19 ms·

Wyze $20 Smart Watch

256 points by ignorantguy 6y ago

miguelrochefort 6y ago
I often wonder how Wyze makes any money. They're usually 2-10 times cheaper than their competitors, while providing better features, better design, and better support. I love all of my Wyze devices and purchased another $100 worth of them just yesterday (3 bulbs, 2 sockets, 3 sensors, 1 camera, 1 SD card). I like how they go out of their way to add features to their devices. For example, they provide a firmware for the Wyze Cam that turns it into a webcam, which I've been using for online education for the past few months. For the past few days, I've done extensive research on smart watches and fitness bands. I looked into everything, from Apple Watch, Tizen, Pebble, WearOS, Fitbit, PineTime, etc. I haven't found anything with such a good value as the Wyze Watch. Some of the hackable nRF52832 based devices (PineTime, Colmi P8) have similar prices, but they have a smaller display, no SPo2 sensor, and you basically have to write your own OS (InfiniTime, WASP-OS, Zephyr, RIOT). I'm really impressed. I wonder if there's a catch.
- fullstop 6y ago
  You might just be seeing the markup of other products. Their products are cheap enough that if it misses a motion event you'll say "oh well, it's doing well for a $20 camera."
- xnx 6y ago
  You were able to find sensors? When I've looked they've always been sold out for months.
  - electriclove 6y ago
    They are coming out with new sensors.
- wsinks 6y ago
  Are they selling a bunch of activity data to people or something? $20 for a smart watch has me wanting to try this. I wonder if the catch is that they only work for about a year?
- adkadskhj 6y ago
  It's funny - i avoid Wyze because it seems such a good deal. Something seems off about that, the price is simply too good - and i loathe being the product these days.
  - gm 6y ago
    I hate being the product as well, but it's pretty much inescapable now. Paying for a service does not opt you out of being marketed to other income streams as a product (ie, combined stats, being part of a test group, etc). The best we can hope for by paying for a product is getting additional features and not being inconvenienced (ie, avoiding ads).
    - vorpalhex 6y ago
      I almost bought an $80 pdf application (pdf expert) only to find out it phones home with my device details... And now that company won't be getting my $80. I'll use the open source alternatives, even if they aren't as nice to use. Use open source, write your own open source or just do without. You can't just accept the inevitable and bow into it - inevitability doesn't change morality.
      - nicoburns 6y ago
        Device details? As in, operating system and version, cpu, etc. That seems super reasonable for support purposes...
        vorpalhex 6y ago
        > 2.1.2 Regarding the App: certain data is transmitted by your mobile device: namely your IP address, the periods of time in which you use the App and the type of device you use (e.g. IPhone, IPad), as well as events within the application recorded with Amplitude analytics in order to give us the possibility to continuously improve the App. From their privacy policy. Oddly enough, no, they don't need to broadcast my ip and when I use the app. Not required at all for me to read PDFs. They may want that data - and if so they should ask me instead of just taking it.
- paxys 6y ago
  Selling at a loss to build up their ecosystem I imagine, same as Amazon with all their devices.
  - fullstop 6y ago
    They could be hoping to be acquired by Amazon as well.
    - electriclove 6y ago
      This. The founders are all exAmazon and I think this is a likely exit strategy.
- megaunicorn123 6y ago
  "Wyze Labs, Inc ... are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates." I would like to believe there is good in the world, but other than Linux nothing has held it up.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    While Wyze has undoubtedly a relationship with Amazon that goes beyond them being just ex engineers the trade mark disclaimer isn’t for Wyze Labs Inc itself which is privately owned but for Alexa and the rest of the Amazon products they integrate with.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    > but other than Linux nothing has held it up. You could probably include the EFF, GNU Project, BSD's, and a couple others as well.
  - comfydragon 6y ago
    Inspect Element shows that's just a formatting goof in the footer. Wyze is not part of Amazon (...yet...). © 2020 Wyze Labs, Inc Amazon, Alexa, Echo Spot and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Google, Inc., Google, Google Home, Google Home Mini, G logo, The Google Assistant built-in, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google, Inc. All rights reserved.
  - untog 6y ago
    You've misread. > © 2020 Wyze Labs, Inc Amazon, Alexa, Echo Spot and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. The page is copyright Wyze Labs. Separately, those other terms are trademarks of Amazon.
    - megaunicorn123 6y ago
      I blame their website for the mixup. they forgot a newline.
- woah 6y ago
  There are a lot of cameras at that price range. I got one from a competitor (some router manufacturer, forgot which one).
- dperfect 6y ago
  This may have changed, but in the past, I believe they were essentially just rebranded Xiaomi cameras (possibly from other suppliers) with different firmware. I originally thought the Chinese products were clones of Wyze, but it appears Wyze is actually just using existing low-cost hardware from overseas. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong though. FYI - for some camera models (Xiaomi or Wyze), you can flash them with this custom firmware[1], allowing for a lot more customization. [1] https://github.com/EliasKotlyar/Xiaomi-Dafang-Hacks https://github.com/EliasKotlyar/Xiaomi-Dafang-Hacks
- knowaveragejoe 6y ago
  Has anyone done a thorough security analysis of any of their devices? Do they phone home or otherwise open some sort of back door? I agree that it does seem too good to be true
- samspenc 6y ago
  I was only aware of their Wyze Cam (which I have a couple of) and I had no idea till I saw this post that they have other devices now, such as Plug, Bulb, Scale etc.
- abawany 6y ago
  Quality can sometimes be a bit iffy (my motion sensor and door open sensors failed) and now the useful camera event alerts are behind a (small) monthly fee.
dr_j_ 6y ago
As a runner, this is relatively useless without a GPS. Include that and sign me up in a heartbeat.
- fullstop 6y ago
  Look into the Amazfit Bip. A bit more than $20, but cheap and the battery lasts ~40 days. If you're using GPS a lot it will be less than 40. Even so, battery life is measured in weeks, not days.
  - asadlionpk 6y ago
    +1. Highly recommend Amazfit Bip! The battery life is so long that I forget where I keep my charging cable.
  - CWuestefeld 6y ago
    I've got a Bip. Using the GPS to track running or hiking does use a lot of power. I need to recharge about every 2 weeks, tracking a 1-hour walk every day. I do recommend it. Another differentiating factor is the display. The Wyze product doesn't indicate the display tech, but the Amazfit using e-Ink, so it's always on and has good visibility even in bright light, something that competitors like Apple (with its minuscule battery life and disappearing display) can't claim.
    - fullstop 6y ago
      Just one point of clarification, the Amazfit Bip does not use e-ink. It's a transreflective LCD screen, kind of like the old Game Boy Advance screens. It's easier to see in bright sunlight, and always on.
      - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
        Another clarification, the display of the Bip(and Pebble, Garmin and others) is not a transreflective type but a SHARP Memory LCD where pixels only need power to change their state but need almost no power keeping their current state, like e-ink, but better, so it looks like transreflective in the sunlight. The transreflective LCD type of the Gameboy would absolutely nuke your battery life as it needs to be actively refreshed even on stationary images. I'm deeply saddened this type of display is not more popular among wearables vs OLED. Who doesn't want 30 day+ battery life and always-on sunlight visibility?
jnurmine 6y ago
Interesting, but they ship only to the US, which is a deal breaker for me. Would've ordered.
- ljf 6y ago
  Similar here. I hadn't heard of them before but took a look at their site and am impressed by the range. If they shopped to the UK I'd be buying a few bits for sure. Similar prices to xiaomi etc but their apps look good. (though the xiaomi apps are pretty good too)
  - tssva 6y ago
    In some cases their hardware is xiaomi hardware. Their model is to utilize existing low cost hardware but run their own custom firmware on it. This is how they have grown their product range so quickly.
- RantyDave 6y ago
  Gah! Dammit.
emosenkis 6y ago
Any indication that these will be hackable like their cameras? What SoC are these based on?
- MrK93 6y ago
  Good chance that they are based on Nordic's nRF52.
breck 6y ago
Apple was smart not to compete on the low-end for watches. Median income in the USA is $68,703. Why would someone spend 1/25 of 1 percent of their income on something that they wear 100% of the time? That makes no sense. I shell out $200-$300 each year for the latest FitBit (Apple Watch is promising, but that battery life :(. The sleep tracking is gold).
- bhupy 6y ago
  > Median income in the USA is $68,703. Be that as it may, there's absolutely a non-trivial amount of revenue available at the low end of the market. Apple historically never participates in that market, but that's an opportunity for other hardware providers.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    In fact if you get "good enough" at the low end there is more money there than up top. Sure $200 isn't much compared to me income, but it is still more than an impulse buy. If you can get the $20 market it becomes an impulse buy for a lot more people. If you are good enough they compare with their friends and the friends also buy - those who would never spend $200 on an impulse buy, and those who already have and are looking to replace theirs.
    - treesknees 6y ago
      The low price of $20 actually slows my impulse to buy it. Sure, it's not a lot of money, but how reliable or usable can it be for that price? It makes me think of a cheap knock-off device I'd find at a TJ Maxx store on clearance. What makes it so cheap even compared to a Fitbit?
      - bhupy 6y ago
        You might be right, but the current price point of watches could also be inflated. Let's not forget that once upon a time, pocket-watches were only for the rich. It wasn't until the advent of quartz watches that you could find a solid watch (digital or analog) for under $100. Today, $20ish digital watches are fairly common on the market. One of my favorite watches is a cheap Timex Weekender (a favorite of /r/malefashionadvice IIRC). Just like one might decide to go for a stylish (but cheap) quartz watch instead of that expensive automatic, one could decide to go for a stylish (but cheap) Wyze watch instead of that $300 Apple Watch. We'll have to see if Wyze (or someone similar) can actually execute and pull that off.
kencausey 6y ago
I wonder if this is roughly similar to the Sylvania branded smart watch that Ben Heckendorn recently evaluated and disassembled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-Me4eP8c2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-Me4eP8c2Q
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  Was thinking that too. I saw that MediaTek SOC in the Ben Heck teardown and started wondering about whether it was running Linux.
umeshunni 6y ago
How is Wyze churning out so many new hardware devices so rapidly? I hadn't heard of them till this year when I saw their camera on sale, but now they have a full suite of hardware products with ~50 employees. Are they essentially rebranding some Chinese manufacturer?
- untog 6y ago
  When it comes to their webcam: absolutely yes. You can get the exact camera they sell on Alibaba. That said, the software on the Alibaba versions is awful. I think their business model makes sense here: buy commodity hardware, make your own, better, software. (though to be honest their iOS app isn't great. But still)
  - woofie11 6y ago
    I'd pay good money if I had Chinese hardware with secure, privacy-guaranteeing software. I'd buy the smart watch right now if it was either open-source, it came with a strong privacy policy. As is, I see no reason to upload my health information to a random corporation. Indeed, I can see plenty of business models where I could give away smartwatches and cameras for the wealth of data I'd collect. Selling still makes more sense; you want people to have a vested interest in them.
    - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
      have a look at gadgetbridge, no need to upload anything anywhere
    - balls187 6y ago
      What about Apple's privacy do you disagree with?
      - woofie11 6y ago
        For example: "It may be necessary − by law, legal process, litigation, and/or requests from public and governmental authorities within or outside your country of residence − for Apple to disclose your personal information. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that for purposes of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary or appropriate." Why would I want my health data uploaded to an Apple server to be shared with governments? My data should live on my own devices, encrypted, and unaccessible to anyone other than myself.
julesallen 6y ago
I've been using their products since their first cam came out (was skeptical but hey, $20-odd bucks was low risk). Now have multiple cams, bulbs, and so on. Getting the watch is a low dough no brainer. Solid stuff for not a lot of money.
marcod 6y ago
$20 with Blood Oxy Meter is a good deal.
- shostack 6y ago
  How accurate is it and who owns or has access to your data?
grep_name 6y ago
Will this just run the same wearOS as other watches? It just says "compatible with popular apps", but the only thing I could see myself using a smartwatch for is xdrip, which is fairly niche
vmception 6y ago
> * Wyze Watch is not a medical device, and it is not intended to be used for medical purposes. How do we change reality to get these dumbass disclaimers out the way for perfectly functioning devices? Get FDA certification faster? Change safe harbors on liability that dont require cover-your-ass text that contradicts the point of including certain functionality? Get FDA out of the consumer medical device gatekeeping whatsoever?
- svachalek 6y ago
  Personally I like the idea of someone qualified spending the time to evaluate these and give it a stamp of approval. I just wish that led to something more like "we are being evaluated by XYZ agency, see this URL for approval status". Sure, it leaves an opening for egg on your face, but if you're serious about passing the test (and you shouldn't be selling medical devices if you're not) then you're going to pass eventually so show the confidence.
- altarius 6y ago
  How do we know these are perfectly functioning devices? The average person wouldn't read studies and documentation or ascertain the quality - I barely can and check HN comments for many medical studies :) FDA approval is a very strong signal at least. I'd rather avoid the supplements situation where manufacturers can essentially claim almost anything and most of the population isn't aware that it's a free-for-all. Manufacturers can still claim some function but at least there's currently a disclaimer that makes average people question some claims. I don't really love the mix of deregulation and healthcare (even adjecent, see supplements).
  - abawany 6y ago
    I like this person's rather thorough reviews of device accuracy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChNWxrTlmh4IRSevon1X93g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChNWxrTlmh4IRSevon1X93g but you are right, the ambiguity is bothersome.
  - vmception 6y ago
    > FDA approval is a very strong signal at least. FDA approvals of medical devices essentially breaks the software update system. So one of my possibilities was tweaking how thats done on devices. People seemed to decide to disagree on my post based on whichever possibility they didn't like, and ignored the possibility they wanted to discuss.
mrtksn 6y ago
Looks nice but a bit too similar to Apple Watch maybe?
krazykringle 6y ago
Does it run a Linux? Will I be able to ssh to it?
- xuhu 6y ago
  Would it matter, as long as you can build and flash it yourself ?
- borgel 6y ago
  With 512KB RAM and 16MB flash[1] I assume it's a microcontroller and doesn't run Linux. [1] https://wyze.com/wyze-watch.html#pageDetails https://wyze.com/wyze-watch.html#pageDetails
  - copperx 6y ago
    Slightly off topic, but are there microcontrollers that run Linux?
    - borgel 6y ago
      It's possible, but my impression is that no MMU makes it difficult. Here is an example [1] of Linux on a Cortex M4 (a very boring STM32F4XX) [1] https://elinux.org/STM32 https://elinux.org/STM32
      - robocat 6y ago
        Linux required an MMU at inception[1] and currently requires an MMU. Instead you have μClinux[2] which although it is integrated with the mainline kernel since 2.x, it lacks some important features, like it has neither fork() nor autogrow stacks[3]. [1] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~awb/linux.history.html https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~awb/linux.history.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ΜClinux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ΜClinux [3] https://www.eetimes.com/how-uclinux-provides-mmu-less-processors-with-an-alternative/# https://www.eetimes.com/how-uclinux-provides-mmu-less-proces...
    - aidenn0 6y ago
devsatish 6y ago
Been a Wyze customer for couple of years now. Bought many of their cameras from their store and Home Depot. The cameras are real good and much much cheaper than other big brands (Ring/Nest etc). It seems they are basically building a Xiaomi kinda of brand in the US (Xiaomi is extremely popular in countries like India where they have huge market base with well styled products similar to Apple line).
- yftsui 6y ago
  I have multiple Wyze cams and recently got hit with a big surprise, if Wyze cam lost power suddenly, the past 4 mins event footage is NOT stored on the local SD card, and the actual event is not stored on the cloud as well. Wyze still has a long way to go for resiliency comparing with Ring or Nest.
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    I tried to test this and discovered that my Wyze Cam thinks there isn't even an SD card installed (there is). In the cloud, it showed there was an event just before it was unplugged, but it won't let me download the footage. I would be pretty upset if I discovered these issues when I was trying to get footage from a break-in or other important event. EDIT: After a firmware update, it's now recognizing the SD card, but just as parent said, there is no video of me walking up, standing in front of the camera, and unplugging it. It's not missing 4 minutes, but definitely at least 20 seconds. This means a thief could just walk up to any Wyze cam, yank the power cord, and be certain that he wouldn't be caught on camera. Maybe there's a way for Wyze to grab the data from their cloud if the police asked for it, but it seems impossible for an end-user. Really disappointing.
- vineyardmike 6y ago
  Considering they often re-brand Xiaomi hardware, i wouldn't say they're building "a Xiaomi kinda of brand" as much as "re-building Xiaomi's brand"
- sikim 6y ago
  I'd suggest giving Eufy 2k cameras a try. I was also a long time Wyze fan but I've recently switched to Eufy after trying out their 2k cameras. Compared to Wyze, it offers better resolution (thus 2k in their name), on-device pet/human detection (Wyze charges monthly fees for cloud-based detection), and way better app experience. It's slightly more expensive but well worth the price for me.
dmje 6y ago
I see no way anyone could make this bit of hardware this cheaply without some pretty nasty exploitation going on somewhere up the chain. Count me out.
- microtherion 6y ago
  You might be surprised at how human ingenuity sometimes finds a way to make expensive hardware using just as much exploitation…
  - dmje 6y ago
    Um, having trouble understanding what you mean...?
    - microtherion 6y ago
      You're taking the low price as evidence that the device was manufactured by exploitative means. I was pointing out that at least the converse is not true: A high price is absolutely not evidence that something was NOT manufactured by exploitative means.
      - dmje 6y ago
        For sure, but you could reasonably claim that higher end manufacturers at least get slightly more attention from an oversight POV. Although not a direct correlation you could probably make some connection reasonably well between expense of gadget and extent of media / public interest in the manufacture / supply chain.
- cambalache 6y ago
  As if by buying the 1000+ USD Apple phone you are not supporting the same system. Newsflash, there is no ethical tech shopping, there will always be someone exploited along the line.
  - dmje 6y ago
whalesalad 6y ago
The old adage 'you get what you pay for' comes to mind here.
tcbawo 6y ago
Can anyone comment on the current state of the art for the sleep tracking feature of this or other smart watches? I have a Garmin Vivosmart HR that is close to end of life. I'm looking for something light with >7 day battery life, vibrating alarm clock, and decent sleep tracking.
- abawany 6y ago
  I am a Vivoactive HR user and will be buying the Vivoactive 4 soon. The always on display is indispensable, as is the battery life and SpO2 monitoring; Garmin is gold. I've tried Fitbit, Vivosmart 4, and AW4 but the Garmin is what I feel makes the best tradeoffs between functionality, usability, and quality plus they have great customer service. Edit0: fixed model names - darn Garmin with its meaningless model names.
- bentcorner 6y ago
  I have a Vivosmart HR as well but my wife got me a Fitbit Versa last year and it's a give-and-take. The battery life is worse but the color screen is really nice and the watch can do more (most notably have multiple alarms set from the watch). Vibration motor is better on the Fitbit. Sleep tracking is slightly better on the fitbit (re. graphs and data). Accuracy seems better but I'm no expert (I've gotten false positives where the Garmin thinks I'm sleeping if I'm sitting at my computer not moving much, Fitbit has tracked naps which is impressive). I kind of liked the Garmin app more than the Fitbit one. The fitbit app can be confusing to navigate and it's irritating that they try to upsell you on a subscription. The garmin app is more spartan but it's easier to see your data. I think it might be easier to extract your data from garmin as well. Syncing both watches to your phone is equally painful. I don't know of anything new that has a long battery life like the Vivosmart HR. Garmin claims equally long battery life on their newer devices but I'm skeptical.
- doitLP 6y ago
  Just curious, what do you actually do with your sleep data? After trying several trackers and building up a week or two of data I don’t really see a use for it. What’s the point of regularly monitoring it?
jerlam 6y ago
Smartwatches have fallen so far from their peak. In 2015, Pebble had a watch that had: - an app store, third party apps, third party watch faces, and a developer ecosystem - always on screen that didn't require a button press or specific arm gesture, and worked in bright, normally lit conditions - physical buttons instead of tiny buttons on a tiny screen barely larger than the finger pressing it - week long battery life Pebble was crushed by Fitbit, which didn't have any third party support, and by Apple, which had miserable battery life and relied on the connected phone to do most of its work. Now Pebble is long gone, Fitbit bought the remnants of Pebble is being acquired by Google, Google itself doesn't seem to have any interest in WearOS, and Apple Watch almost has two-day battery life and app store has never lived up to expectations. We now have "smart watches" which basically combine basic phone notification API implementations, a package of often unreliable sensors, mostly-off touchscreens, and bundled "apps" which can only be used with the hugest social media sites.
- colordrops 6y ago
  Google acquiring fitbit? Nooooo, I've been in the process of de-googlification and fitbit has massive amounts of my health data from the last half year. Need to figure out how to nuke all of that.
  - lovemenot 6y ago
    If your Fitbit data is linked to a residual Google account, you can use that account to delete it. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/465 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/465
- modeless 6y ago
  Don't forget: 7.5mm thick (for the round version). There is nothing on the market even close. I wore mine until last month when the battery gave out. If I could buy one with a new battery (not a replaced one as it compromises the waterproofing) I'd choose it over any other option available today.
  - ce4 6y ago
neolog 6y ago
Are there any developer-friendly hackable smartwatches?
- mfashby 6y ago
  Pinetime maybe https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ Pebbles were very hackable, but you can't buy new ones as other threads have pointed out.
- nfriedly 6y ago
  Lillygo makes a couple of interesting options built around the ESP32: T-Watch-2020 - $26 - http://www.lilygo.cn/prod_view.aspx?TypeId=50053&Id=1290&FId=t3:50053:3 http://www.lilygo.cn/prod_view.aspx?TypeId=50053&Id=1290&FId... T-Wristband - $18 - http://www.lilygo.cn/claprod_view.aspx?TypeId=21&Id=1282&FId=t28:21:28 http://www.lilygo.cn/claprod_view.aspx?TypeId=21&Id=1282&FId...
  - segmondy 6y ago
    These are amazing, thanks for sharing!
- eximius 6y ago
  Someone already said PineTime, but here is an interesting blog post about it: https://lupyuen.github.io/pinetime-rust-mynewt/articles/watchface https://lupyuen.github.io/pinetime-rust-mynewt/articles/watc...
- miguelrochefort 6y ago
  Lots of nRF52832 watches syncing with Dafit are hackable. They pretty much have the same hardware as the PineTime. The most popular one is the Colmi P8, which you can buy for $20-25.
kissgyorgy 6y ago
If you want a "smart enough" watch and you are mainly care for your health, I highly recommend any of the watches from Withings: https://www.withings.com/hu/en/ https://www.withings.com/hu/en/ They are a really awesome company, not trying to sell you some shit and making money, but honestly wanting to develop good products to improve your life! Very useful features for health monitoring and they don't cost as much. Plus the watches looks super cool!
- filoleg 6y ago
  Can fully back you up on this. Also, as a sidenote, their scale devices are awesome as well, and the watch line you linked used to be Nokia-branded (back when they owned Withings, before they spun out to be independent again).
- eecks 6y ago
  Those watches are nearly 300 euro..
  - Baeocystin 6y ago
    Is the price difference that great? I paid ~$150 for mine a few months ago, and checking Amazon here in the US, they're still going for about that.
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  I looked at all the high-end smart watches, decided they pretty much all sucked, and went with Withing's Steel HR Sport. I love it- Like you said, it's a smart-enough watch. I get text notifications on the small screen, which is surprisingly useful, and it does things like step tracking, heart rate, sleep tracking, etc. But it also has a multi-week battery life, and looks like, and is sized like, a normal watch. Highly recommended.
- rowellx68 6y ago
  I’ve always called it “smart-ish”, but yes, Withings watches are pretty awesome. I’ve recently gotten the ScanWatch and it feels quite premium. Probably the sapphire glass adding to the heft. My only gripe is that they do not offer any sort of repair service! If you break the glass, they will instead off you 25% off a new purchase.
chrysoprace 6y ago
Really keen on Wyze's lineup of products, but unfortunately after countless requests from people, they still don't ship to Australia.[1] [1] https://forums.wyzecam.com/t/deliver-to-australia/3666 https://forums.wyzecam.com/t/deliver-to-australia/3666
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Can you just use a reshipper? Or are there customs implications? It may honestly be a blessing if they ignore Australia - the usual route for companies targeting Australia is to double the USD price for the same product.
  - chrysoprace 6y ago
    Not always, but that's certainly often the case. I've never used a reshipper but I looked up reship.com and they charge at least $30 (!) to get a 200g parcel (150mm x 150mm x 150mm) shipped here.
smattiso 6y ago
I am trying to build something similar but I don't know how to get a non-functioning physical prototype built initially. What's the simplest way to get these type of aluminum cases, bands, etc?
- MobiusHorizons 6y ago
  How about buy a cheap Chinese smartwatch and reuse the case? If that works for you, it is very likely you could discover who manufactures it, and work with them to build yours.
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
  Short of paying many thousands of dollars in prototype engineering fees, you either buy an existing device and strip out the guts, or one of these for $20 https://serpac.com/bw-series.aspx https://serpac.com/bw-series.aspx
- free2OSS 6y ago
  Aluminum fabrication?
mrbonner 6y ago
"9 days battery life". It is Okay and better than the abominable life of a single day of the Apple Watch. But, it is still pale in compare to the 14 days of the Garmin Instinct. I put the Apple Watch 3 away to have the Garmin Instinct. It doesn't have all bells and whistles comparing to the Apple Watch: no apps, no payments, no direct texting input (at least for my iPhone) but I can wear it while I sleep and charge once every 9 days (I use the GPS quite often and it eats up battery). The GPS in my opinion is superior to the Apple Watch. It's pretty rough, too. I have the regular Instinct but you can opt in to buy the Military one with tougher case and HALO jumping alert. After using it for a year, I kind of understand why pilots often use Garmin watches: https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20191025-garmin-smart-watches-pilot/ https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20191025-garmin-smart-watch...
- abawany 6y ago
  Newer Garmins seem to have added some of the bells and whistles i.e. Garmin Pay and the Connect Store (where you can find software written by the inimitable Antirez (https://github.com/antirez/iqmeteo https://github.com/antirez/iqmeteo) ); even my 4+ year old Vivoactive HR supports the Connect store.
thorwasdfasdf 6y ago
personally, i find the 9 day battery life to be pretty darn impressive in this day and age. i also like the heart rate monitor, great for runners.
- bagacrap 6y ago
  I've found wrist based hr to be extremely unreliable to the point of uselessness when exercising.
  - outworlder 6y ago
    I could not find much of a difference between the heart rate monitor on my apple watch vs a blood pressure monitor.
  - samatman 6y ago
    Some are, some aren't. Like the sibling, I've found Apple Watch to be totally reliable, but my Nokia Steel HR was not. The visible difference is, when you flip the Steel over you see rapidly flashing green lights, when you flip the Watch over it looks like solid green, presumably flashing too fast to notice. One gets two weeks between charges, the other one day. Guess which is which...
- lloeki 6y ago
  1-2w battery life is par of the course for smartwatches that don’t try to be smartphones. If anything, it’s not that good because my Forerunner 735XT does more stuff and achieves that while doing GPS tracking on workouts.
cptskippy 6y ago
I get why the Apple Watch only lasts for a short time, but why do all these watches that do considerably less have such miserable battery life? Every Mi Band I've ever owned lasts for 4+ weeks on a charge. I miss the simplicity of the original Mi Band and with the Mi Band 4 was more open, but they're both fantastic and do most everything I need a smartwatch to do.
rusticfeather 6y ago
Shame that is doesn't have contactless payments, that's probably the one must have feature missing for me.
jaredhansen 6y ago
I bought one of these during the early-access program, as my old Charge 3 had recently died. I really wanted to like it. Sad to say, it's terrible. Mostly what it did was remind me how much I appreciate stuff that actually works well (e.g., wrist position sensing, so that it turns on when it's supposed to, a reliable touch interface, etc). I ended up buying a Fitbit Sense when they came out a month or so later. I don't regret it, even at >10x the price. I have my gripes with the sense but most of the time it is vastly more usable.
- mikexstudios 6y ago
  How were the sensors? (e.g., SpO2?)
slo0pjohnb 6y ago
“Looks like your heart rate is low, here’s an ad to get it going to an optimal rate.”
annoyingnoob 6y ago
Is Wyze owned by Amazon? Web site says started by folks from Amazon, but Copyright says Wyze marks owned by Amazon.
- lrae 6y ago
  And Google is an affiliate of Amazon? ;) It's just not well formatted. If you look into the source code it's supposed to look like > © 2020 Wyze Labs, Inc > Amazon, Alexa, Echo Spot and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. > Google, Inc., Google, Google Home, Google Home Mini, G logo, The Google Assistant built-in, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google, Inc. All rights reserved.
danimal88 6y ago
Would love to see a write-up on COGS. Others have said they are buying commodities from xiaomi and reselling but it's not like there is magic here. 50 employees and real working capital needs means real overhead. Obviously they are living on VC to some extent, but how is there enough money long term to sustain a business with zero or negative margin? Boom and bust?
peter303 6y ago
Misprint. One '9' missing in price?
reiichiroh 6y ago
AmazFit (Xaomi basically) makes great long-battery devices that are cheap too. Not this cheap though.
- hydroxideOH- 6y ago
  I wouldn't recommend an Amazfit watch. My Pace's battery was completely fried after 6 months. A few times it even started audibly sizzling. Maybe if you are okay with buying a new one every six months, but with wearables it's probably better to pay a bit more for a better designed Garmin.
devsatish 6y ago
Wyze will be a great acquisition, Guessing it would be Amazon that will acquire them eventually.
berkserbet 6y ago
How will a company like Wyze survive in the long term? They seem like too small of a company to be able to survive on razor thin margins, half the price at smaller scale seems like a recipe for disaster.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
frEdmbx 6y ago
I wonder if Purism has any long term plans for a smart watch.
peter_d_sherman 6y ago
The price point is right, and there's a lot of functionality. I wish Wyze well in its quest to sell a lot of their smart watches, and they probably will. That being said, what I'd really like (if someone out there is listening) is a smart watch which is not only cheap (<$20), but it would also have microHDMI and microUSB ports, and basically you could take it off your wrist and hook it up to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse, and use it like a very underpowered Raspberry Pi... Yes, it would be slow compared to other computers... Yes, it would be limited in many respects compared to other computers... But dagnabbit if it wouldn't be cool to have, if you couldn't just take it off and use it like a general-purpose stand-alone computer! To me, that's the killer feature that any smart watch must have... Oh yeah, and Open Source everything, too... And yes, I realize that I ask for a lot! <g>
ribtoks 6y ago
US only shipping...
kassner 6y ago
Is there any smart watch out there that does not suck in offline scenarios? Like syncing data from the band to the app without having to walk around the forest to find a place with GPRS to know how was the first leg of your hike.
- andor 6y ago
  Garmin watches allow downloading activities as .fit files via USB. New routes can be uploaded as .gpx files the same way. Not super convenient but it works.
adnanh 6y ago
Awfully reminds of https://www.haylou.com/en/index.php?ac=article&at=read&did=73 https://www.haylou.com/en/index.php?ac=article&at=read&did=7...

256 points by ignorantguy 6y ago

I often wonder how Wyze makes any money. They're usually 2-10 times cheaper than their competitors, while providing better features, better design, and better support. I love all of my Wyze devices and purchased another $100 worth of them just yesterday (3 bulbs, 2 sockets, 3 sensors, 1 camera, 1 SD card). I like how they go out of their way to add features to their devices. For example, they provide a firmware for the Wyze Cam that turns it into a webcam, which I've been using for online education for the past few months. For the past few days, I've done extensive research on smart watches and fitness bands. I looked into everything, from Apple Watch, Tizen, Pebble, WearOS, Fitbit, PineTime, etc. I haven't found anything with such a good value as the Wyze Watch. Some of the hackable nRF52832 based devices (PineTime, Colmi P8) have similar prices, but they have a smaller display, no SPo2 sensor, and you basically have to write your own OS (InfiniTime, WASP-OS, Zephyr, RIOT). I'm really impressed. I wonder if there's a catch.

fullstop 6y ago
You might just be seeing the markup of other products. Their products are cheap enough that if it misses a motion event you'll say "oh well, it's doing well for a $20 camera."
xnx 6y ago
You were able to find sensors? When I've looked they've always been sold out for months.
- electriclove 6y ago
  They are coming out with new sensors.
wsinks 6y ago
Are they selling a bunch of activity data to people or something? $20 for a smart watch has me wanting to try this. I wonder if the catch is that they only work for about a year?
adkadskhj 6y ago
It's funny - i avoid Wyze because it seems such a good deal. Something seems off about that, the price is simply too good - and i loathe being the product these days.
- gm 6y ago
  I hate being the product as well, but it's pretty much inescapable now. Paying for a service does not opt you out of being marketed to other income streams as a product (ie, combined stats, being part of a test group, etc). The best we can hope for by paying for a product is getting additional features and not being inconvenienced (ie, avoiding ads).
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    I almost bought an $80 pdf application (pdf expert) only to find out it phones home with my device details... And now that company won't be getting my $80. I'll use the open source alternatives, even if they aren't as nice to use. Use open source, write your own open source or just do without. You can't just accept the inevitable and bow into it - inevitability doesn't change morality.
    - nicoburns 6y ago
      Device details? As in, operating system and version, cpu, etc. That seems super reasonable for support purposes...
      - vorpalhex 6y ago
        > 2.1.2 Regarding the App: certain data is transmitted by your mobile device: namely your IP address, the periods of time in which you use the App and the type of device you use (e.g. IPhone, IPad), as well as events within the application recorded with Amplitude analytics in order to give us the possibility to continuously improve the App. From their privacy policy. Oddly enough, no, they don't need to broadcast my ip and when I use the app. Not required at all for me to read PDFs. They may want that data - and if so they should ask me instead of just taking it.
paxys 6y ago
Selling at a loss to build up their ecosystem I imagine, same as Amazon with all their devices.
- fullstop 6y ago
  They could be hoping to be acquired by Amazon as well.
  - electriclove 6y ago
    This. The founders are all exAmazon and I think this is a likely exit strategy.
megaunicorn123 6y ago
"Wyze Labs, Inc ... are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates." I would like to believe there is good in the world, but other than Linux nothing has held it up.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  While Wyze has undoubtedly a relationship with Amazon that goes beyond them being just ex engineers the trade mark disclaimer isn’t for Wyze Labs Inc itself which is privately owned but for Alexa and the rest of the Amazon products they integrate with.
- Shared404 6y ago
  > but other than Linux nothing has held it up. You could probably include the EFF, GNU Project, BSD's, and a couple others as well.
- comfydragon 6y ago
  Inspect Element shows that's just a formatting goof in the footer. Wyze is not part of Amazon (...yet...). © 2020 Wyze Labs, Inc Amazon, Alexa, Echo Spot and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Google, Inc., Google, Google Home, Google Home Mini, G logo, The Google Assistant built-in, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google, Inc. All rights reserved.
- untog 6y ago
  You've misread. > © 2020 Wyze Labs, Inc Amazon, Alexa, Echo Spot and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. The page is copyright Wyze Labs. Separately, those other terms are trademarks of Amazon.
  - megaunicorn123 6y ago
    I blame their website for the mixup. they forgot a newline.
woah 6y ago
There are a lot of cameras at that price range. I got one from a competitor (some router manufacturer, forgot which one).
dperfect 6y ago
This may have changed, but in the past, I believe they were essentially just rebranded Xiaomi cameras (possibly from other suppliers) with different firmware. I originally thought the Chinese products were clones of Wyze, but it appears Wyze is actually just using existing low-cost hardware from overseas. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong though. FYI - for some camera models (Xiaomi or Wyze), you can flash them with this custom firmware[1], allowing for a lot more customization. [1] https://github.com/EliasKotlyar/Xiaomi-Dafang-Hacks https://github.com/EliasKotlyar/Xiaomi-Dafang-Hacks
knowaveragejoe 6y ago
Has anyone done a thorough security analysis of any of their devices? Do they phone home or otherwise open some sort of back door? I agree that it does seem too good to be true
samspenc 6y ago
I was only aware of their Wyze Cam (which I have a couple of) and I had no idea till I saw this post that they have other devices now, such as Plug, Bulb, Scale etc.
abawany 6y ago
Quality can sometimes be a bit iffy (my motion sensor and door open sensors failed) and now the useful camera event alerts are behind a (small) monthly fee.

dr_j_ 6y ago

As a runner, this is relatively useless without a GPS. Include that and sign me up in a heartbeat.

fullstop 6y ago
Look into the Amazfit Bip. A bit more than $20, but cheap and the battery lasts ~40 days. If you're using GPS a lot it will be less than 40. Even so, battery life is measured in weeks, not days.
- asadlionpk 6y ago
  +1. Highly recommend Amazfit Bip! The battery life is so long that I forget where I keep my charging cable.
- CWuestefeld 6y ago
  I've got a Bip. Using the GPS to track running or hiking does use a lot of power. I need to recharge about every 2 weeks, tracking a 1-hour walk every day. I do recommend it. Another differentiating factor is the display. The Wyze product doesn't indicate the display tech, but the Amazfit using e-Ink, so it's always on and has good visibility even in bright light, something that competitors like Apple (with its minuscule battery life and disappearing display) can't claim.
  - fullstop 6y ago
    Just one point of clarification, the Amazfit Bip does not use e-ink. It's a transreflective LCD screen, kind of like the old Game Boy Advance screens. It's easier to see in bright sunlight, and always on.
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      Another clarification, the display of the Bip(and Pebble, Garmin and others) is not a transreflective type but a SHARP Memory LCD where pixels only need power to change their state but need almost no power keeping their current state, like e-ink, but better, so it looks like transreflective in the sunlight. The transreflective LCD type of the Gameboy would absolutely nuke your battery life as it needs to be actively refreshed even on stationary images. I'm deeply saddened this type of display is not more popular among wearables vs OLED. Who doesn't want 30 day+ battery life and always-on sunlight visibility?

jnurmine 6y ago

Interesting, but they ship only to the US, which is a deal breaker for me. Would've ordered.

ljf 6y ago
Similar here. I hadn't heard of them before but took a look at their site and am impressed by the range. If they shopped to the UK I'd be buying a few bits for sure. Similar prices to xiaomi etc but their apps look good. (though the xiaomi apps are pretty good too)
- tssva 6y ago
  In some cases their hardware is xiaomi hardware. Their model is to utilize existing low cost hardware but run their own custom firmware on it. This is how they have grown their product range so quickly.
RantyDave 6y ago
Gah! Dammit.

emosenkis 6y ago

Any indication that these will be hackable like their cameras? What SoC are these based on?

MrK93 6y ago
Good chance that they are based on Nordic's nRF52.

breck 6y ago

Apple was smart not to compete on the low-end for watches. Median income in the USA is $68,703. Why would someone spend 1/25 of 1 percent of their income on something that they wear 100% of the time? That makes no sense. I shell out $200-$300 each year for the latest FitBit (Apple Watch is promising, but that battery life :(. The sleep tracking is gold).

bhupy 6y ago
> Median income in the USA is $68,703. Be that as it may, there's absolutely a non-trivial amount of revenue available at the low end of the market. Apple historically never participates in that market, but that's an opportunity for other hardware providers.
- bluGill 6y ago
  In fact if you get "good enough" at the low end there is more money there than up top. Sure $200 isn't much compared to me income, but it is still more than an impulse buy. If you can get the $20 market it becomes an impulse buy for a lot more people. If you are good enough they compare with their friends and the friends also buy - those who would never spend $200 on an impulse buy, and those who already have and are looking to replace theirs.
  - treesknees 6y ago
    The low price of $20 actually slows my impulse to buy it. Sure, it's not a lot of money, but how reliable or usable can it be for that price? It makes me think of a cheap knock-off device I'd find at a TJ Maxx store on clearance. What makes it so cheap even compared to a Fitbit?
    - bhupy 6y ago
      You might be right, but the current price point of watches could also be inflated. Let's not forget that once upon a time, pocket-watches were only for the rich. It wasn't until the advent of quartz watches that you could find a solid watch (digital or analog) for under $100. Today, $20ish digital watches are fairly common on the market. One of my favorite watches is a cheap Timex Weekender (a favorite of /r/malefashionadvice IIRC). Just like one might decide to go for a stylish (but cheap) quartz watch instead of that expensive automatic, one could decide to go for a stylish (but cheap) Wyze watch instead of that $300 Apple Watch. We'll have to see if Wyze (or someone similar) can actually execute and pull that off.

kencausey 6y ago

I wonder if this is roughly similar to the Sylvania branded smart watch that Ben Heckendorn recently evaluated and disassembled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-Me4eP8c2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-Me4eP8c2Q

EvanAnderson 6y ago
Was thinking that too. I saw that MediaTek SOC in the Ben Heck teardown and started wondering about whether it was running Linux.

umeshunni 6y ago

How is Wyze churning out so many new hardware devices so rapidly? I hadn't heard of them till this year when I saw their camera on sale, but now they have a full suite of hardware products with ~50 employees. Are they essentially rebranding some Chinese manufacturer?

untog 6y ago
When it comes to their webcam: absolutely yes. You can get the exact camera they sell on Alibaba. That said, the software on the Alibaba versions is awful. I think their business model makes sense here: buy commodity hardware, make your own, better, software. (though to be honest their iOS app isn't great. But still)
- woofie11 6y ago
  I'd pay good money if I had Chinese hardware with secure, privacy-guaranteeing software. I'd buy the smart watch right now if it was either open-source, it came with a strong privacy policy. As is, I see no reason to upload my health information to a random corporation. Indeed, I can see plenty of business models where I could give away smartwatches and cameras for the wealth of data I'd collect. Selling still makes more sense; you want people to have a vested interest in them.
  - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
    have a look at gadgetbridge, no need to upload anything anywhere
  - balls187 6y ago
    What about Apple's privacy do you disagree with?
    - woofie11 6y ago
      For example: "It may be necessary − by law, legal process, litigation, and/or requests from public and governmental authorities within or outside your country of residence − for Apple to disclose your personal information. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that for purposes of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary or appropriate." Why would I want my health data uploaded to an Apple server to be shared with governments? My data should live on my own devices, encrypted, and unaccessible to anyone other than myself.

julesallen 6y ago

I've been using their products since their first cam came out (was skeptical but hey, $20-odd bucks was low risk). Now have multiple cams, bulbs, and so on. Getting the watch is a low dough no brainer. Solid stuff for not a lot of money.

marcod 6y ago

$20 with Blood Oxy Meter is a good deal.

shostack 6y ago
How accurate is it and who owns or has access to your data?

grep_name 6y ago

Will this just run the same wearOS as other watches? It just says "compatible with popular apps", but the only thing I could see myself using a smartwatch for is xdrip, which is fairly niche

vmception 6y ago

> * Wyze Watch is not a medical device, and it is not intended to be used for medical purposes. How do we change reality to get these dumbass disclaimers out the way for perfectly functioning devices? Get FDA certification faster? Change safe harbors on liability that dont require cover-your-ass text that contradicts the point of including certain functionality? Get FDA out of the consumer medical device gatekeeping whatsoever?

svachalek 6y ago
Personally I like the idea of someone qualified spending the time to evaluate these and give it a stamp of approval. I just wish that led to something more like "we are being evaluated by XYZ agency, see this URL for approval status". Sure, it leaves an opening for egg on your face, but if you're serious about passing the test (and you shouldn't be selling medical devices if you're not) then you're going to pass eventually so show the confidence.
altarius 6y ago
How do we know these are perfectly functioning devices? The average person wouldn't read studies and documentation or ascertain the quality - I barely can and check HN comments for many medical studies :) FDA approval is a very strong signal at least. I'd rather avoid the supplements situation where manufacturers can essentially claim almost anything and most of the population isn't aware that it's a free-for-all. Manufacturers can still claim some function but at least there's currently a disclaimer that makes average people question some claims. I don't really love the mix of deregulation and healthcare (even adjecent, see supplements).
- abawany 6y ago
  I like this person's rather thorough reviews of device accuracy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChNWxrTlmh4IRSevon1X93g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChNWxrTlmh4IRSevon1X93g but you are right, the ambiguity is bothersome.
- vmception 6y ago
  > FDA approval is a very strong signal at least. FDA approvals of medical devices essentially breaks the software update system. So one of my possibilities was tweaking how thats done on devices. People seemed to decide to disagree on my post based on whichever possibility they didn't like, and ignored the possibility they wanted to discuss.

mrtksn 6y ago

Looks nice but a bit too similar to Apple Watch maybe?

krazykringle 6y ago

Does it run a Linux? Will I be able to ssh to it?

xuhu 6y ago
Would it matter, as long as you can build and flash it yourself ?
borgel 6y ago
With 512KB RAM and 16MB flash[1] I assume it's a microcontroller and doesn't run Linux. [1] https://wyze.com/wyze-watch.html#pageDetails https://wyze.com/wyze-watch.html#pageDetails
- copperx 6y ago
  Slightly off topic, but are there microcontrollers that run Linux?
  - borgel 6y ago
    It's possible, but my impression is that no MMU makes it difficult. Here is an example [1] of Linux on a Cortex M4 (a very boring STM32F4XX) [1] https://elinux.org/STM32 https://elinux.org/STM32
    - robocat 6y ago
      Linux required an MMU at inception[1] and currently requires an MMU. Instead you have μClinux[2] which although it is integrated with the mainline kernel since 2.x, it lacks some important features, like it has neither fork() nor autogrow stacks[3]. [1] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~awb/linux.history.html https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~awb/linux.history.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ΜClinux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ΜClinux [3] https://www.eetimes.com/how-uclinux-provides-mmu-less-processors-with-an-alternative/# https://www.eetimes.com/how-uclinux-provides-mmu-less-proces...
  - aidenn0 6y ago

devsatish 6y ago

Been a Wyze customer for couple of years now. Bought many of their cameras from their store and Home Depot. The cameras are real good and much much cheaper than other big brands (Ring/Nest etc). It seems they are basically building a Xiaomi kinda of brand in the US (Xiaomi is extremely popular in countries like India where they have huge market base with well styled products similar to Apple line).

yftsui 6y ago
I have multiple Wyze cams and recently got hit with a big surprise, if Wyze cam lost power suddenly, the past 4 mins event footage is NOT stored on the local SD card, and the actual event is not stored on the cloud as well. Wyze still has a long way to go for resiliency comparing with Ring or Nest.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  I tried to test this and discovered that my Wyze Cam thinks there isn't even an SD card installed (there is). In the cloud, it showed there was an event just before it was unplugged, but it won't let me download the footage. I would be pretty upset if I discovered these issues when I was trying to get footage from a break-in or other important event. EDIT: After a firmware update, it's now recognizing the SD card, but just as parent said, there is no video of me walking up, standing in front of the camera, and unplugging it. It's not missing 4 minutes, but definitely at least 20 seconds. This means a thief could just walk up to any Wyze cam, yank the power cord, and be certain that he wouldn't be caught on camera. Maybe there's a way for Wyze to grab the data from their cloud if the police asked for it, but it seems impossible for an end-user. Really disappointing.
vineyardmike 6y ago
Considering they often re-brand Xiaomi hardware, i wouldn't say they're building "a Xiaomi kinda of brand" as much as "re-building Xiaomi's brand"
sikim 6y ago
I'd suggest giving Eufy 2k cameras a try. I was also a long time Wyze fan but I've recently switched to Eufy after trying out their 2k cameras. Compared to Wyze, it offers better resolution (thus 2k in their name), on-device pet/human detection (Wyze charges monthly fees for cloud-based detection), and way better app experience. It's slightly more expensive but well worth the price for me.

dmje 6y ago

I see no way anyone could make this bit of hardware this cheaply without some pretty nasty exploitation going on somewhere up the chain. Count me out.

microtherion 6y ago
You might be surprised at how human ingenuity sometimes finds a way to make expensive hardware using just as much exploitation…
- dmje 6y ago
  Um, having trouble understanding what you mean...?
  - microtherion 6y ago
    You're taking the low price as evidence that the device was manufactured by exploitative means. I was pointing out that at least the converse is not true: A high price is absolutely not evidence that something was NOT manufactured by exploitative means.
    - dmje 6y ago
      For sure, but you could reasonably claim that higher end manufacturers at least get slightly more attention from an oversight POV. Although not a direct correlation you could probably make some connection reasonably well between expense of gadget and extent of media / public interest in the manufacture / supply chain.
cambalache 6y ago
As if by buying the 1000+ USD Apple phone you are not supporting the same system. Newsflash, there is no ethical tech shopping, there will always be someone exploited along the line.
- dmje 6y ago

whalesalad 6y ago

The old adage 'you get what you pay for' comes to mind here.

tcbawo 6y ago

Can anyone comment on the current state of the art for the sleep tracking feature of this or other smart watches? I have a Garmin Vivosmart HR that is close to end of life. I'm looking for something light with >7 day battery life, vibrating alarm clock, and decent sleep tracking.

abawany 6y ago
I am a Vivoactive HR user and will be buying the Vivoactive 4 soon. The always on display is indispensable, as is the battery life and SpO2 monitoring; Garmin is gold. I've tried Fitbit, Vivosmart 4, and AW4 but the Garmin is what I feel makes the best tradeoffs between functionality, usability, and quality plus they have great customer service. Edit0: fixed model names - darn Garmin with its meaningless model names.
bentcorner 6y ago
I have a Vivosmart HR as well but my wife got me a Fitbit Versa last year and it's a give-and-take. The battery life is worse but the color screen is really nice and the watch can do more (most notably have multiple alarms set from the watch). Vibration motor is better on the Fitbit. Sleep tracking is slightly better on the fitbit (re. graphs and data). Accuracy seems better but I'm no expert (I've gotten false positives where the Garmin thinks I'm sleeping if I'm sitting at my computer not moving much, Fitbit has tracked naps which is impressive). I kind of liked the Garmin app more than the Fitbit one. The fitbit app can be confusing to navigate and it's irritating that they try to upsell you on a subscription. The garmin app is more spartan but it's easier to see your data. I think it might be easier to extract your data from garmin as well. Syncing both watches to your phone is equally painful. I don't know of anything new that has a long battery life like the Vivosmart HR. Garmin claims equally long battery life on their newer devices but I'm skeptical.
doitLP 6y ago
Just curious, what do you actually do with your sleep data? After trying several trackers and building up a week or two of data I don’t really see a use for it. What’s the point of regularly monitoring it?

jerlam 6y ago

Smartwatches have fallen so far from their peak. In 2015, Pebble had a watch that had: - an app store, third party apps, third party watch faces, and a developer ecosystem - always on screen that didn't require a button press or specific arm gesture, and worked in bright, normally lit conditions - physical buttons instead of tiny buttons on a tiny screen barely larger than the finger pressing it - week long battery life Pebble was crushed by Fitbit, which didn't have any third party support, and by Apple, which had miserable battery life and relied on the connected phone to do most of its work. Now Pebble is long gone, Fitbit bought the remnants of Pebble is being acquired by Google, Google itself doesn't seem to have any interest in WearOS, and Apple Watch almost has two-day battery life and app store has never lived up to expectations. We now have "smart watches" which basically combine basic phone notification API implementations, a package of often unreliable sensors, mostly-off touchscreens, and bundled "apps" which can only be used with the hugest social media sites.

colordrops 6y ago
Google acquiring fitbit? Nooooo, I've been in the process of de-googlification and fitbit has massive amounts of my health data from the last half year. Need to figure out how to nuke all of that.
- lovemenot 6y ago
  If your Fitbit data is linked to a residual Google account, you can use that account to delete it. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/465 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/465
modeless 6y ago
Don't forget: 7.5mm thick (for the round version). There is nothing on the market even close. I wore mine until last month when the battery gave out. If I could buy one with a new battery (not a replaced one as it compromises the waterproofing) I'd choose it over any other option available today.
- ce4 6y ago

neolog 6y ago

Are there any developer-friendly hackable smartwatches?

mfashby 6y ago
Pinetime maybe https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ Pebbles were very hackable, but you can't buy new ones as other threads have pointed out.
nfriedly 6y ago
Lillygo makes a couple of interesting options built around the ESP32: T-Watch-2020 - $26 - http://www.lilygo.cn/prod_view.aspx?TypeId=50053&Id=1290&FId=t3:50053:3 http://www.lilygo.cn/prod_view.aspx?TypeId=50053&Id=1290&FId... T-Wristband - $18 - http://www.lilygo.cn/claprod_view.aspx?TypeId=21&Id=1282&FId=t28:21:28 http://www.lilygo.cn/claprod_view.aspx?TypeId=21&Id=1282&FId...
- segmondy 6y ago
  These are amazing, thanks for sharing!
eximius 6y ago
Someone already said PineTime, but here is an interesting blog post about it: https://lupyuen.github.io/pinetime-rust-mynewt/articles/watchface https://lupyuen.github.io/pinetime-rust-mynewt/articles/watc...
miguelrochefort 6y ago
Lots of nRF52832 watches syncing with Dafit are hackable. They pretty much have the same hardware as the PineTime. The most popular one is the Colmi P8, which you can buy for $20-25.

kissgyorgy 6y ago

If you want a "smart enough" watch and you are mainly care for your health, I highly recommend any of the watches from Withings: https://www.withings.com/hu/en/ https://www.withings.com/hu/en/ They are a really awesome company, not trying to sell you some shit and making money, but honestly wanting to develop good products to improve your life! Very useful features for health monitoring and they don't cost as much. Plus the watches looks super cool!

filoleg 6y ago
Can fully back you up on this. Also, as a sidenote, their scale devices are awesome as well, and the watch line you linked used to be Nokia-branded (back when they owned Withings, before they spun out to be independent again).
eecks 6y ago
Those watches are nearly 300 euro..
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  Is the price difference that great? I paid ~$150 for mine a few months ago, and checking Amazon here in the US, they're still going for about that.
Baeocystin 6y ago
I looked at all the high-end smart watches, decided they pretty much all sucked, and went with Withing's Steel HR Sport. I love it- Like you said, it's a smart-enough watch. I get text notifications on the small screen, which is surprisingly useful, and it does things like step tracking, heart rate, sleep tracking, etc. But it also has a multi-week battery life, and looks like, and is sized like, a normal watch. Highly recommended.
rowellx68 6y ago
I’ve always called it “smart-ish”, but yes, Withings watches are pretty awesome. I’ve recently gotten the ScanWatch and it feels quite premium. Probably the sapphire glass adding to the heft. My only gripe is that they do not offer any sort of repair service! If you break the glass, they will instead off you 25% off a new purchase.

chrysoprace 6y ago

Really keen on Wyze's lineup of products, but unfortunately after countless requests from people, they still don't ship to Australia.[1] [1] https://forums.wyzecam.com/t/deliver-to-australia/3666 https://forums.wyzecam.com/t/deliver-to-australia/3666

oh_sigh 6y ago
Can you just use a reshipper? Or are there customs implications? It may honestly be a blessing if they ignore Australia - the usual route for companies targeting Australia is to double the USD price for the same product.
- chrysoprace 6y ago
  Not always, but that's certainly often the case. I've never used a reshipper but I looked up reship.com and they charge at least $30 (!) to get a 200g parcel (150mm x 150mm x 150mm) shipped here.

smattiso 6y ago

I am trying to build something similar but I don't know how to get a non-functioning physical prototype built initially. What's the simplest way to get these type of aluminum cases, bands, etc?

MobiusHorizons 6y ago
How about buy a cheap Chinese smartwatch and reuse the case? If that works for you, it is very likely you could discover who manufactures it, and work with them to build yours.
HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
Short of paying many thousands of dollars in prototype engineering fees, you either buy an existing device and strip out the guts, or one of these for $20 https://serpac.com/bw-series.aspx https://serpac.com/bw-series.aspx
free2OSS 6y ago
Aluminum fabrication?

mrbonner 6y ago

"9 days battery life". It is Okay and better than the abominable life of a single day of the Apple Watch. But, it is still pale in compare to the 14 days of the Garmin Instinct. I put the Apple Watch 3 away to have the Garmin Instinct. It doesn't have all bells and whistles comparing to the Apple Watch: no apps, no payments, no direct texting input (at least for my iPhone) but I can wear it while I sleep and charge once every 9 days (I use the GPS quite often and it eats up battery). The GPS in my opinion is superior to the Apple Watch. It's pretty rough, too. I have the regular Instinct but you can opt in to buy the Military one with tougher case and HALO jumping alert. After using it for a year, I kind of understand why pilots often use Garmin watches: https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20191025-garmin-smart-watches-pilot/ https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20191025-garmin-smart-watch...

abawany 6y ago
Newer Garmins seem to have added some of the bells and whistles i.e. Garmin Pay and the Connect Store (where you can find software written by the inimitable Antirez (https://github.com/antirez/iqmeteo https://github.com/antirez/iqmeteo) ); even my 4+ year old Vivoactive HR supports the Connect store.

thorwasdfasdf 6y ago

personally, i find the 9 day battery life to be pretty darn impressive in this day and age. i also like the heart rate monitor, great for runners.

bagacrap 6y ago
I've found wrist based hr to be extremely unreliable to the point of uselessness when exercising.
- outworlder 6y ago
  I could not find much of a difference between the heart rate monitor on my apple watch vs a blood pressure monitor.
- samatman 6y ago
  Some are, some aren't. Like the sibling, I've found Apple Watch to be totally reliable, but my Nokia Steel HR was not. The visible difference is, when you flip the Steel over you see rapidly flashing green lights, when you flip the Watch over it looks like solid green, presumably flashing too fast to notice. One gets two weeks between charges, the other one day. Guess which is which...
lloeki 6y ago
1-2w battery life is par of the course for smartwatches that don’t try to be smartphones. If anything, it’s not that good because my Forerunner 735XT does more stuff and achieves that while doing GPS tracking on workouts.

cptskippy 6y ago

I get why the Apple Watch only lasts for a short time, but why do all these watches that do considerably less have such miserable battery life? Every Mi Band I've ever owned lasts for 4+ weeks on a charge. I miss the simplicity of the original Mi Band and with the Mi Band 4 was more open, but they're both fantastic and do most everything I need a smartwatch to do.

rusticfeather 6y ago

Shame that is doesn't have contactless payments, that's probably the one must have feature missing for me.

jaredhansen 6y ago

I bought one of these during the early-access program, as my old Charge 3 had recently died. I really wanted to like it. Sad to say, it's terrible. Mostly what it did was remind me how much I appreciate stuff that actually works well (e.g., wrist position sensing, so that it turns on when it's supposed to, a reliable touch interface, etc). I ended up buying a Fitbit Sense when they came out a month or so later. I don't regret it, even at >10x the price. I have my gripes with the sense but most of the time it is vastly more usable.

mikexstudios 6y ago
How were the sensors? (e.g., SpO2?)

slo0pjohnb 6y ago

“Looks like your heart rate is low, here’s an ad to get it going to an optimal rate.”

annoyingnoob 6y ago

Is Wyze owned by Amazon? Web site says started by folks from Amazon, but Copyright says Wyze marks owned by Amazon.

lrae 6y ago
And Google is an affiliate of Amazon? ;) It's just not well formatted. If you look into the source code it's supposed to look like > © 2020 Wyze Labs, Inc > Amazon, Alexa, Echo Spot and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. > Google, Inc., Google, Google Home, Google Home Mini, G logo, The Google Assistant built-in, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google, Inc. All rights reserved.

danimal88 6y ago

Would love to see a write-up on COGS. Others have said they are buying commodities from xiaomi and reselling but it's not like there is magic here. 50 employees and real working capital needs means real overhead. Obviously they are living on VC to some extent, but how is there enough money long term to sustain a business with zero or negative margin? Boom and bust?

peter303 6y ago

Misprint. One '9' missing in price?

reiichiroh 6y ago

AmazFit (Xaomi basically) makes great long-battery devices that are cheap too. Not this cheap though.

hydroxideOH- 6y ago
I wouldn't recommend an Amazfit watch. My Pace's battery was completely fried after 6 months. A few times it even started audibly sizzling. Maybe if you are okay with buying a new one every six months, but with wearables it's probably better to pay a bit more for a better designed Garmin.

devsatish 6y ago

Wyze will be a great acquisition, Guessing it would be Amazon that will acquire them eventually.

berkserbet 6y ago

How will a company like Wyze survive in the long term? They seem like too small of a company to be able to survive on razor thin margins, half the price at smaller scale seems like a recipe for disaster.

deleted 6y ago

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frEdmbx 6y ago

I wonder if Purism has any long term plans for a smart watch.

peter_d_sherman 6y ago

The price point is right, and there's a lot of functionality. I wish Wyze well in its quest to sell a lot of their smart watches, and they probably will. That being said, what I'd really like (if someone out there is listening) is a smart watch which is not only cheap (<$20), but it would also have microHDMI and microUSB ports, and basically you could take it off your wrist and hook it up to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse, and use it like a very underpowered Raspberry Pi... Yes, it would be slow compared to other computers... Yes, it would be limited in many respects compared to other computers... But dagnabbit if it wouldn't be cool to have, if you couldn't just take it off and use it like a general-purpose stand-alone computer! To me, that's the killer feature that any smart watch must have... Oh yeah, and Open Source everything, too... And yes, I realize that I ask for a lot! <g>

ribtoks 6y ago

US only shipping...

kassner 6y ago

Is there any smart watch out there that does not suck in offline scenarios? Like syncing data from the band to the app without having to walk around the forest to find a place with GPRS to know how was the first leg of your hike.

andor 6y ago
Garmin watches allow downloading activities as .fit files via USB. New routes can be uploaded as .gpx files the same way. Not super convenient but it works.

adnanh 6y ago

Awfully reminds of https://www.haylou.com/en/index.php?ac=article&at=read&did=73 https://www.haylou.com/en/index.php?ac=article&at=read&did=7...