An app for smartwatches that expect Android?

dobey

@moem said in An app for smartwatches that expect Android?:

Because no one has yet made one

That is indeed the answer. The author of Amazfish for SailfishOS was looking at porting it previously, but I don't know if they've made any progress. It doesn't support as much as Gadgetbridge on Android does, but it seems to be along the same route.

There's plenty of knowledge out there for anyone who wants to build such apps though.

It is. But the number of working watches is small.

This is just going to remain the unfortunate reality when developers have to reverse engineer support for devices, whether to flash a different OS on them, or to just talk to them normally, until device makers build products to open standards and support alternate platforms. Until then, it's only going to be something that works with whatever hardware the developers scratching their own itch have around.

Moem

@dobey Thank you. I feel enlightened.

AppLee

@moem
I don't really know the market of smartwatches but long time ago when I ran an Android phone, I had a LG G Watch R.
Now I have a project to fix it if I can and migrate to Asteroid, but that's not the point.

My point is this kind of watch is high end and uses AndroidWear.
AndroidWear is deeply integrated into Android... On iOS at that time an app was proposed by Google and Apple was not so found of it...
Now, I don't know the situation. A lot happened I guess.

But IF something similar is still possible (an app for iOS), then I guess one can find a way to do it for UT. It's a huge work of retro-engineering and tweaking UT (in the right way of course).
But seen the battle a that time over smartwatches and maybe some fragmentation in various OSes it might be very hard.
And the worst case is if each cheap smartwatch is sold with its own app available on Android and iOS. This way for each brand you can expect a lot of trouble for each individual model.

Basically if one app can rule them all : difficult but possible
If not forget about it...

Moem

@applee Thank you, too!

OhneZ

Hello,
What actually happened to the Pinetime ? Was it only a development study or will it be launched on the market?
It's probably more possible to start there for an app.

Moem

@ohnez That is a good question! I ran into that when searching, too, and it did look so interesting. From the looks of it, it is actually coming: https://pine64.com/product-category/smartwatches/?v=0446c16e2e66

I would think that a Pine smartwatch would need to work with a Pinephone... and so it would seem like it might jive well with UT.

AppLee

@ohnez
That's more a question for Pine64 than here.
As far as I know if enough demand exists it is likely to be produced.

But the PineTime cannot host an heavy OS like Asteroid, so the firmware has to be device specific thus it will require a specific app.
Given the projects are open source it might land on UT one day, but it's been a year with major progress but still no real product... wait and see :crossed_fingers:

Keneda

@applee said in An app for smartwatches that expect Android?:

But the PineTime cannot host an heavy OS like Asteroid

Sad...

AppLee

@keneda
It's a 25$ device, not a high end 200$ smartwatch...

Keneda

@applee
Why would be one linked to the other?
Pinephone is 149$ and you can install uTouch on it, or any other foss system.
Only one thing needed : enought space to install, no need 200$ for that.
Secpond one could be enough power to run.
Raspberry can make 10$ board than run linux, Pine can make 25$ device that can run astroïd, isn't it?

jiho

I am currently working on a Smartwatch Sync App for UT, to at least be able to sync the time and get data like heart rate, steps, etc. (for now at least)

I might have an alpha version of it ready in a few days (can't guarantee that though), if anyone would be interested.

I am currently focused on supporting Infinitime.

Moem

@jiho Wow, that is very cool! I'm sure many people will find that useful!

AppLee

@keneda
You can find the soc used in the Pinetime between 3 to 15 USD.
Then you have the mold for the watch case, add the screen and the screen controller and a strap.
The PineTime has 64K of RAM, 512 K of flash memory and additional 4MB

To run UT you need a much stronger hardware.
To run AndroidWear you need at least 1,000 times the power of the Pinetime (512MB of RAM and 4GB or eMMC) almost comparable to UT's requirements.
And to run Asteroid you also need a stronger SOC, additional RAM and ROM this is not free and to integrate in a smal factor it will cost even more.
For a company like Pine64 it should be around 150 to 200 USD for a product less powerful than the Pinephone...

Yes cost is important, technology is cheaper and cheaper but not cheap.

TotalSonic

This thread inspired me to purchase a new old stock in open box LG G Watch R to put Asteroid OS on. Looking forward to seeing how the Telescope app integrates it with my Volla phone running UT, and will report back after some time to review it.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Moem

@totalsonic said in An app for smartwatches that expect Android?:

will report back after some time

Please do!

ashleycrue

@jiho Hi, yes I would find that very useful and I would like to test if possible.

malditobastardo

Rockwork is the reason why i have 3 Pebbles (2 PT, 1 HR) and they work fantastic on UT with exactly "all" of the configs you can get in the android ecosystem. Love those watches, I may buy some more of them just for the future. You never know!

I have 1 AsteroidOS watch as well but the development is sadly too slow and the battery of the watch barely makes half a day in the meantime with the Pebble's I can get an average of 8-9 days of use

Moem

@malditobastardo said in An app for smartwatches that expect Android?:

Rockwork is the reason why i have 3 Pebbles (2 PT, 1 HR) and they work fantastic on UT

How do you deal with having more than one Pebble? As far as I know (but maybe you know something I don't) Rockwork can only connect to one Pebble. If there is a way to make several profiles, and switch between them, I haven't found it.

malditobastardo

@moem Hello, yes that's the issue. I have the other watches paired with my other phones, they are not attached to the same phone, in fact, I've never tried doing it. Maybe Brian Douglass can give us more insight about this.

Moem

@malditobastardo said in An app for smartwatches that expect Android?:

Maybe Brian Douglass can give us more insight about this.

I've asked him, and he said he was hardly involved, the app was mostly made by Michael Zanetti. So I asked him, and he did not reply.
So I decided to ask the community for help.