Open source smart watches
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Watchy, while a cool product, is an eink watch with no smart features.
Very true but you can dual wield that watch with an actual full-blown open source smart watch when the full one becomes a thing
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That is a US based company, so with shipping and taxes I certainly would also reach the over 60€. Honestly I wasn't that happy with my Pinetime. I tought about buying it again (destroyed mine when I dropped it) because it is cheap (26€). But for 66€ I might just get a different watch, that works with gadgetbridge
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I'm currently also at that point, trying to decide what to buy.
Does anyone have a good recommendation for a smart watch with good compatibility with gadgetbridge? I'm not sure where to look (gadgetbridges list is long).
Something with a color display, maybe a week of battery life, being able to show my notifications and configuration without needing the manufacturers app
I'm currently using the Nothing CMF Pro 2.
You configure it with the proprietary app to get the initial paring key, then you can switch to Gadgetbridge and disable or even remove the Nothing app.
The Good: cheap device cost, nice UI elements, machined aluminum bezel looks premium. Push notifications and most features work.
The Bad: semi-annoying workaround to get it set up initially, not all features work, not using the proprietary app disables using the Nothing watch face library so you're stuck choosing from the 5 or 6 default designs that come with the watch.
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That is a US based company, so with shipping and taxes I certainly would also reach the over 60€. Honestly I wasn't that happy with my Pinetime. I tought about buying it again (destroyed mine when I dropped it) because it is cheap (26€). But for 66€ I might just get a different watch, that works with gadgetbridge
wrote last edited by [email protected]So, I bought a Pinetime with tariffs applied to go with GrapheneOS. It came to me about $50 USD shipped. For that price, I would do it again if it broke.
My needs are very basic, I can control music, see notifications, and get my heart rate on a graph when I work out. I only switched to this from Sensor Watch, simply because of the heart rate sensor.
Speaking of, you would be surprised what you could make a Sensor Watch do for you with no connectivity to your phone. I had totp for work, chess, and sunset/sunrise times as well as a onboard temp sensor.
Suffice to say, I think nowadays Ill readily pay more for FOSS with less features than something else just on principle. So I wouldn't let what could be conceived as a "bad deal" stop you if your convictions are strong enough.
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I'm currently also at that point, trying to decide what to buy.
Does anyone have a good recommendation for a smart watch with good compatibility with gadgetbridge? I'm not sure where to look (gadgetbridges list is long).
Something with a color display, maybe a week of battery life, being able to show my notifications and configuration without needing the manufacturers app
Thanks for mentioning Gadgetbridge. I finally checked it out. It is surprising that it supports other devices besides smartwatches.
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Watchy, while a cool product, is an eink watch with no smart features.
What exactly is meant by "smart features" ? The watch is an esp32 microcontroller driving an ePaper screen and a gyroscope (I forget if there are any other peripherals). It's already much smarter than a "regular" wristwatch, and being open source you can make it as smart as you want (in theory and within the performance allowed by it's specs, of course). The stock "os" will fetch the weather and adjust to daylight savings via internet.
Do you mean stuff like there's no smartphone app available for it? It doesn't pair with a smartphone out-of-the-box to do things like show SMS, email, calendar events, etc?
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There's an Android app with firmware for the watch that supports notifications, so the watch has the potential for smart features
But it looks like there's no equivalent app for Graphene OS, so in effect, you're right, no smart features
Thanks for sharing that link, I thought the watchy had been more-or-less abandoned by the community.
For what it's worth, GitHub says that chronos firmware had it's
1.0release just 5 days ago, so I'm not surprised the other commenter didn't know about it. -
If you were to buy an open source smart watch today to pair to a GrapheneOS smart phone which would you choose?
I was looking at https://open-smartwatch.github.io/gallery/gallery-main/ recently with some intrigue, if I had a 3d printer I'd consider building it
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If you were to buy an open source smart watch today to pair to a GrapheneOS smart phone which would you choose?
https://asteroidos.org/ not great device support but its a option
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Isn't the pebble watch getting a re-release? Might be neat to tinker with. There's also a conversion kit thing for one of the classic digital casio watches. Both are tinkering friendly and open source.
100% Pebble
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What exactly is meant by "smart features" ? The watch is an esp32 microcontroller driving an ePaper screen and a gyroscope (I forget if there are any other peripherals). It's already much smarter than a "regular" wristwatch, and being open source you can make it as smart as you want (in theory and within the performance allowed by it's specs, of course). The stock "os" will fetch the weather and adjust to daylight savings via internet.
Do you mean stuff like there's no smartphone app available for it? It doesn't pair with a smartphone out-of-the-box to do things like show SMS, email, calendar events, etc?
Compared to a pinetime, for example, it's a "dumb" watch. I has a step counter and an eink screen, but thats about it. The pinetime has alarms, notifications, call answering media controls, etc. So I guess it has potential, but it falls short of what I would think most people would consider "smart".
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If you were to buy an open source smart watch today to pair to a GrapheneOS smart phone which would you choose?
You should check out gadget bridge. It's got a list of devices it's compatible with.
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Amazfit active 2
That one looks good. Though it seems the process to get the pairing key from the proriatary app on a non-rooted phone is currently broken.
My phone is currently not rooted. Don't know, how that works with rooting on e/OS. If I can root it, get the key and then remove root without wiping the phone, then I might do that. -
That one looks good. Though it seems the process to get the pairing key from the proriatary app on a non-rooted phone is currently broken.
My phone is currently not rooted. Don't know, how that works with rooting on e/OS. If I can root it, get the key and then remove root without wiping the phone, then I might do that.I mean all I can say is I have had this watch for about 3 months and retrieving the key still worked on a non rooted phone as of then. Not sure if its changed since then.
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You should check out gadget bridge. It's got a list of devices it's compatible with.
Link: https://gadgetbridge.org/gadgets/wearables/
Look for 'Highly Supported' and the unlocked-padlock-icon.
