Hi all,
Simple question. Does anybody know a (not to expensive) sportswatch that is supported by Linux / FOSS software?
(Yes, I know ‘FOSS software’ is two times the word software) 😀
Hi all,
Simple question. Does anybody know a (not to expensive) sportswatch that is supported by Linux / FOSS software?
(Yes, I know ‘FOSS software’ is two times the word software) 😀
PineTime is currently $24.95 plus shipping
It’s complete crap, on the level of not being able to run the stopwatch in the background and having it restart if you get a notification.
Also, it’s 65EUR if you want to order it in Europe
My dad got one shipped (imported) to germany for less than 50Eur. The 3 issues he had was that the notifications didn’t work on his phone (an android update fixed that), random disconnects on some phone models and that the current alarm app only supports one alarm.
I call bs or it was before they started shipping from EU. You literally couldn’t order to Europe or EU countries from the other warehouse while they were stocking it.
It’s got a lot more issues than that. It’s utter trash unless you like want to practice CPP.
He ordered it from the global store a few month ago, it took ~2-3 weeks to ship to germany.
Thats the only issues he told me. I also tried it for a day and didnt notice anything else it cant do, which i need. He and I only need it to show notifications/calls, track steps/heart rate, have a working alarm and show the time. I also didnt have the disconnect and notification issues, that he had.
Lucky guy, I ordered it to Germany and they wouldn’t let me use the non-eu warehouse (so they can get rid of their overpriced stock I’m guessing)
Stopwatch - can’t be minimised, can’t see the time while it’s open, restarts when you get a notification (the fixes have been sitting in the PRs for years)
Notifications - don’t get cleared when you clear them on the phone, clearing them on the watch doesn’t close the notifications screen, answering your phone through the watch doesn’t dismiss the call notification
Heart rate monitor - essentially useless since it can’t take periodic measurements, doesn’t work great unless you’re wearing the watch on the inside of your hand, but at least they’ve managed to finally read the sensor docs and program it correctly
Step syncing is a massive pain in the ass and often requires you to “manually” sync them by walking around while keeping both devices active
Battery barely lasts longer than a week even with infrequent wearing (and that’s a massive improvement over the previous 3-4 days max)
Lift to wake up usually acts more like shake to wake
The UI is pretty bad overall
There are like 2 half decent watch faces
Horrific weight distribution and the shitty strap make it feel 10x heavier. Like, my automatic is almost 2x its weight and I barely feel it, while this crap is constantly reminding me it’s there.
The CPP OS doesn’t let you chose what apps to activate nor does it have any way to load your code aside from compiling everything
Updates are only mostly headache free if you use specific PC software. Keyword is mostly, I’ve had some updates take a bunch of attempts to install.
That’s just from the top of my head
I heard of the heart rate issues in a lot of reviews, but it just works on my (and my dads) skin. Its bad that it doesnt work for everyone though. I found a stupid workaround for background heart rate monitoring, you just start the manual monitoring and then close the app on the watch, which doesnt stop the monitoring.
We only had sync issues only on my dads phone, my phone (Fairphone 5 w. CalyxOS) works just fine. The issues on his phone were fixed by an Android update a few weeks ago.
Im happy with the battery, it lasts longer than a fitbit we have.
I dont think its a perfect watch, but for <50Eur with shipping its not bad
Doesn’t have a lot of features such as GPS
ah. That looks very interesting. And they have a show here in the EU, and it seems to work with gadgetbridge (thx Lambda RX :-))
Thanks!
I’d advise against pinetime as a sports watch because it doesn’t accurately track mileage or pace. I’m looking to replace mine eventually with a Garmin or something.
ah … currently not available :-/