5 ms·

Ask HN: A cheap smartwatch with a supported SDK

52 points by 41209 5y ago

Hi HN, I'd love to buy a smart watch for 50$ or less that'll allow me to develop my own apps. Looks like Google is coming out with Wear OS 3 soon, so I don't want to invest any real money in a Watch until then

sokoloff 5y ago
I picked up a (used) Series 3 Apple Watch for $100 early last year. If you got one of those, it’s surely going to be worth $50 in 12 months. I’m in the Apple ecosystem and very happy with the watch, even though the newer versions are surely nicer.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Apple Watch practically requires an iPhone though.
denysvitali 5y ago
Depending on what you mean by "smart watch": you can try the Pine Time: https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ 51 USD will get you a sealed smart watch and a dev kit :)
- fit2rule 5y ago
  PineTime watch is also a great place to learn Rust.
- 41209 5y ago
  Can I write my own apps for the sealed version? The dev kit seems a bit too low level for me
  - ushakov 5y ago
    try wasp-os https://github.com/daniel-thompson/wasp-os https://github.com/daniel-thompson/wasp-os i have personally made a metronome app for it https://gist.github.com/mishushakov/7af0c459178f152a27005d31a7f4f943 https://gist.github.com/mishushakov/7af0c459178f152a27005d31...
    - 41209 5y ago
      Fantastic, I think I'll go with the Colmi P8 and try to build something silly with it. Thanks
      - ushakov 5y ago
        they provide an emulator, so you can develop apps on your computer before you deploy to watch https://wasp-os.readthedocs.io/en/latest/appguide.html#testing-on-the-simulator https://wasp-os.readthedocs.io/en/latest/appguide.html#testi... the OS itself is a app and is easily customizable but best the thing has to the community on Matrix/IRC. Daniel, (the creator) is very responsive and without his support i wouldn’t be able to create my app
      - mPReDiToR 5y ago
        I'm just waiting on my PineTime (one sealed, one dev) to arrive. I've used a P8 with InfiniTime but the latest code no longer runs due to a driver change. Bite the bullet and get a PineTime. The community is working hard on the software, as they are with all Pine64 devices. Free advice is worth what you spend on it, but this is from the heart.
        41209 5y ago
        Good point, assuming I can cancel the order I already made for a P8 watch( one thing I do love about Amazon is canceling is very very easy compared to other retailers )
- TrianguloY 5y ago
  It doesn't seem to have always-on display :( I also want to find a good smartwatch, tired of waiting for wear3.0, but an always-on display is a must have for me.
  - lmns 5y ago
    With that budget you won't find an always-on display. OLED panels are just too expensive.
    - monsieurbanana 5y ago
      How about e-ink watches? I know nothing about them, but it seems they exist and aren't specially pricy.
      - 1ibsq 5y ago
        Watchy [1] has already be mentioned somewhere below and has an e-paper display. [1] https://watchy.sqfmi.com https://watchy.sqfmi.com
    - kristianp 5y ago
      What about transflective lcd, like some Garmin forerunners?
- 41209 5y ago
  Actually this isn't a bad idea, anyway to save on shipping or get a promo code. Once it's shipped, it's 60$ or so venturing close to what a WearOS watch cost ( I'm seeing older ones at 80$ or so)
h4waii 5y ago
You can still develop for Pebble, even though the entire thing is EoL. There are lots of Pebble enthusiasts and work is still being done on the platform through Rebble. There's also Bangle.js to keep an eye on.
- modeless 5y ago
  Yeah, Pebble has a great SDK and since it's defunct there's no update treadmill anymore. Anything you build today will be guaranteed to work as long as the hardware does.
seniorivn 5y ago
pinetime
evan_ 5y ago
See if you can find a Timex Datalink on eBay
sorenjan 5y ago
> Looks like Google is coming out with Wear OS 3 soon Wear OS 3 is already out. https://www.androidauthority.com/wear-os-3-watches-2736393/ https://www.androidauthority.com/wear-os-3-watches-2736393/
atemerev 5y ago
There are many ESP32 smartwatches available on Aliexpress for about this price. ESP32 is compatible with Arduino IDE, PlatformIO, and many other development tools.
Jugurtha 5y ago
I have worked for many years on fitness trackers from https://www.jointcorp.com https://www.jointcorp.com. Talking with them, they sent PDF files for the communications protocol (Bluetooth Low Energy). I wrote a generic codec that consumes a YAML file and could decode packets from these devices to Python objects, and which could take a Python API call for a function you didn't write and encode it to binary packets the watch could understand. Practically, when we needed to use another device, I just added to the YAML file and the thing worked with practically no code change. New watch with GPS data? Just add to the YAML file and magic happens. Watch with blood pressure feature? Just add a few lines to the YAML file and magic happens. The code was on a Raspberry PI in which a 3G/4G dongle was plugged, and it connected to the watch, uploaded data, was robust do disconnection events either internet or BLE (used Thespian and the Actor model to create and kill actors). The devices were geographically distributed on different timezones (a fucking nightmare) and basically needed to work for users with zero technical skills. It needed to be plug and play and it just works. Even configuring the pairing between a Raspberry PI and the watch needed to be low touch (I used the analogy of a dog and a hand: you put your hand out for the dog to smell and recognize you, you put the watch nearby the Raspberry PI and it computed the RSSI and duration to detect the "intent" so it didn't pair with "drive-by" devices). Kind of like NFC, but for BLE. The data was sent to a backend, then displayed on a mobile application (the prototype had a Grafana dashboard that showed your activity in near-real time). Talk with them. They'll probably send you the PDF spec and you can do whatever you want.
- 41209 5y ago
  That's cool, but I was trying to find a company that publishes it's SDK. Ideally some app examples as well. That said, given how cheap these watches are I'm open to trying anything. Were you able to write your own custom app too, or just consume existing data ?
  - Jugurtha 5y ago
    >Were you able to write your own custom app too, or just consume existing data ? As mentioned in my original comment with additional: I wrote an application that ran on Raspberry PI devices in different continents, countries, and time zones that connected to trackers worn by people with zero technical skills and worked nonetheless surviving disconnection events and automatically upgrading the software, communicating with the trackers and sending serialized data (protobufs) to a server application in Scala my colleague wrote, that then made analysis and aggregations and sent result to yet another mobile application (Android) another colleague wrote to display graphs and other data. The application I wrote worked with several models of this company's products, and at some point, we thought of making it more generic and use it for video and sound feeds for another project ("sound event detection", let's say). Yes, I was able to build a custom app and it worked not only on my data, but on others' data as well. The funniest conversations we had were about time and time zones. At some point, we started using timestamp timestamp and timestamp not timestamp because working on data from multiple time zones makes you question what on earth is time, and what actually is now ("Now for whom?" "Now where?"). I had literally nightmares about time and time zones. No, I am not kidding.
diego_moita 5y ago
You can find old Pebbles at that price at eBay[1] IMO, it still is one of the best smartwatches. [1]: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l2632&_nkw=pebble&_sacat=178893 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...
- lormayna 5y ago
  How do you deal with the lack of Pebbles cloud services?
  - modeless 5y ago
    Rebble is still hosting them and they work great. But they're not really required for the watch to work.
  - habeebtc 5y ago
    Personally, I find the lack of cloud services to be relaxing. Because the thing always works that way, instead of occasionally melting down because some cloud service is having an outage and the failure mode is not well thought out.
  - metapsj 5y ago
    hopefully you find this helpful... On December 7th, 2016, Pebble announced that they were ceasing operations. Two days later, on December 9th, 2016, the Rebble web site went live, announcing our intention to "maintain and advance Pebble functionality, in the absence of Pebble Technology Corp." We have fulfilled much of this goal via Rebble Web Services, which restores most of the functionality that the Pebble community knows and loves. https://rebble.io/ https://rebble.io/
jsilence 5y ago
Maybe Watchy does what you want. No personal experience though. https://watchy.sqfmi.com/ https://watchy.sqfmi.com/
- craftinator 5y ago
  I have one, and have found it quite excellent. Easy to play around with, pretty good documentation, and the eink is really nice. There's something like 30 watch faces already designed, so you can just fork off one you like. Highly recommend the anodized aluminum case. The plastic one is sturdy enough, but with the thickness of the material, makes the watch feel bulky. Also, the aluminum one has such a good fit (they are precision CNCed) that it can handle water splashes with no problem, and a few gaskets can get it to IP64 or 65
azdle 5y ago
The Bangle.js 2 just delivered to kickstarter backers: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gfw/banglejs-2-the-open-smart-watch/ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gfw/banglejs-2-the-open... AFAICT, it's fully open source software (except, presumably, the nordic hal stuff?), with a JS SDK and a hosted IDE. But, I haven't used it yet because it requires WebBluetooth, and I refuse to use chrome, and I haven't figured out if the rasppi hosted IDE is still supported or not, it seems that the `nw` package doesn't support arm (anymore?). But this was the best option I found when I was looking awhile ago. The other things I considered were the Pinetime (software is still a bit too early from what I've seen) and "Paul's Open-Smartwatch" https://open-smartwatch.github.io/ https://open-smartwatch.github.io/, but I really wanted GPS and that version's design isn't finished yet.
- simonvc 5y ago
  Upvote for BangleJS2. Been wearing mine for a couple of weeks now and it's great. The always on transreflective screen is really easy to read in sunlight and the battery seems great (over a week). Being able to quickly hack watch faces using the online IDE is great, i've hacked mine to be easy to read when i'm usually asleep and only care about the time, not the date and other stuff.
  - 41209 5y ago
    This looks closest to what I want, I signed up for their waiting list
- AmosLightnin 5y ago
  Just got my Bangle.js 2 and like it very much. Also purchased a Watchy for the epaper display a few months back. Compared to Watchy, the espruino IDE and ecosystem for Bangle.js 2 is much more developed and the community much more active. There is support for widgets, custom settings, and apps other than watch faces, and the development / sharing path is much more thought through. Check out the app loader, and the 300 or so apps (all source available on github) here: https://banglejs.com/apps/ https://banglejs.com/apps/
  - 5y ago
palyancodr 5y ago
Hi! Check out the watchX: https://youtu.be/AKSIGRdL-ts https://youtu.be/AKSIGRdL-ts You can code it with Scratch or Arduino. There are a lot of examples available: https://community.watchx.io/t/watchx-watch-face-collection/603 https://community.watchx.io/t/watchx-watch-face-collection/6...
alistairjallan 5y ago
The Lillygo or TTGO watches you'll find on AliExpress support Arduino libraries, Python, C or even JavaScript.

52 points by 41209 5y ago

sokoloff 5y ago

I picked up a (used) Series 3 Apple Watch for $100 early last year. If you got one of those, it’s surely going to be worth $50 in 12 months. I’m in the Apple ecosystem and very happy with the watch, even though the newer versions are surely nicer.

tinus_hn 5y ago
Apple Watch practically requires an iPhone though.

denysvitali 5y ago

Depending on what you mean by "smart watch": you can try the Pine Time: https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ 51 USD will get you a sealed smart watch and a dev kit :)

fit2rule 5y ago
PineTime watch is also a great place to learn Rust.
41209 5y ago
Can I write my own apps for the sealed version? The dev kit seems a bit too low level for me
- ushakov 5y ago
  try wasp-os https://github.com/daniel-thompson/wasp-os https://github.com/daniel-thompson/wasp-os i have personally made a metronome app for it https://gist.github.com/mishushakov/7af0c459178f152a27005d31a7f4f943 https://gist.github.com/mishushakov/7af0c459178f152a27005d31...
  - 41209 5y ago
    Fantastic, I think I'll go with the Colmi P8 and try to build something silly with it. Thanks
    - ushakov 5y ago
      they provide an emulator, so you can develop apps on your computer before you deploy to watch https://wasp-os.readthedocs.io/en/latest/appguide.html#testing-on-the-simulator https://wasp-os.readthedocs.io/en/latest/appguide.html#testi... the OS itself is a app and is easily customizable but best the thing has to the community on Matrix/IRC. Daniel, (the creator) is very responsive and without his support i wouldn’t be able to create my app
    - mPReDiToR 5y ago
      I'm just waiting on my PineTime (one sealed, one dev) to arrive. I've used a P8 with InfiniTime but the latest code no longer runs due to a driver change. Bite the bullet and get a PineTime. The community is working hard on the software, as they are with all Pine64 devices. Free advice is worth what you spend on it, but this is from the heart.
      - 41209 5y ago
        Good point, assuming I can cancel the order I already made for a P8 watch( one thing I do love about Amazon is canceling is very very easy compared to other retailers )
TrianguloY 5y ago
It doesn't seem to have always-on display :( I also want to find a good smartwatch, tired of waiting for wear3.0, but an always-on display is a must have for me.
- lmns 5y ago
  With that budget you won't find an always-on display. OLED panels are just too expensive.
  - monsieurbanana 5y ago
    How about e-ink watches? I know nothing about them, but it seems they exist and aren't specially pricy.
    - 1ibsq 5y ago
      Watchy [1] has already be mentioned somewhere below and has an e-paper display. [1] https://watchy.sqfmi.com https://watchy.sqfmi.com
  - kristianp 5y ago
    What about transflective lcd, like some Garmin forerunners?
41209 5y ago
Actually this isn't a bad idea, anyway to save on shipping or get a promo code. Once it's shipped, it's 60$ or so venturing close to what a WearOS watch cost ( I'm seeing older ones at 80$ or so)

h4waii 5y ago

You can still develop for Pebble, even though the entire thing is EoL. There are lots of Pebble enthusiasts and work is still being done on the platform through Rebble. There's also Bangle.js to keep an eye on.

modeless 5y ago
Yeah, Pebble has a great SDK and since it's defunct there's no update treadmill anymore. Anything you build today will be guaranteed to work as long as the hardware does.

seniorivn 5y ago

pinetime

evan_ 5y ago

See if you can find a Timex Datalink on eBay

sorenjan 5y ago

> Looks like Google is coming out with Wear OS 3 soon Wear OS 3 is already out. https://www.androidauthority.com/wear-os-3-watches-2736393/ https://www.androidauthority.com/wear-os-3-watches-2736393/

atemerev 5y ago

There are many ESP32 smartwatches available on Aliexpress for about this price. ESP32 is compatible with Arduino IDE, PlatformIO, and many other development tools.

Jugurtha 5y ago

I have worked for many years on fitness trackers from https://www.jointcorp.com https://www.jointcorp.com. Talking with them, they sent PDF files for the communications protocol (Bluetooth Low Energy). I wrote a generic codec that consumes a YAML file and could decode packets from these devices to Python objects, and which could take a Python API call for a function you didn't write and encode it to binary packets the watch could understand. Practically, when we needed to use another device, I just added to the YAML file and the thing worked with practically no code change. New watch with GPS data? Just add to the YAML file and magic happens. Watch with blood pressure feature? Just add a few lines to the YAML file and magic happens. The code was on a Raspberry PI in which a 3G/4G dongle was plugged, and it connected to the watch, uploaded data, was robust do disconnection events either internet or BLE (used Thespian and the Actor model to create and kill actors). The devices were geographically distributed on different timezones (a fucking nightmare) and basically needed to work for users with zero technical skills. It needed to be plug and play and it just works. Even configuring the pairing between a Raspberry PI and the watch needed to be low touch (I used the analogy of a dog and a hand: you put your hand out for the dog to smell and recognize you, you put the watch nearby the Raspberry PI and it computed the RSSI and duration to detect the "intent" so it didn't pair with "drive-by" devices). Kind of like NFC, but for BLE. The data was sent to a backend, then displayed on a mobile application (the prototype had a Grafana dashboard that showed your activity in near-real time). Talk with them. They'll probably send you the PDF spec and you can do whatever you want.

41209 5y ago
That's cool, but I was trying to find a company that publishes it's SDK. Ideally some app examples as well. That said, given how cheap these watches are I'm open to trying anything. Were you able to write your own custom app too, or just consume existing data ?
- Jugurtha 5y ago
  >Were you able to write your own custom app too, or just consume existing data ? As mentioned in my original comment with additional: I wrote an application that ran on Raspberry PI devices in different continents, countries, and time zones that connected to trackers worn by people with zero technical skills and worked nonetheless surviving disconnection events and automatically upgrading the software, communicating with the trackers and sending serialized data (protobufs) to a server application in Scala my colleague wrote, that then made analysis and aggregations and sent result to yet another mobile application (Android) another colleague wrote to display graphs and other data. The application I wrote worked with several models of this company's products, and at some point, we thought of making it more generic and use it for video and sound feeds for another project ("sound event detection", let's say). Yes, I was able to build a custom app and it worked not only on my data, but on others' data as well. The funniest conversations we had were about time and time zones. At some point, we started using timestamp timestamp and timestamp not timestamp because working on data from multiple time zones makes you question what on earth is time, and what actually is now ("Now for whom?" "Now where?"). I had literally nightmares about time and time zones. No, I am not kidding.

diego_moita 5y ago

You can find old Pebbles at that price at eBay[1] IMO, it still is one of the best smartwatches. [1]: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l2632&_nkw=pebble&_sacat=178893 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...

lormayna 5y ago
How do you deal with the lack of Pebbles cloud services?
- modeless 5y ago
  Rebble is still hosting them and they work great. But they're not really required for the watch to work.
- habeebtc 5y ago
  Personally, I find the lack of cloud services to be relaxing. Because the thing always works that way, instead of occasionally melting down because some cloud service is having an outage and the failure mode is not well thought out.
- metapsj 5y ago
  hopefully you find this helpful... On December 7th, 2016, Pebble announced that they were ceasing operations. Two days later, on December 9th, 2016, the Rebble web site went live, announcing our intention to "maintain and advance Pebble functionality, in the absence of Pebble Technology Corp." We have fulfilled much of this goal via Rebble Web Services, which restores most of the functionality that the Pebble community knows and loves. https://rebble.io/ https://rebble.io/

jsilence 5y ago

Maybe Watchy does what you want. No personal experience though. https://watchy.sqfmi.com/ https://watchy.sqfmi.com/

craftinator 5y ago
I have one, and have found it quite excellent. Easy to play around with, pretty good documentation, and the eink is really nice. There's something like 30 watch faces already designed, so you can just fork off one you like. Highly recommend the anodized aluminum case. The plastic one is sturdy enough, but with the thickness of the material, makes the watch feel bulky. Also, the aluminum one has such a good fit (they are precision CNCed) that it can handle water splashes with no problem, and a few gaskets can get it to IP64 or 65

azdle 5y ago

The Bangle.js 2 just delivered to kickstarter backers: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gfw/banglejs-2-the-open-smart-watch/ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gfw/banglejs-2-the-open... AFAICT, it's fully open source software (except, presumably, the nordic hal stuff?), with a JS SDK and a hosted IDE. But, I haven't used it yet because it requires WebBluetooth, and I refuse to use chrome, and I haven't figured out if the rasppi hosted IDE is still supported or not, it seems that the `nw` package doesn't support arm (anymore?). But this was the best option I found when I was looking awhile ago. The other things I considered were the Pinetime (software is still a bit too early from what I've seen) and "Paul's Open-Smartwatch" https://open-smartwatch.github.io/ https://open-smartwatch.github.io/, but I really wanted GPS and that version's design isn't finished yet.

simonvc 5y ago
Upvote for BangleJS2. Been wearing mine for a couple of weeks now and it's great. The always on transreflective screen is really easy to read in sunlight and the battery seems great (over a week). Being able to quickly hack watch faces using the online IDE is great, i've hacked mine to be easy to read when i'm usually asleep and only care about the time, not the date and other stuff.
- 41209 5y ago
  This looks closest to what I want, I signed up for their waiting list
AmosLightnin 5y ago
Just got my Bangle.js 2 and like it very much. Also purchased a Watchy for the epaper display a few months back. Compared to Watchy, the espruino IDE and ecosystem for Bangle.js 2 is much more developed and the community much more active. There is support for widgets, custom settings, and apps other than watch faces, and the development / sharing path is much more thought through. Check out the app loader, and the 300 or so apps (all source available on github) here: https://banglejs.com/apps/ https://banglejs.com/apps/
- 5y ago

palyancodr 5y ago

Hi! Check out the watchX: https://youtu.be/AKSIGRdL-ts https://youtu.be/AKSIGRdL-ts You can code it with Scratch or Arduino. There are a lot of examples available: https://community.watchx.io/t/watchx-watch-face-collection/603 https://community.watchx.io/t/watchx-watch-face-collection/6...

alistairjallan 5y ago

The Lillygo or TTGO watches you'll find on AliExpress support Arduino libraries, Python, C or even JavaScript.