I’m looking for any suggestions for smartwatch that it similar like Google Pixel Phones with GrapheneOS. Is there such a thing?
The Bangle.js 2 is pretty cool
That’s what I use. It’s way more stripped down than a modern smart watch, but it has good battery life, a transflexive LCD, can discretely give me notifications so I can keep my phone on silent, and can show me the weather at a glance.
There are more things it can do, I just find my phone is better for the majority of them.
Are the notifications actionable? (Snoozing alarms, canned replies to messages, etc)
I couldn’t find that important detail on the website easily.
So frustrating that their logo is a nice looking round watch, but their product is an ugly rectangular one.
Big fan of the PineTime for minimalism and extraordinary battery life, but the Bangle looks compelling. Maybe once the PineTime dies.
PineTime
Bangle.js 2
TIL
Lilygo T-Watch. Sorry, I know I’m late to the party but no one mentioned these. They’re a little closer to a development platform, but basic enough for anyone to pick up and learn. They’re similar to the PineTime in terms of being low-power, more simple options. But this uses a more powerful ESP32-S3 SoC and is a lot more responsive.
Gatgetbridge (your link) has a breakdown of devices they support https://gadgetbridge.org/gadgets/ . You can click through the vendors to find devices which are both “highly supported” and “no vendor-pair”. Meaning most/all the features work without any reliance on the vendor app.
As for the similarity you are asking about with pixel->GrapheneOS, there are very few watches that can run an alternative open source firmware or operating systems apart from the ones that are already open source, like bangle.js, pinetime, etc. Wearables are even more specialized than phones, they require specialized code designed specifically for them and would likely require pretty extreme effort to reverse-engineer.
I use a pebble 2 HR with gadgetbridge but the watch it self runs the old pebble firmware which gadgetbridge talks to. This is fine for me, but if you are looking for a more modern watch you may have to make some compromises.
PineTime is nice, wearing it right now.
What all can it do?
Notifications, media control, minor navigation aids, some heart rate stuff (they’ve linked some papers for their algorithm which I think is cool cause now we can discuss the validity of said algorithm for heart rate monitoring) and most importantly 1024 (the game)
And 1 week (approx) of battery life
I thought the game was 2048.
oh my bad, yeah. its all the same game to me.
Nice. Guess I will get one after all.
I’m a PineTime-user too, but be advised, that there is no sleep tracking, and the heartrate measurement is not passive, nor does it work in the background.
But if you want a simple watch for notifications, weather, time, step count, and a handy flashlight, with up to three weeks uptime with one charge, the pinetime is for you!
Also, you might want to consider joining the PineTime-Community, bring some life there! <3
Similar to what most smartwatches can: measure heartbeat, show notifications and answer calls from your smartphone, flashlight (by showing white write screen), show weather, etc.
You can’t actually take calls on the PT, you can use it to pick up your phone.
It’s pretty barebones, but I like it for the price that it costs and the freedom it gives.
I have a PineTime, but I’d have to go with the Bangle.js.
I have a pinetime and I basically just stopped using it. I thought it being open source would mean I could add my own features, but development for it sucks and it’s massively limited.
Can you expand more, why it is limited?
It has 512kb of flash, and Over 400kb is already taken by the base firmware. Also, you have to flash a new firmware every time you want to try a new feature.
64kb of ram, too. So you have to be extremely cautious and careful about how you code any features.
It’s just not worth it.
