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This is the barebones Android smart watch I want. As a side note why won't apple make it's watch work well with android - wouldn't that add a few million users?

• PaulsWallet 4y ago
  > As a side note why won't apple make it's watch work well with android This is the way Apple works. You don't own enough products so you aren't worthy of full functionality. Last time I checked you can't update Airpods firmware without another Apple device nor can you change settings on the pro XDR display without a device running macOS.
  • imoverclocked 4y ago
    This is the way a lot of companies work and have historically worked. Why spend a ton of resources supporting every operating system and hardware combination out there for all of your devices when you have a perfectly good way of doing it in house?
    • PaulsWallet 4y ago
      > Why spend a ton of resources supporting every operating system and hardware combination... Making it so Android users can update their bluetooth headphones is not supporting every hardware combination. Adding a OSD to your monitor so people don't need OS X specific software to change their monitor settings is not supporting every operating system or hardware combination.
      • hunterb123 4y ago
        They aren't just bluetooth headphones, they are airpods, you bought airpods because you are in the iecosystem. Who buys airpods and expects them to work well with anything other than an apple device? You buy them because it'll work well in their ecosystem, really well. I have some cheap earbuds that work decent everywhere, as well as a generic bluetooth speaker, but I generally use my apple earbuds because they work the best with what I have. When you support only your ecosystem you can improve the connectivity that bluetooth alone doesn't allow.
        • Morgawr 4y ago
          > Who buys airpods and expects them to work well with anything other than an apple device? You buy them because it'll work well in their ecosystem, really well. This feels like a hindsight kind of statement. We are conditioned to think that since it's Apple it won't work well with other ecosystems, so "you don't buy apple if you don't have everything apple" which... I mean, it makes sense but it's the reverse logic. I bought my pixelbuds and I can use them on a wide range of bluetooth devices that aren't Google-specific, and they work as you'd expect them to. It's fine if Apple wants to have Apple-specific features if you use them with Apple devices, just like Google pixelbuds have specific integration with google home app and similar google-specific devices, but at least the core bluetooth functionality (+ settings) should be provided to be able to work on any device. Disclaimer: I've never used airpods so I have no idea how they work, just commenting on the logic of the original statement alone.
          • imoverclocked 4y ago
            > I have no idea how they work There is definitely some proprietary “glue” in there. One nice thing about them is that you pair them to one device and then all of your other iCloud devices can see them. I would not expect that kind of feature to work elsewhere for obvious reasons. I could be wrong? They also support spatial audio which is now supported with Android. There are definitely features of the AirPods which are new or were new when they were released. It’s up to Apple to support those features on their own hardware/OS. It’s up to others to add support to their own operating systems if they deem it worthwhile. Similar goes for other hardware. Yes, the hardware works differently than so many generic components out in the world but that’s kind of the point.
            • chesc 4y ago
              I have airpods and an android phone. They work well now (I really am not interested in spatial audio). They did however work pretty badly until I connected them to an iphone to allow the firmware to update. I dislike the ecosystem argument. They are just Bluetooth earphones... Quite expensive ones at that.
          • 4y ago
    • Teever 4y ago
      What I'm hearing from you is that we need to regulate companies to mandate interoperability. Could you imagine a world where telephones couldn't make calls to each other or cars needed special gasoline that was only available from gas station chains that licensed it from your car maker? What a terrible world that would be. Why do we accept similar things with computers?
      • projektfu 4y ago
        Although, Tesla continues to equip a proprietary charging port and an adapter is required to use CCS1. Futuristic companies seem to hate standards.
        • izacus 4y ago
          Luckly EU put a boot to the neck of that dumbass idea and EU Teslas have CCS2 port. I wonder if mandatory opening of interoperability protocols for popular products would improve health of electronics markets.
        • imoverclocked 4y ago
          > Futuristic companies seem to hate standards. A standard is just something that gets adopted by a bunch of people. There are competing standards for all kinds of things… the market generally decides what standards win. Any company doing something new is by definition attempting to set a new standard.
          • projektfu 4y ago
            There was a time when standards would be developed voluntarily by the major players for the parts that are tangential to their innovation. Apple's success with the iPhone isn't because they use a connector that is prone to shorting and susceptible to lint. Tesla's success in electric cars isn't because they didn't help develop a standard connector. However maybe they plan to pivot to overpriced electricity at their proprietary stations if they lose their competitive advantages, who knows? When innovation was occurring in integrated circuits the companies standardized on the 0.1" DIP. Then as needs for smaller packages came they worked together on TSSOP and others. Obviously the innovation isn't a matter of packaging.
  • lloeki 4y ago
    > nor can you change settings on the pro XDR display without a device running macOS. You can't even natively change brightness nor volume on non-Apple displays, even though DDC/CI is a thing and third party apps can do just that. The Mac Mini M1 HDMI port is even crippled at the hardware level and DDC/CI flat out doesn't work there (works fine via USB-C which uses DP). The usual public rationale from Apple is that a perfect experience can only be achieved within a fully owned ecosystem. I don't quite buy that the core strategic intent is intentionally using this to push people into owning only/buying more of Apple stuff, I bet it's more about not having to handle dev, fixes, workarounds, and a storm of support cases for third party hardware that may be of less than stellar quality, and then Apple being blamed for things not working. IOW brand image control + dev resources, not a sales ploy.
• deevious 4y ago
  You might want to give the Amazfit Bip a go, it's as barebones as it gets. The only gripes I have with it is the craptastic app and the lack of vibration, it only has a beeper.
  • abecedarius 4y ago
    There's an open-source replacement app called gadgetbridge. (I'm not sure it works with the exact model you mention, but I did use it with a cheap Android watch from, iirc, Amazfit.)
• jsmith45 4y ago
  Yeah, for me, what I really want in a smartwatch are the following: 1. long battery life. (as in a week+) 2. Always on display. 3. Notifications. (Ability to display all notifications that make a sound/vibrate in android, ideally also providing access to notification's quick actions, and ability to dismiss notification from phone. It should also provide incoming call notification, with caller name or number and hang-up button support). 4. Media controls for phone. (I don't really care about this, but if a watch lacks it, it would be suspicious). 5. Basic watch functions, like time, date, stopwatch, timer, alarms. (Possibly synchronized with android device, but not is not a requirement). Beyond those five, things health sensors, app support or whatever are just bonuses. The display should probably be a reflective display with optional backlight triggered by tilt-to-view, or even a button. It probably should use something like epaper or memory lcd to be low power. Honestly color is not even critical, although would be a nice-to-have. Pebble came somewhat close, although its notification support was somewhat more limited than I would have liked. But I've seen nothing else since then. Everybody is too focused on apps, fitness sensors, etc, and have laughable battery life, even without an always on display.
  • deaddodo 4y ago
    You literally just described the Garmin Fenix (or a vast majority of their more affordable options, the Fenix is just the Jack-of-all-trades model). 1) Gets about 14 days with default sensors (HR, GPS, altimeter, barometer, compass, etc) enabled (turning on high resolution Sp02, for instance, will knock it down to 6-8 days) 2) Yup 3) Yup, all features requested 4) Technically, only for a few apps. And it supports Android's media APIs better than Apple's. But they're there. This is probably the weakest supported of your requirements. 5) Admirably.
  • Zeppelin1492 4y ago
    Maybe check out Pinetime, Bangle js 2 or Watchy. https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ https://banglejs.com/ https://banglejs.com/ https://www.crowdsupply.com/sqfmi/watchy https://www.crowdsupply.com/sqfmi/watchy