Somewhat off-topic but the comments here and the supported devices list made me look into the Bangle.js 2, and at first glance, it looks awesome. Completely open and hackable, has GPS (which is the big thing lacking from the Pinetime) and less than £80?
Does anyone have one and how does it fare as a daily driver? Just wondering what's the catch!
The Bangle.js 2 is an excellent watch.[1] As a former Pebble user, this is the first device that I consider an adequate replacement for my Pebble (which by now has a diminished battery life and corroded charging contacts).
Here is my impression of the Bangle.js 2:
- Battery: Lasts about 3 weeks on a charge, constantly connected to my phone, when the watch is used for notifications and alarms. This is a major advantage over Apple Watches and Android/Wear OS watches. I don't want to charge my watch every day.
- Display and buttons: The 1.3" 8-color transflective display is comparable to the Pebble Time series' 64-color transflective display. The display is always on, and the backlight activation is highly configurable. The Bangle.js 2 has a touchscreen and 1 button, while Pebble watches have no touchscreen and 3 buttons.
- Software: Runs on the completely free and open source Espruino JavaScript interpreter,[2] which was my main motivation for purchasing this device. There are currently 336 apps in the web-based Bangle.js app loader (app store), including utilites and clocks (watch faces), all of which are FOSS. The bootloader and firmware can be updated directly from the app loader. On Android, there is a distribution of Gadgetbridge (built from the same code base as Gadgetbridge) with internet access enabled that integrates the Bangle.js app loader into Gadgetbridge, which makes it very easy to use the watch.[3] I haven't built any apps for the watch yet, but Espruino has a web-based IDE.[4]
- Build: Built on the same device body as the SMA Q3.[5] The casing is plastic, and the watch is compatible with standard 20 mm watch straps. The IP67 water/dust resistance makes the watch usable for sports.
Overall, I highly recommend the Bangle.js 2 watch, which is the best FOSS-focused watch I have found to date. I hope this project catches on and continues to succeed.
There is also a dedicated build variant for Bangle.js on F-droid [1], Play Store [2] (which the normal Gadgetbridge avoids [3]) and also in our F-droid Nightly releases repo [4].
I switched to the variant for my BangleJS2 because it's way more convenient yo directly upload apps with the embedded function than: disconnecting from Gadgetbridge
connecting to Web Bluetooth in Chrome, upload, disconnect from Chrome, reconnect to Gadgetbridge.
Also with Internet access, I can rely on the watch to poll OWM itself instead of Weather Notification which despite all my attempts, ultimately get killed as a background process.
Unfortunately, if you don't want to import from another country, you might be out of luck.
According to the developer, you can also buy the SMA Q3 watch from another vendor and flash the FOSS Bangle.js 2 firmware onto it yourself if you're comfortable.[1]
Could you please explain the 40% import duty in India for me? I was under the impression that the smartwatch import duty was only raised to 20% earlier this year,[2] but I'm not familiar with this.
i remembered this reading it back when i was looking for the machine. didn't bother with it, apparenlty pine64 people don't try to do this themselves to india, they do have a reseller that sells at a high margin though
Does anyone have one and how does it fare as a daily driver? Just wondering what's the catch!