[HN Gopher] Open Source Smartwatch
___________________________________________________________________
Open Source Smartwatch
Author : sytelus
Score : 508 points
Date : 2021-01-02 12:06 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pine64.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pine64.org)
| deadw3ight wrote:
| After reading what others have said and feedback on PineTime and
| what a good hackable watch should have, it seems like Pebble
| should resurrect from the grave as a hackable watch. I mean the
| pebble time had 128kb ram (this only has 64k ram), an color
| epaper display, 150mAh battery (over a week battery life), heart
| rate sensors, etc. Heck its even being supported by the open
| source community AFTER it was discontinued.
|
| Maybe Fitbit can be petitioned to make the Pebble's hardware
| fully open source too.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Pebble's over, sadly. I assume fitbit will want to do something
| with the assets, why else would they have bought it? (PS: I
| always wondered what was in it for them actually)
|
| I really hope the PineTime will pick up where it left off! But
| it's only in dev kit stage now.
| SiliconSolder wrote:
| Can this be something good?
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Looks to be only only $25 which makes it a nice plaything. I
| think the storage is rather limited at 4mb though.
| warrenmiller wrote:
| I thought it was a typo for GB maybe?!
| wongarsu wrote:
| 4MB isn't that unusual in embedded devices. After all you
| aren't storing audio and video, at most a couple pictures
| for a 220x220px display.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Doubt it considering how many of the current smartwatches are
| good.
|
| Some might even say that it fails right at the start at being a
| smart watch since it doesn't have an always-on display.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Apple only added that feature last year, and sells a current
| Apple Watch without the feature (SE).
| m-p-3 wrote:
| If it had a transflective display I'd get one right away.
| Sure, the colors aren't as good but I really care about
| battery time.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| The main problem currently is the lack of a good open source
| firmware with complete hardware support, but the community is
| growing and soon we should see some interesting things:
|
| https://github.com/sethitow/awesome-pinetime
| Scandiravian wrote:
| Open-source is still maturing in the "smart" area. The phones
| are getting a lot better all the time and I think we'll see
| more watches in the next couple of years
|
| There's still a long way to go before it's viable for the
| average tech-geek to go for a fully open-source setup (phone,
| watch, tablet, etc), so if your question is if it's good now,
| then no
|
| If you're asking if this will turn into something good over
| time, then yes... A million times yes
|
| The open-source space will most likely always come with its own
| set of problems and I don't think we'll ever get an environment
| that has the same level of seamlessness as android or iOS.
|
| I'm hoping the next 2-3 years will get us to a point where open
| source can get a user 80% of the way out-of-the-box, at which
| point I'm definitely ready to ditch android and move everything
| to an environment, that's built to respect my privacy
| Yaggo wrote:
| Promising specs! I'd rather have multi-day battery life than
| fancy graphics, maybe even an e-ink display.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Same here. Not only does it save battery life; it ensures the
| display is always on and looks way better.
|
| The Pebble Time had a Sharp Memory LCD, I'm not sure what the
| Amazfit Bip uses.
|
| It's baffling that there are so few electronics in general that
| use E-Paper/translective displays. Does anyone know?
| siraben wrote:
| The reMarkable tablet, Supernote A5/A6 are some pretty
| hackable e-ink tablets.
| newman8r wrote:
| Agreed. I moved from smart watches back to an old Casio
| sgw-100. Battery life is the main reason. It's nice just to
| always have a watch that works, and be able to go on camping
| trips and really be able to rely on the device.
|
| I've changed the battery once in 2 years (and that was simply
| preventative). The fact that it just keeps on working for years
| at a time is a nice contrast to basically every other modern
| device.
| ohthehugemanate wrote:
| Highly recommend the so-called "hybrid" smart watches from
| Fossil, Withings, etc. The're analog watches with a minimal
| digital display and all the basic functionality of a smart
| watch. But since they don't waste power on a big color
| screen, wifi, or other extravagance, battery life is on the
| order of a month.
|
| I love mine. I get my notifications, pulse, step, and sleep
| tracking, in a classy looking package with a grown up battery
| life.
| Fnoord wrote:
| I got one (Fossil) as well. I love to have the e-ink off,
| that way it looks like a classic watch. Disadvantage is you
| cannot put Bluetooth off. I really don't want it on, unless
| when I specifically turn it on. I probably want a kill
| switch for it. Which Pebble had.
| FreakyT wrote:
| Agreed, it's too bad they didn't go for something like the
| Sharp Memory LCD found in the Pebble watches.
| listic wrote:
| My Xiaomi Mi Band 4 lasts me 4 weeks _with_ a full-color AMOLED
| display (without NFC). _That 's_ the base to compare to.
| pedrogpimenta wrote:
| Me too. It says "All-week 180 mAh battery" which I'm not sure
| what it means but I doubt a 180 mAh lasts an entire week.
| donpdonp wrote:
| Using the recent infinitime OS v0.9, I get 2 to 3 days of
| normal usage per charge.
| naraic0o wrote:
| it's running a low power nrf52. they can last a year on a
| coin cell battery, with adequate power optimisations. without
| an always on display, a week is possibly an underestimation.
| for example, see the amazfit bip, it has lasted me ~45 days
| which even has a (low power) always on display.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| There are plenty of smartwatches with heart rate monitoring
| that have a week of battery life and 180mAh is enough for 10
| days on some of them. It's obviously not enough if you're
| playing music or video or something like that. But if you're
| primarily using the device to give you notifications, heart
| rate, and the time, it seems likely it does last all week.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| It's a milliamp-hour.
|
| The processor draws about 220uA [1]
|
| so you have about 818 hours (=34 days) of CPU time, but you
| need to take display current out of that budget too, and an
| easy source for that probably exists, but I can't find
| easily.
|
| [1] https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-
| q-a/7893/nrf52832-cu...
| uncledave wrote:
| I dunno. I get two days out of my Apple SE. Doesn't seem too
| much of a bore charging it.
| avh02 wrote:
| i still forget to charge my pebble time steel sometimes cos
| it lasts long enough for that to happen. I don't need to pack
| a charger for it on short trips, weekends, etc.
|
| I prefer it that way. would not want to charge yet another
| device every day or every other day.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| It doesn't say, but since it mentions IPS, it doesn't have an
| always-on LCD ?
| IgorPartola wrote:
| It says it's a raise to turn on type of display. How the
| original Apple Watch worked.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Does it actually have a decent battery? The Apple Watch can't
| even go 24 hours of use without having to be charged.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I'm not so sure if this is significant other than for the fact
| that it's being distributed by PINE64. There are plenty other
| junk reprogrammable "smartwatch kit" that reuse Huami/Xiaomi-
| brand smartwatch enclosures while genuine Huami goes on to
| collect data more strategically at a larger scale.
|
| Recently I got a Mi Band 5 and learned they transfer BLE pairing
| over platforms - they make devices generate new MAC when
| unpaired, which is tied to Huami account upon pairing. Gives me
| different chills than the fact that its sole purpose is to take
| my health data anyway.
| wpietri wrote:
| I like Pine64's spirit, but are they good at delivery? I was
| excited by the PineTab and wanted to buy a few for wall-mounted
| displays. But they've been out of stock for 6 months at least,
| with very spotty updates. It made me reluctant to buy anything
| from them.
| nrp wrote:
| The folks at Pine64 are amazingly transparent about what they
| are working on and the state of their products, but you have
| to follow their monthly blog posts to see that. I believe
| they have been having massive issues around display sourcing
| that have kept a few of their products out of stock for most
| of this year. Where they don't have that specific issue, they
| are reliable.
| wpietri wrote:
| Good to know. Thanks!
|
| If someone from there reads this, I'd suggest also updating
| the product page with a clear statement. Right now it just
| says "Estimate dispatch in late July, 2020", which makes it
| look abandoned.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Are the Huami ones open source or hackable?
| julianlam wrote:
| Not really, no. Sort of.
|
| I have a Mi Band 5, and wanted to use GadgetBridge instead of
| the official Mi Fit or Amazfit/Zepp app.
|
| I was surprised to learn this was not easy to do. I needed to
| retrieve the Bluetooth MAC from the proprietary app via
| rooted app, or by logging in via script, which no layman
| would do.
|
| The watch is now paired with GadgetBridge, but the steps are
| hard enough to dissuade anyone from trying it.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| I got a MiBand 3 (because it was cheap) and most of the
| bluetooth functionality has been reverse engineered -- but
| you have to search across multiple sources to get the
| 'complete picture'.
| glenstein wrote:
| >junk reprogrammable "smartwatch kit" that reuse Huami/Xiaomi-
| brand smartwatch enclosures
|
| This strikes me a really over the top expression of contempt
| which just isn't necessary or constructive at all. I generally
| understand Pine64 products to be developed to the point that
| they are capable of being used by end-users from day one
| without hacking or fiddling, are basically ready-to-order in
| the same way as any commercicial product but with a general
| understanding that they were hacked together, and may require
| the kind of hacking that only enthusiasts are interested in
| doing over the medium to long term. To my mind that is enough
| to elevate it above junk (are there other distributors
| comparable to Pine64 that I don't know about?), and I feel that
| it's quite strange that that should even have to be debated at
| all.
|
| >while genuine Huami goes on to collect data more strategically
| at a larger scale.
|
| You're saying that as though it's a good thing, which I don't
| understand.
|
| >Gives me different chills than the fact that its sole purpose
| is to take my health data anyway.
|
| I also couldn't parse this.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| There are not so many reprogrammable cheap watches on the
| market, I only know of 3 actually. Can you share a list?
| pjmlp wrote:
| > Any open-source operating systems built on top of numerous
| RTOSes
|
| What does this even mean. Already fragmented apps before it even
| starts, what else to expect.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Are you complaining about the lack of a walled garden on a post
| titled "open source smart watch"?
|
| Yes, open source leads to experimentation and individualization
| which leads to fragmentation. It's a trade-off, but and there
| are already plenty of other smart watches going for a less
| fragmented but less open ecosystem
| pjmlp wrote:
| I am complaining that they don't provide one single OS
| experience.
|
| I didn't mention anything about walled gardens.
| snvzz wrote:
| Why do you expect them to restrict what you can put on it
| (i.e. enforce a single OS), when the point seems to be for
| people to do whatever they want with it?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Because without a standard OS stack it is going to be the
| "Year of FOSS Watch"(tm).
| wongarsu wrote:
| Per the wiki it has a default OS (InfiniTime). However
| currently the MicroPython based Wasp-OS seems to have
| more features.
|
| [1] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/InfiniTime
|
| [2] https://github.com/daniel-thompson/wasp-os
| pjmlp wrote:
| Thanks for the links.
| snvzz wrote:
| You don't seem to get it. This isn't an end user device.
| This is for developers, i.e. hackers and makers.
|
| It doesn't work by installing "apps", but rather, the
| whole system image is built from _your_ code. Which makes
| sense on a device that has 64KB RAM.
|
| Any code samples they provide are just that: Samples.
|
| If what you're looking for is a general public oriented
| device, this is not it. There's plenty in the market to
| pick from.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I surely get it, yet another device that will be gone in
| a couple of years.
| snvzz wrote:
| The target customer does not care.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Ask N900 owners how they don't care about having a
| replacement.
| snvzz wrote:
| False analogy. The N900 was an end user product. This is
| not.
| sdwolfz wrote:
| Is it just me or is the screen not vertically centered on this
| device? Also the wake up button is on the left instead of the
| right, probably gets woken up a lot by hitting the sleeve of a
| coat or buttoned shirt...
|
| These might be nitpicks but just because it's open source doesn't
| excuse it from poor design critique.
|
| Tech wise looks really good for the price.
| MHordecki wrote:
| > Is it just me or is the screen not vertically centered on
| this device?
|
| It's a 3D render. The actual display seems to be more or less
| centered[0].
|
| > Also the wake up button is on the left instead of the right
|
| One could presumably flip the device and the rotate the screen
| rendering by 180 degrees. This is how Apple Watch handles right
| wrist use.
|
| [0]: https://pine64.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PineTive-
| DevKi...
| sdwolfz wrote:
| I'm watching this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuk9Nmr3Jo8 and I see the
| same thing, the bottom is about twice the size as the top.
|
| Good call on the screen rotation, is this something any of
| the OSes support or needs to be requested to be added in?
| [deleted]
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Interesting. Shame there's no GPS, though. As a cyclist I'd love
| a hackable GPS device that isn't a (fragile, bulky) smartphone.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| Check BangleJS then
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| That looks really interesting - thank you!
| asutekku wrote:
| Agree. GPS is primarily the reason why i got a smartwatch. It's
| so much better now that i don't have to carry my phone with me
| when i cycle or run.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Bluetooth with onboard music (on some newer fitness watches)
| really sealed the deal for me. After going through a Pebble
| some years ago, I realized that I didn't actually care about
| the "smart" features as long as my next watch had excellent
| GPS performance, Spotify or some other music platform, and an
| always-on display to tell the time.
| earthscienceman wrote:
| Any recommendations? I would love a watch that was dumb as
| a brick but played music and had gps. Bonus points if it is
| extremely simple.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| Check out Garmin, tom-tom
| gsa wrote:
| I'm in the market for a similar smart watch/fitness
| tracker and have settled on the Garmin Vivoactive 4. It
| hits the sweet spot between a sports watch and a fitness
| tracker for me, plus the battery should last about a week
| between charges.
| scott113341 wrote:
| I've been loving my COROS. It's quite simple, and the
| battery life is astonishing. No music functionality
| though, if that's a dealbreaker for you. I got the APEX
| 42mm about 5 months ago.
|
| https://coros.com/compareChartPage.php
| tguvot wrote:
| a variety of garmin watches have gps, built-in maps and
| music
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Check out the Amazfit Bip (S) watch.
|
| Cheap, sleek, waterproof, gorilla glass always-on display,
| battery lasts a month, does GPS tracking without smartphone
| connection and you can sync it via Gadgetbridge to keep all
| your data private without any account/cloud services.
| pistoriusp wrote:
| Unfortunately they no longer make them. Or at least I could
| not find any to be bought.
| muststopmyths wrote:
| Timex makes a $120 GPS Ironman R300. It's apparently a
| Huami/Amazfit backend.
|
| I've been very pleased with it. Great battery life, even
| with GPS while running. I found it comparable to Garmins in
| that respect.
|
| The chunky looks could turn people off, but I prefer ugly
| retro-looking stuff :)
|
| Edit: here is DC rainmaker's review
| https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/06/timex-r300-gps-
| smartwatc...
| EvRev wrote:
| Ebay has tons. They run $25 to $40.
| raesene9 wrote:
| You can still get them (in the UK at least) although stock
| seems low, you can also get the amazfit U. although it's a
| bit more expensive.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| You can definitely find it on the usual China gadgets
| marketplaces: aliexpress, banggood, gearbest, ...
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I bought mine on AliExpress a couple of months ago.
| solarkraft wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they do; even established stores have
| started carrying them around here. Check out the website as
| well; there's a bunch of variations of that watch now.
|
| I have the original Bip and am very satisfied with the
| hardware (lasts forever, looks pretty good) and somewhat
| satisfied with the software (good selection of watch faces,
| it's gadgetbridge compatible, but activity mode is a tad
| bit too easy to enter and too hard to exit)
| naraic0o wrote:
| you can modify the behavior of the crown button to
| disable this, if i recall correctly. i think i just
| deactivated it - after one too many accidental presses.
| ekianjo wrote:
| You cna get them easily with Aliexpress still.
| willis936 wrote:
| I think GPS is a significant cost in the power budget. Many
| users would prefer longer battery life. The option to enable
| GPS would be nice, but it cuts into cost and size budgets.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Amazfit Bip (S) has a GPS and still lasts for about 2 weeks
| in the same form factor.
| detaro wrote:
| How often do you use the GPS in those two weeks? It
| obviously only needs power if used, and tests I've read
| suggest it wouldn't last 2 days with lots of active GPS
| usage (which is to be expected, and not really a fault of
| the device!).
| ficklepickle wrote:
| Some GPS receivers claim to get a reading in 2ms, then
| power down. Even doing that once a second would only have
| it powered 0.2% of the time.
|
| Still quite impressive though. It defies belief getting 2
| weeks out of a GPS watch charge.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Twice a day for about an hour
| lormayna wrote:
| As cyclist, the best option would be to have an hackable
| cycling pc with speedometer, hearth rate monitor, cadence and
| power meter. You can create then a bunch of applications for
| better training.
| suyash wrote:
| Tizen would make a good OS for this, it's also an open source OS.
| Donckele wrote:
| I highly recommend the compatible Colmi P8 smartwatch with waspos
| https://github.com/daniel-thompson/wasp-os which enables you to
| write micropython with access to all device features. You can
| overwrite the stock firmware using bluetooth without having to
| open and solder wires.
| bartvk wrote:
| Does it support notifications?
| kken wrote:
| Ok, just to make sure I understand this correctly.
|
| - This is basically a commercial smartwach (the Colmi P8) that is
| based on a well documented SOC, the nordic nRF52832
|
| - The open source version comes with an enclosure that is not
| glued shut, so that it is easy to access testpoints on the pcb.
|
| - Development is done by accessing the nRF51 SWD interface with
| pogo pins or similar. The programming interface can be a standard
| SWD interface such as an STLink clone
|
| Ok, sounds easy enough. It should be possible to just buy one of
| those smartwatches and crack them open? But OTOH the developer
| version is not much more expensive.
|
| The main question is now: What software to run on it, that goes
| beyond a few experiments? Is there any kind of open source
| smartwatch OS that would run on this?
|
| Edit: Corrected typo, of course I meant SWD interface, not SWM.
| (SWM or rather SWIM is for STM8)
| amar-laksh wrote:
| There ya go: https://github.com/daniel-thompson/wasp-os
| wongarsu wrote:
| There is also https://github.com/endian-albin/pinetime-hypnos
|
| and the default https://github.com/JF002/Pinetime
|
| My guess would be that Wasp-OS will become the beginner-
| friendly fully-featured option while Pinetime will be the
| more battery friendly option.
| kken wrote:
| Nice!
| jarnix wrote:
| :) not sure it's up to anybody to do it. To me "nRF51 SWM
| interface with pogo pins" means absolutely nothing, same for
| nRF52832 or STLink.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| I think GP means the SWD interface, which is a standard ARM
| programming/debugging connector.
|
| I would advise against the ST-Links though as they expose a
| more high level protocol and don't always work with non-STM
| chips. FT232H dongles make for a more versatile programmer.
| ctz wrote:
| Does this mean there's a free and open-source version of the
| Nordic softdevice?
| swetland wrote:
| I'm not aware of anybody reproducing the exact softdevice
| design, but there are open source BLE stacks out there that run
| on the nRF528xx family, for example:
|
| https://github.com/apache/mynewt-nimble
| f430 wrote:
| Does anybody actively use smartwatch? I remember I bought the
| first Google pay smartwatch Mobvi Ticwatch Pro.
|
| Used it once to pay for dinner and jogging a few times and found
| it to be not useful as I keep going back to my smartphone which I
| am not keen to carry while exercising.
|
| I'm hoping that Smartglasses won't be a flop but can't help but
| feel we are no in a plateau of really incremental innovations
| moving the screen from desktop to our pockets now to our wrists,
| our glasses and perhaps if Elon gets his way our brains in the
| future.
|
| Still would want one tho as it appears it is very light unlike
| many major brand ones that seem so bulky and large on my tiny
| wrists
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Does anybody actively use smartwatch?
|
| All the time. I use it to read texts (a lot of time they don't
| require a reply, they're just informational). Set timers. Check
| the weather before I head out. Track my workouts. Listen to
| music. Log meals. And I don't carry my phone with me when I'm
| working out, so sometimes I take calls on it.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Does anybody actively use smartwatch?
|
| Lots of Apple Watches and a decent number of Garmin watches.
| Don't see a lot of anything else. I suspect the fact most of
| them are bulky and have shitty CPU options is a big part of it.
| Garmin users are willing to accept the bulk for the
| functionality. Apple Watches aren't that bulky.
|
| I use mine for workouts, taking calls so I don't have to pull
| out my phone, sending text & receiving text messages, and
| controlling music. For my light mobile phone use, it's nearly
| suitable as a replacement for my phone.
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| I know somebody who got constant text messages from his
| pregnant wife, and the Apple Watch made it easy to read them
| and dismiss them.
|
| I've also seen a DMV worker use the Apple Watch to distract
| himself with information every spare second he had in his
| interaction with me.
| smitty1e wrote:
| I like my Samsung unit.
|
| I see SMS notifications and can even give a monosyllable
| response while the phone is stowed.
|
| That's a close to the Full Dick Tracy as I get.
| swebs wrote:
| Note that this is still under development. From the store page:
|
| >The 3-Pack sealed PineTime aimed solely for project deployment
| purpose only, this is not for end user who is looking for ready
| to wear Smart Watch.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Note that this is still under development
|
| just like the Pinephone.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Fun background info: The PineTime is based on a watch called
| Colmi P8:
| https://twitter.com/beriberikix/status/1344752102799798273
| EvRev wrote:
| I have been using a Amaze Bipfit with Gadget bridge for the past
| few months. It helped me get my sleep back on track and my
| fitness levels back to a baseline. Previously I had a Basis and I
| really miss the galvanic skin response sensor and the temperature
| sensor. There are not any devices that work with Gadgetbridge,
| let alone anything on the market I trust using that has these two
| additional sensors, which allows be to see triggers in stress
| beyond the heart rate.
|
| Hats off to the Pine folks for having a smartwatch, but for God's
| sake if they are going to develop their own devices from the
| ground up please include a temp sensor at the least.
| TekMol wrote:
| I would totally buy it if I could order it locally in Europe.
|
| When I ordered a PinePhone from Hong Kong, it was just too much
| of a hassle for my liking. Waiting for an indefinite amount of
| time until it gets shipped and then deal with customs.
|
| I wonder how many customers there are per country. Would it make
| sense to have local distributors around the world?
|
| Or maybe at least one per continent?
| solarkraft wrote:
| The PinePhone is a special beast that had or still has some
| supply issues AFAIK (also with the higher value customs issues
| are more likely).
|
| I personally had no issues ordering stuff from Pine64, albeit
| it did take long.
| mbreese wrote:
| It's not a special beast. Everything I've ordered from there
| has some issues with shipping (maybe the rock boards are
| better). But honestly, that's to be expected and they make no
| claims to the contrary. Hopefully the shift to a commercial
| store will make this better.
| glenstein wrote:
| >Waiting for an indefinite amount of time until it gets shipped
| and then deal with customs.
|
| I got my Pinebook from Hong Kong and was stunned at how quick
| it came. I was expecting a month or two, and if memory serves
| it was closer to a just a couple of weeks.
|
| I wonder why phones are more of a hassle to order from Hong
| Kong than laptops?
| commoner wrote:
| Pine64 has announced that they will open online retail stores
| in certain regions, including Europe and North America, this
| year:
|
| https://www.pine64.org/2020/12/02/pine-store-community-prici...
|
| These new stores will offer a higher standard of customer
| service, but the products will also be priced higher. The
| original community Pine Store will remain available in its
| current form.
| unwind wrote:
| I bought the Pinecil (temp-controlled soldering iron running on
| a RISC-C micro) and had no problems. Customs was ~$15 and fully
| automated (Sweden). Got it delivered in our mail box.
| chrsw wrote:
| Cool project. I'm starting to become a fan of dual core BLE SoCs
| though. One small M0 to handle the BLE stack (which typically has
| to be high priority) and one M4 for the application.
| jbj wrote:
| After using a pebble time round since it came on the market, I
| really value the 4 physical buttons (back) on the left vs
| (up/select/down) on the right. I have never used a watch with a
| touch screen function, but I read oppinions of the watches made
| by fitbit after they aquired pebble, that it was a mix of touch
| screen and buttons. letting this have both technologies while
| being open source leaves a lot of room for developers I would
| imagine. But leaning onto what I read about those 3button fitbit
| watches I hope there will be a future version with 4 buttons.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Weirdly enough, I prefer the more "toy-like" Pebble buttons to
| the more "solid-looking" Pebble Time ones : they are easier to
| find without looking, and easier to press.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Having had both, the Pebble buttons got a bit gummy over time
| whereas the Pebble Time buttons are still very solid. The
| latter seem more well put-together, IMO.
| Fnoord wrote:
| The Pebble 2 SE buttons are known to fade off eventually.
| There's a hardware mod (3D printer) which requires orig.
| Pebble Classic buttons to fix it. Unfortunately, I broke my
| Pebble 2 SE in the process. Its very delicate hardware.
|
| I ended up buying a Fossil Hybrid HR instead. Its a decent
| watch, just a tad expensive.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Yeah, I guess that was one reason for the change...
| jbj wrote:
| Absolutely, I have used pebble time round since it came
| out, no button issues
| kungito wrote:
| I so want to move to a standalone smartwatch and not have to
| carry a phone. I need nfc payment with a bank supporting the
| whatever (Google Pay or something), GPS with a maps app, LTE with
| support for whatsapp and calls + sms and bluetooth for wireless
| buds for calls. Don't even need music. Maybe I could even skip
| NFC payment by having a slot to insert a cut contactless credit
| card although I like the extra security of having to unlock the
| device to use Google Pay. I only wish Android smartwatches
| supported whatsapp voice message sending and weren't so slow to
| the point of being unusable
| bb123 wrote:
| Doesn't the 4G Apple Watch support all of your requirements? I
| suppose if you had to a buy an iPhone to set it up that could
| be a substantial investment but an iPhone 6S would do the job.
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| The crux of the issue will probably continue to be battery
| technology, for a while. The latest Apple Watches have
| basically everything you already want, including GPS &
| Cellular. They're not designed to be master devices though,
| since the watch formfactor is really hard to get much done on
| without some sort of master device for login, etc. Longer and
| more intensive use (more mapping, more calls) would probably
| kill the battery in nothing flat. While they're really good
| smart watches, they already struggle to keep up with the
| cpu/power/battery tradeoffs that are required for even a
| reasonable 1-day life.
|
| Some basic things you wouldn't expect, like crypto for HTTPS,
| take a LOT of work on a tiny wrist-mounted CPU.
| sgt wrote:
| Has anyone thought about the potential of using these in embedded
| projects? It already has a powerful processor, and some
| outputs/inputs should be possible to reach by having a breakout
| board, and it comes with a screen so it would be useful for on-
| site configuration and diagnostics.
| slim wrote:
| I have a lilygo wristband it has ESP32 and comes with abreakout
| board for $20
|
| https://www.tindie.com/products/ttgo/t-wristband-diy-program...
| pantalaimon wrote:
| A nrf52840 dongle would be more useful for that
| sgt wrote:
| Yeah but does it come with a screen and buttons?
| keepingscore wrote:
| Looks like adafruit makes one https://www.adafruit.com/prod
| uct/4500?gclid=Cj0KCQiA0MD_BRCT...
| aryamaan wrote:
| I'll buy one in a heartbeat which tracks Sp02 throughout and
| viberates/beeps when it goes below a threshold.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| Withings has one certified as medical device (the only one I
| know of that got such certification)
| dmitrygr wrote:
| This is what we (early people in the android wear team) wanted
| android wear to be, until word from the top came down that "it
| shall run android, or it shall not exist". The rest is
| history....
| wsgeorge wrote:
| I'm not really familiar with this space, but what did you think
| it should run? I can't imagine a team building a smartwatch at
| Google at that time expecting anything other than Android.
| noman-land wrote:
| Speaking of which, I recently discovered a javascript based open
| source smart watch.
|
| https://banglejs.com
|
| It's a little bulky but seems like it could be a fun device to
| hack around on. I got one recently from Adafruit.
| TimJRobinson wrote:
| This is awesome! I've been looking for an open source alternative
| to my Fitbit since Google bought the company.
|
| I'm really just looking for something that can track my health
| data + sleep and has an api to get the data in a raw form for
| further analysis.
| scrps wrote:
| Might want to look at an Amazfit bip paired with Gadgetbridge.
| Gadgetbridge can export sleep, heartrate, and exercise data. It
| exports as a db though I have yet to fool around with it or
| with my raw data.
| purplecats wrote:
| won't apple just murder this? its like a jackel trying to steal
| meat from a bear's meal
| kccqzy wrote:
| Apple would just laugh at this because it's not a serious
| competitor.
| vuciv1 wrote:
| Ah, I don't see sleep tracking. Gimme sleep tracking and I'm in!
| snvzz wrote:
| This isn't some app store based device, where you install apps.
|
| What's flashed into the device is the whole system image, and
| it's up to you (that's the whole point!) to decide what this
| image does.
|
| Anything sample code they provide is to be seen as a sample
| only.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| well it's all open source, so you can add it yourself
| donpdonp wrote:
| I have a pinetime and the form factor is great (until I lost the
| back plate, next one will be sealed). All the opensource activity
| around the watch is also great. The biggest drawback to me is
| only 64k of ram. Thats a Commodore64's worth of ram. The 240x240
| screen is 57kbytes, it must have its own display ram.
|
| Also NordicSemi never seemed to be particularly opensource
| friendly. I'm hoping for a future RISCV edition of this watch
| with more ram.
| listic wrote:
| Do you state that it has its own display RAM or doesn't it?
|
| 240x240 is ~56.25 kB at 8 bpp. the screen is RGB 65K colors,
| that is, 16 bpp; so the framebuffer size should be twice
| larger. I assume that the display controller has its own
| memory. True, you would need another 112,5 kB for double-
| buffering, but maybe you can do without it.
| deadw3ight wrote:
| Color displays are great, but they should have had an option
| for a (color or black and white) e-paper display. More
| efficient for these purposes imo.
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| I would pay so much for a hackable watch like this with a 3
| or 4 color epaper display, I'd almost pay as much as an
| apple watch if it was high quality hardware and had a great
| open API and toolchain.
| rch wrote:
| I'd pay more than for mass produced consumer gear, from
| any manufacturer.
| deadw3ight wrote:
| Go on ebay and purchase a Pebble Time. Color epaper
| display, fully hackable even after being discontinued
| thanks to the dev community who continues to update it
| with "Rebble" the open source version of the OS it ran
| on.
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| Thanks!
| makomk wrote:
| Apache have a fully open source Bluetooth LE stack for most of
| the Nordic Semi chips, in part because they actually documented
| their radio hardware unlike most other manufacturers.
| plasticchris wrote:
| I think the linux foundation has one in zephyr as well.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Zephyr uses NimBLE
| deadw3ight wrote:
| Yeah, the original Apple watch had like half a GB, and a
| raspberry pi zero ($5 price) has the same. Couldn't they have
| fit that within both budget and size?
| leoedin wrote:
| It's a microcontroller rather than an application chip - so
| the amount of RAM will always be significantly less. A really
| beefy high end microcontroller might have 1MB of internal RAM
| - and for most applications that's more than enough.
| deadw3ight wrote:
| Ohhhhh, I didn't realize that. Makes a lot more sense, I
| guess it is a better comparison to an Arduino than a
| raspberry pi.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Couldn't they have fit that within both budget and size?
|
| Oh they could have. The problem is: it's _extremely_ hard to
| get access to powerful SoCs - the vendors simply won 't work
| with you and most of the documentation is under NDA.
| deadw3ight wrote:
| > it's extremely hard to get access to powerful SoCs - the
| vendors simply won't work with you
|
| That's a really good point. I remember having the Pebble
| watch (this was pre-Apple and Android watches) and I think
| it had 128 KB of RAM total, including OS, background tasks,
| apps, etc. That was a mass produced and commercialized item
| though.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I've written about the other challenges in another post:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25252022
| rubenbe wrote:
| Slapping on a more RAM on the PCB is not free energy-wise.
| The watch only has a 180mAh battery that needs to provide
| power for an entire week.
| deadw3ight wrote:
| I mentioned in another comment about how I had the Pebble
| watch (before Apple and Android watches were a thing) and
| it had 128 kb ram total, but it lasted 11 days. That thing
| was a beast, but as someone else mentioned cost is a. big
| consideration too. It had 150 mAh on the newer models,
| before it was discontinued, so while I'm sure it definitely
| eats up energy I think it's definitely possible to fit more
| RAM in the power constraints.
|
| Granted that was an e-paper display. (They had color and
| black and white options)
| [deleted]
| dirtyid wrote:
| Casio F-91W for cyberpunk IED makers.
|
| I wish smartwatch templates adopt more multiple programmable
| buttons. Nice to have a functional media remote during winter
| with gloves on. Pepple got so much right.
| krzyk wrote:
| Lack of NFC :(
|
| But probably even if it had it it wouldn't work with Google/Apple
| Pay, for me payments using my watch would be the best application
| of "smart" together with notifications.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| This is the frustrating thing about integrating with payment
| systems, it's far out of reach for a FOSS project like this.
|
| Cryptocurrencies are better in that regard but few businesses
| accept cryptocurrencies, GNU Taler would also be better but I
| think that requires banks to be on board with it which they're
| also unlikely to do.
| agilob wrote:
| >But probably even if it had it it wouldn't work with
| Google/Apple Pay
|
| Defy not with 4MB of storage.
| tannerbrockwell wrote:
| See also the TTGO T-Watch-2020 which is based on an ESP32
| processor.
|
| [1]: https://www.tindie.com/products/ttgo/lilygor-ttgo-t-
| watch-20... [2]: https://github.com/Xinyuan-
| LilyGO/TTGO_TWatch_Library
| jmiskovic wrote:
| Does it the watch have support for Lua? It's popular language
| around ESP32 but it's not mentioned on any product materials.
|
| Is the size some standard? I would prefer some other belt but
| don't know how to search for it?
| StavrosK wrote:
| I've been using ESP8266es and ESP32s for years and Lua isn't
| really that popular. The original NodeMCU did come with Lua,
| but I've never used it (I just flashed something else as soon
| as I got them) and I don't know of many people using it
| either.
|
| I'd say that MicroPython is more popular than Lua at this
| point.
| goda90 wrote:
| This might be more up my alley because of WiFi. The only reason
| I'd want a wearable is to be able to put down my phone but
| still get notifications(and maybe reply to messages) and
| Bluetooth's range limits that. But honestly, I hate wearing
| watches.
| StavrosK wrote:
| That looks great, does anyone have one of them? What's the
| battery life like? The ESP32 isn't very battery-friendly.
| sokoloff wrote:
| ESP32 in deep sleep modes is reasonably battery friendly (all
| depending on your frame of reference, of course.) 5uA in RTC-
| only and 10+ uA in RTC+ULP sleep.
| StavrosK wrote:
| That's true, but then you don't get notifications or
| anything, since it's essentially off.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Presumably for a watch use case, you'd plan to deep sleep
| (ULP) or hibernate (RTC) 98+% of every minute and turn
| the radios on as infrequently as you could stand to get
| external notifications. I don't need split-second
| precision on my notifications if the alternative is a
| much longer battery life.
| StavrosK wrote:
| True, I guess the watch must have some sort of external
| circuitry that can wake it up every so often.
| sokoloff wrote:
| You can use the ESP32 onboard RTC to do periodic wakeups.
| (You can also use external stimuli via GPIO pins, but you
| don't _need_ anything extra if all you want is a periodic
| wakeup.)
| StavrosK wrote:
| It has an onboard RTC? Very nice, I missed that (and the
| ESP8266 didn't have one).
| economusty wrote:
| Need to add O2 sensor and ECG to compete.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| The cost is crazy low. Any insight on if this will function as a
| standard smartwatch (ie buzz for alerts) out of the box, or do I
| need to write my own bluetooth driver for this to be useful?
| opan wrote:
| I've heard it's already usable with Gadgetbridge on Android.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| This is really cool. $25 is quite impressive too. A GPS would be
| killer though.
|
| But doesn't quite scratch the itch that I've got for a higher
| level open source wearable or tablet (think IP67 Raspberry Pi
| tablet or watch) The key is that like this watch, the hardware is
| done and "consumer" ready.
| willis936 wrote:
| Even the Pi Zero uses an order of magnitude more power than you
| want in a watch.
|
| A Pi tablet would be a very fun toy. I'd be surprised if there
| wasn't something available for that now but may be bulky.
| bluGill wrote:
| The pine tab is a table available from the same site. I'm
| looking at it, but it isn't ready for someone with my limited
| hacking time - yet (I expect this to change in a few months)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I've got my eye on that one if it returns to stock. Thanks!
|
| A slightly alarming statement on the page:
|
| "Small numbers (1-3) of stuck or dead pixels are a
| characteristic of LCD screens. These are normal and should
| not be considered a defect."
|
| I've bought dozens of screens in my life (phones tablets
| monitors TV's) and have never had a stuck pixel. Is it
| actually normal?
| wongarsu wrote:
| That depends on where you buy. If you buy a Dell
| UltraSharp you can expect that there will be no dead
| pixels. But that's not because Dell has technology that
| completely prevents them, it's because Dell has good QC.
| If you buy a cheap screen from a manufacturer that does
| less QC you might seldomly have stuck pixels. And of
| course there are the bottom-of-the-barrel suppliers that
| buy whatever other suppliers discard because of QC
| defects. There's always someone who will buy a screen
| with a couple dead pixels if it's half the price.
|
| I don't know where pine falls, I would guess they buy
| straight from the factory without extensive QC and might
| seldomly have stuck pixels.
| detaro wrote:
| Yes. It's luckily rare-ish to actually happen nowadays,
| and expectations have become stricter, but many vendors
| do have policies that state that some amount of pixel
| defects are tolerable, this is not out of the ordinary.
| Although they do typically distinguish between pixels
| that stay lit and pixels that are dead, the former being
| more annoying and thus less acceptable. E.g. a policy
| might say that a screen of size X can have max 4 dark
| pixels and only 1 permanently lit that's somewhere at the
| edge of the screen, and no lit ones in the center.
| rjsw wrote:
| Only a sample of one but my PineBook had no dead pixels.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Good point about the watch!
| codecamper wrote:
| My fitbit charge 4 has gps, but what's it good for? I look at
| my runs and it shows a circle.
|
| I guess if I were out hiking it could be pretty nice to see
| where I've hiked. But that seems like such an edge case for 97%
| of people.
| hedora wrote:
| GPS enables distance tracking of runs that aren't on tracks.
| It could also allow turn by turn navigation if this thing had
| an sd card slot (4mb of storage isn't going to carry many
| maps).
|
| You could also use it as a bike speedometer or a running pace
| monitor.
|
| (Though, the battery may be too small for all these use
| cases.)
| wongarsu wrote:
| A couple KB should be enough for turn-by-turn navigation if
| you plan the route on a smartphone and then upload the map
| of the route and immediate area to the watch. You really
| only need a graph of GPS waypoints that you can navigate
| between
| looperhacks wrote:
| Funny, I actually have an open Pinetime in front of me right now.
| I use it for my masters thesis and it's a really nice project. If
| you want to try out some embedded development (that you can
| actually show to friends who don't aren't developers), I think
| this is the perfect project.
| wongarsu wrote:
| You might have just convinced me to buy the devkit. What do you
| use it for in your masters thesis?
| looperhacks wrote:
| Sadly I'm not sure what I'm allowed to make public just yet
| because I write the thesis for my company :(
| thebetatester wrote:
| Definitely post that thesis here when you're done. We'd all
| like a read!
| IvanSologub wrote:
| Why should products be either beautiful (like an apple) or
| functional (like Linux)?
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