming anyway. It’s just nice to know that if I were to get more sportive about that it’d be a possibility.

I think the only disadvantage of the Venu compared to the FR is the lack of a Maps app, tho that’s totally fine ig. The FR is 2mm bigger than my current 45mm s5 apple watch, and I already find this too big. The Venu has a 41mm option which is what I’d get if I decided to go for it.

OH AND THEY BOTH HAVE SUPER PRETTY COLOR OPTIONS, INCLUDING A LAVANDER ONE FOR THE VENU!!

(the FR has lots of very pretty options too!!)

This is mostly just brainstorming rn, but does anyone around here have any experience with the Garmin smartwatches? It’d be nice to see opinions from someone who owns one of them :3

#Garmin #SmartWatch

@cas @luana I was running on a PineTime for a little while. It isn't really comparable to the Apple Watch but it did work quite well with both wasp-os and Infinitime

@luana I got a used FR245 as it had everything I wanted for swim tracking, was cheap and had the old school MIP screen (which Garmin seems to be phasing out 😔).

My needs are very basic, so it works for me - tracks the distance and pace well. The swim style detection is pretty bad. The built-in HR sensor is supposedly less than perfect under water, but I have no reference to compare it to.

My other gripes:
- I'm still not sure when it does or does not respect the phone-level "do not disturb" for notifications.
- It used to lose the phone connection a lot, this seems to have gone away. Might have been because of some "power saving" thing on the phone.

@justinas oh yeah, I’ve seen in the comparison sheet that the FR970 claims to be able to get heartrate while swimming while the Veno 4 doesn’t. That’s probably what it’s talking about then!

I’ve seen in the initial setup video of the Veno that the phone integration is optional for Garmin watches. Did you get to check if you lose any relevant features from that?

Also, does the watch let you export your fitness data at all to sync with other apps?

@luana haven't really tried it "standalone", sorry!

I do know many Garmin watches are supported to some degree by GadgetBridge (and even the ones that are not officially supported will sometimes work), but GadgetBridge's UI always looked very eh to me, so I never tried it with Garmin.

I also remember reading something about older Garmin watches allowing you to transfer your recorded runs (dunno about other kinds of activities!) to a PC via USB. But I don't know if they kept this feature into the smartphone era.

@luana
Let me rephrase this for you: are there any slave projects (what unpaid foss actually is) that can match billion dollar surveillance tech? 😅

@haui I did not ask for floss ones.

@fun @cas @luana

I've started writing my own watch firmware in rust for the lilygo twatch 2020v3, and I'm also planning to support some of the waveshare watches. The code is a huge unsafe mess and it barely does timekeeping, but yknow, maybe one day

https://git.sr.ht/~sajattack/rust-dumbwatch

@luana someone's somewhat working on it: https://github.com/piggz/harbour-amazfish/issues/613#issuecomment-4536798863

@DenJohn ohh, cool!