
PineTime Is a $25 Smartwatch / Companion for PinePhone Linux Phone - Zenst
https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/09/15/pinetime-smartwatch-companion-pinephone/
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frabbit
A bit OT, but related: there are no cheap, simple, FOSS mp3 players. It used
to be that you could get a Sansa which was flashable with Rockbox¹, had a
decent battery life, cost around US$30 and would take SD cards. Those options
have now disappeared and been replaced with devices that do not have enough
memory to be flashed with Rockbox. The default OS on these is terrible
compared to Rockbox.

Would love it if someone would make a simple player which was controllable by
the user.

1\. [https://www.rockbox.org/](https://www.rockbox.org/)

~~~
squarefoot
I have the exact same problem: two (Rockboxed) Sansa Clip Zips I've taken
everywhere for years, from snowy mountains to the beach; one is already dead
and one about to take its final breath. They're not available anymore for
purchase and the few used ones remaining in still good condition are sold
ridiculously overpriced. To me there's only one solution: Either develop a a
player from scratch or port a subset of Rockbox (no games, FX, etc.) on a
small SBC plus added display, DAC, SD and LiPo circuitry. The SBC could well
be the ESP32 which would add wireless functionality; *Pi and other Linux
boards would be tremendously overkill for the task. Shouldn't be that hard for
skilled developers, and it would surely sell among those of us who don't want
to use a cellphone.

~~~
andai
Why don't you want to use a cellphone? Privacy/surveillance and/or stimulation
addiction? I miss my old mp3 players and RockBoxed iPod classic, and I've been
meaning to get rid of my cell phone as well. Really I'd prefer a pocket
computer to a cell phone, surprised there isn't anything like that for sale.

~~~
squarefoot
"Why don't you want to use a cellphone? Privacy/surveillance and/or
stimulation addiction?"

Pretty much all of this, plus not risking a device that I have to rely on for
communications. Each of my Sansa players fell like a dozen times without
getting a single scratch because they were very light and the screen was small
and sturdy; had I used a cellphone I would probably have destroyed at least
its screen multiple times or ruined it from prolonged exposition to salty air
at the sea. Also I don't use smartphones due to the above points, and I still
have to see a traditional phone with a decent player (and a decent camera, but
that's another story).

The PinePhone might change this, however. Silently waiting for it to hit the
market.

~~~
frabbit
That's pretty much it on all points for me: light and small with a sturdy
plastic case meant that dropping it was not disastrous.

Am definitely interested in the PinePhone, but suspect that its dimensions
will mean that I shall be restricted in not using it while running/cycling and
(more importantly for me) as a cheap audiobook player that I fall asleep to in
bed and occasionally drop out of the bed onto the floor or sleep on top of.

~~~
squarefoot
A hint for the folks at pine64: please take into consideration the PinePod :)

~~~
tllim
Check on my response :-)

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xorcist
Why isn't e-ink perfect here? A watch is perfectly usable in monochrome and is
used in bright daylight which would favor high contrast and viewing angles.
Plus battery life is good. Turns out there has been a few on the market but
nobody really wanted them. Strange.

~~~
roadbeats
I use Garmin Instinct with monochrome display. It has so many features, even a
simple navigation system, and it’s battery goes 2 weeks. I love it.

I can’t understand why people want to have color, fancy screens on a watch. Do
we need colors to see the time? A calendar notification? Heart rate ?

A watch should serve information without distracting, and most importantly, I
should be able to go out without thinking about battery life of my watch. It
should be reliable enough to carry it in the arm.

~~~
Operyl
To you it makes zero sense, to a ton of other people it does. I love the value
having statuses conveyed to me in color, it allows me to quickly process
information.

~~~
roadbeats
Right, changed my comment

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leggomylibro
Nice! Multi-day battery life and an NRF52 sounds like a great starting point.

I really miss Pebble, which this sort of evokes. Their 'Time' series of
watches were incredible, with awesome battery life and a great C SDK.

How has Pine's recent hardware and software support panned out? I remember
people saying that the original PineBooks bordered on unusable, but I'm sure
they've made a lot of progress since then and I keep meaning to try one of
these libre hardware platforms.

~~~
Avamander
The nRF52 is quite good in terms of the vendor's software support, I can't
wait to try and turn the watch into a U2F key.

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dchest
[https://aliexpress.com/item/32933638584.html](https://aliexpress.com/item/32933638584.html)

(from
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d3y87q/is_pine64_sca...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d3y87q/is_pine64_scam/))

~~~
petra
Why doesn't this come with a reasonable open sdk ? Why none of the Chinese
smartwatch companies offer that ?

Seem like a big opportunity.

What's different in the Chinese business culture - that nobody tries this
opportunity ?

~~~
freehunter
At the risk of sounding Nationalist or Jingoist... it seems that innovation
isn't something that comes easily to many Chinese companies. Innovation is
done by American/Western companies, and many Chinese companies piggyback off
of Western innovations. Since many Western companies produce their products in
China, it's easy for that factory to just keep the production lines running.
When Apple asks for 1,000 products to be made, the Chinese factories can make
the 1,000 products for Apple and then 5,000 products for sale on Alibaba at
basically no additional cost.

When you're selling hardware at-cost and copying OSS software to run on it,
it's not really profitable to add additional software maintenance costs like
producing an SDK or offering English-language software support. I'm 100% sure
there are Chinese companies who offer software and English-language support,
but I am also 100% sure those Chinese companies charge similar prices to
Western companies, negating the benefits of Alibaba products.

You certainly do have Chinese companies who attempt this: Huawei and Xiaomi
come to mind. But their products sell at prices very comparable to Western
companies. For the true "Chinese prices" companies who only sell on Alibaba
etc... if they're offering Western support and Western innovation, there's no
way they're selling at Chinese prices.

~~~
monocasa
There's tons of innovation occurring in the Chinese hardware market. For
consumer devices, I'd say there's much more innovation happening in Shenzhen
than in San Fran.

The issue is that they have their own ecosystem for software that doesn't
really play nice with western IP, so you sort of get stone walled if you come
in talking English.
[https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297)

~~~
freehunter
From skimming your article... is it really innovation if the research and
development is stolen from Western countries?

>very small teams of engineers can obtain complete design packages for working
phones

They can obtain complete design packages for working phones because those
design packages were stolen according to Western laws and customs.

>we also feel that shying away from reverse engineering simply because it’s
controversial is a slippery slope

It might be controversial in China, but it's illegal in many Western
countries.

>Unfortunately, queries into getting a Western-licensed EDK for the chips used
in the Chinese phones were met with a cold shoulder

So instead they decided that stealing the work of Western companies would not
and could not be punished in China, so they just stole it.

"Doesn't play nice with Western IP" sounds an awful lot like theft with a
fancier name.

~~~
monocasa
For context, the blog post is written by an American born MIT graduate who
tries to embody the classic MIT hacker ethos. His is a remarkably western
perspective in it's axioms.

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grizzles
I think I had one of these kicking around and gave it to my mother in law.

I'm developing a smart watch product. I'm working with a Chinese company that
does the firmware dev.

If there's someone out experienced with SWD etc and might be interested in
collaborating on this device please drop me a line. As far as I'm concerned
the more open the hardware the better.

~~~
dmitrygr
> If there's someone out experienced with SWD

There seems to be no way to contact you other than something called "twitter"
as per your profile here?

~~~
MartijnBraam
Pine64 has email, irc, discord, telegram and matrix

I only know it's #pinetime:matrix.org

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crispyporkbites
This looks pretty similar to the Amazfit BIP, which gives about 45 days (DAYS
not hours) of battery life with an always on e-ink screen.

What the Amazfit is really missing is an open SDK or way of running apps on
it, then it would be pretty much perfect.

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yjftsjthsd-h
At that price point, this has a pretty good chance of growing a good community
around it, which would be really nice.

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fit2rule
This is a for-sure buy for me. I have everything from OpenMoko to Creative
Zii, to Pandora and back again in my 'utility drawer', and if .. someone ..
who is not the Oscilloscope Watch guy .. will make a nice smart watch, without
all the bloat and fancy spy'ing, and with 100% open source, then I am _IN_.

It just seems like a no-brainer. A Linux Watch. Please won't someone just make
it. (Bonus points if it has probe inputs...)

~~~
AriaMinaei
Me too. I just want a hackable smartwatch. I want to customize it so that when
I press one of its hardware buttons, it'll start recording a memo, and later
syncs it to my laptop when in the same network.

I need the recording to start in sub-second time, so there is no barrier to
start, which makes my use-case unsuitable for Android-level "hackable."

~~~
megous
This thing has 512/256 KiB Flash + 64/32 KiB SRAM. It most probably doesn't
even has a mic.

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alfiedotwtf
If this thing is a hackable watch, I’d be more than happy to even pay $1000
for it. I miss my Pebbles, and being open makes me exited to not be chained to
Apple or Google

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syntaxing
The watch housing is almost exactly like a Fitbit Versa. Kinda curious if the
housing is made by the same manufacturer.

~~~
Scoundreller
Is there a difference if another manufacturer got hold of the exact same
tooling?

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lappet
Is there a similarly priced smartwatch that works with Android?

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jerrysievert
[https://aliexpress.com/item/32933638584.html](https://aliexpress.com/item/32933638584.html)

(shamelessly stolen from the other comment)

~~~
lappet
interesting, thank you!

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thomas536
Has anyone come across good smartwatch hacks to add a hackable microphone to
your wrist?

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geokon
better yet would be a mic array. I don't think this Nordic chip can have
multiple i2s inputs

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newnewpdro
Anyone here use a pinebook? I've been thinking about getting one of the 11"
1080p models @ $99, but really want to see one in person first. It seems very
likely to just be e-waste on arrival.

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gossamer
I was hoping it ran the Pine email client.

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blankcheque
Ah yeah, 2019 the year of the Linux Phone.

~~~
ReverseCold
Every year is the year of the Linux Phone because Android exists :)

