They're absurdly cheap for a device with specs like these. I picked one up off Amazon, along with a small selection of aftermarket metal and nylon-weave bands. It's been years since I bothered wearing any kind of bracelet, and the fetish for expensive watches as conspicuous display of debt-financed pretense of wealth passed me by, but a bracelet topped with a cute little OLED touchscreen, bristling with sensors, and powered by what appears to be an extremely open and friendly programming environment? That's worth the trouble of reaccustoming myself to a somewhat unfashionable accessory.
(Make sure there isn't a space in the simulator executable's pathname. Also note that, because the Band 7 runs Zepp OS 1.0, you won't be able to use any feature that's documented as requiring an API_LEVEL, i.e. OS 2.0 or higher. That's probably part of why these are so cheap, but if they're as flexible as I get the sense from these docs they may be, I'll be upgrading pretty soon to something much more capable like a T-Rex 3.)
I don't love having to link it with an app to start using it, especially when that app keeps trying to grab my pasteboard without any sensible excuse.
This comment was much more favorable before that started happening. Oh well, what self-respecting mobile dev doesn't have a pile of crappy phones with nothing on them of import?
I hear you. Once the device set up you can unlink the app but I'm not sure what happens to your data at that point. But the app is quite useful as it allows you to view data in different ways than Health. Also, like you, I disable pasteboard requests apps that have no need for it.
I overreacted slightly because it happened to be my TOTP app that had most recently written there, and I don't suppose I feel too bad about being a little gun-shy in the direction of excessive security.
The app is really quite nice, and the hardware itself seems so far quite beyond reproach. I think I'm really going to enjoy these as a way of easing back into programming during this sabbatical, and the T-rex 3 is a handsome little accessory; thank you, I'm really glad you posted about these!
Not that you need to hear more from me on this, but this really is the exact kind of accessory I needed. Programmable, powerful enough to be fun, not obtrusive enough to get in the way, lots of stylish colorful and businessy metallic bands I can swap out and accessorize for my day - and paying ~5% state of charge per day for an always-on display in "night" or single-color mode, it also manages to match in simple utility a simple quartz watch of the type my last-but-one partner favored. It's clever, unusual, understated, but for those who bother noticing such things it does make a nuanced statement. It's me.
I've spent ca $500 now on a range from Band 7 through Balance to T-rex 3, just so I'll have something to suit all styles and occasions. That may sound like a lot of money, but it really isn't; due to some events last year far too tedious to discuss, I lately find I'm read as homeless a little (...a lot...) too easily for comfort, and accessorizing this way allows me to show the ignorant wealthy something they think they recognize enough not to feel threatened by, without my having to compromise on any characteristics I actually care about in a personal device.
When the bad read is from a 20-year-old college kid bartender who has the job precisely because the place is too empty that time of day for even a Labrador to screw anything up too badly, I don't especially care. But this is Baltimore, and while the BPD has made enormous strides in the last decade and especially under Mayor Scott, times are scary. If the bad read is a keyed-up 22-year-old cop with a hand already near his weapon, that really could turn out to be the last bad day we ever have.
Oh sure, that poor cop would regret it and never forgive himself starting one second after the shot, but what good would that do him or me? Everybody goes out some kind of way, but I would rather for the sake of all involved this not be mine, and the upgrade to my style materially reduces the chance of that happening and makes me happy all kinds of other ways too.
So thanks again, most earnestly! Whether or not you meant to do me such a favor, you did; if you're ever in town and want to hit me up, feel free to collect on that very nice meal that I owe you.
I actually preferred my Amazfit over my Apple Watch for several largely surface reasons:
1. The battery life is absurdly good compared to an Apple Watch. I don't understand why Apple Watches continue to have less than a day of battery life this many years into development; it's just not ok.
2. I absolutely LOVED that my notifications would go to my watch AND my phone simultaneously. With an Apple Watch you get one or the other and the Apple Watch doesn't mirror special notification sounds made on the phone for certain contacts/applications so I lose that functionality which is infuriating for me.
3. The only reason I kept the Apple Watch is because it is FAR SUPERIOR for three primary use cases:
- Swimming: the Apple Watch seems to know what strokes I'm doing 90% of the time whereas the Amazfit watch I had did not even track swimming at all, let alone be correct in its assessment of stroke and distance covered.
- Sleep tracking: the Amazfit watch was hours high on sleep and did not at all track sleep quality in line with my experience; the Apple Watch is far closer to my reality.
- Heart rate monitoring: the Amazfit was WAY low on heart rate when compared to an actual monitor whereas the Apple Watch is within miniscule difference. Amazfit was telling me my resting heart rate was in the low 30s when, in reality, it's closer to the low 70s; this just isn't just wrong, it's dangerously wrong.
All good to know, I appreciate it! The HR and O2 sat on this Band 7 line up pretty well with my old finger clip thing, but I haven't really benchmarked it more than that. I do now also have a T-Rex 3 en route, and for an order of magnitude higher cost, I expect to see it perform at least as well.
I wasn't really in the market for a smartwatch, if I'm honest; I haven't bothered with one in at least a decade. But a wearable I can program to this extent, with this interface and sensor suite, as cheaply as these things sell for? Unless they develop a habit of exploding on my wrist or I decide I really do hate bracelets after all, I genuinely can't imagine finding an enormous amount not to like.
Self-replying to note with the T-Rex 3 at least, the HR sensor is extremely sensitive to pressure, in that it easily reads 10bpm high if the watch is tight enough not to slip easily on the wrist. I like a watch this size and weight a little loose so that's OK, but the Band 7 seems to read most accurately when it's tighter. Either way, I doubt I'd rely on these for more than general trend and variation, a finger clip pulse ox is probably a lot more reliable.
I'm sure the Apple Watch is more accurate, but I find it hard to believe that to be that more accurate drops the battery to by a factor of 20. My hunch, as somebody who used to work at Apple, is that the watchOS is no different than any other software and is very far from being optimal.
I didn’t intend to imply the increased accuracy was the reason for the battery life drop; they were just statements about my experience with both and my ultimate choice to stick with the Apple Watch because of the accuracy and more advanced abilities, even with the significant pain in the ass of having to charge the watch every 18h or so.
I have the Amazfit watch as well, and one of the best things about them is that you can use GadgetBridge (Opensource app for Android) in case you don't want to get entrenched in their ecosystem.
You can update the firmware, install watchfaces and have nearly 100% functionality.
Does anyone have something like this for Xiaomi Band? I have one but the stock faces are an assault on my aesthetic sensibilities.
Edit: apparently there is an app called EasyFace, but it doesn't seem to be open source, and it says it needs to be run with admin privileges. TL;DR: nah, man, I'm good.
Do they have a watch face section in their official app?
Just yesterday the watch face in my post was added to the official Amazfit watch face store in their Zepp app. Perhaps Xiomi have something similar.
Developer documentation for the Amazfit device's "Zepp OS" appears to be hosted at https://developer.zepp.com/os/home.
They're absurdly cheap for a device with specs like these. I picked one up off Amazon, along with a small selection of aftermarket metal and nylon-weave bands. It's been years since I bothered wearing any kind of bracelet, and the fetish for expensive watches as conspicuous display of debt-financed pretense of wealth passed me by, but a bracelet topped with a cute little OLED touchscreen, bristling with sensors, and powered by what appears to be an extremely open and friendly programming environment? That's worth the trouble of reaccustoming myself to a somewhat unfashionable accessory.
(Make sure there isn't a space in the simulator executable's pathname. Also note that, because the Band 7 runs Zepp OS 1.0, you won't be able to use any feature that's documented as requiring an API_LEVEL, i.e. OS 2.0 or higher. That's probably part of why these are so cheap, but if they're as flexible as I get the sense from these docs they may be, I'll be upgrading pretty soon to something much more capable like a T-Rex 3.)
The price and capability is really surprising. But the most surprising and welcome thing for me is the long battery life.
I don't love having to link it with an app to start using it, especially when that app keeps trying to grab my pasteboard without any sensible excuse.
This comment was much more favorable before that started happening. Oh well, what self-respecting mobile dev doesn't have a pile of crappy phones with nothing on them of import?
I hear you. Once the device set up you can unlink the app but I'm not sure what happens to your data at that point. But the app is quite useful as it allows you to view data in different ways than Health. Also, like you, I disable pasteboard requests apps that have no need for it.
I overreacted slightly because it happened to be my TOTP app that had most recently written there, and I don't suppose I feel too bad about being a little gun-shy in the direction of excessive security.
The app is really quite nice, and the hardware itself seems so far quite beyond reproach. I think I'm really going to enjoy these as a way of easing back into programming during this sabbatical, and the T-rex 3 is a handsome little accessory; thank you, I'm really glad you posted about these!
Not that you need to hear more from me on this, but this really is the exact kind of accessory I needed. Programmable, powerful enough to be fun, not obtrusive enough to get in the way, lots of stylish colorful and businessy metallic bands I can swap out and accessorize for my day - and paying ~5% state of charge per day for an always-on display in "night" or single-color mode, it also manages to match in simple utility a simple quartz watch of the type my last-but-one partner favored. It's clever, unusual, understated, but for those who bother noticing such things it does make a nuanced statement. It's me.
I've spent ca $500 now on a range from Band 7 through Balance to T-rex 3, just so I'll have something to suit all styles and occasions. That may sound like a lot of money, but it really isn't; due to some events last year far too tedious to discuss, I lately find I'm read as homeless a little (...a lot...) too easily for comfort, and accessorizing this way allows me to show the ignorant wealthy something they think they recognize enough not to feel threatened by, without my having to compromise on any characteristics I actually care about in a personal device.
When the bad read is from a 20-year-old college kid bartender who has the job precisely because the place is too empty that time of day for even a Labrador to screw anything up too badly, I don't especially care. But this is Baltimore, and while the BPD has made enormous strides in the last decade and especially under Mayor Scott, times are scary. If the bad read is a keyed-up 22-year-old cop with a hand already near his weapon, that really could turn out to be the last bad day we ever have.
Oh sure, that poor cop would regret it and never forgive himself starting one second after the shot, but what good would that do him or me? Everybody goes out some kind of way, but I would rather for the sake of all involved this not be mine, and the upgrade to my style materially reduces the chance of that happening and makes me happy all kinds of other ways too.
So thanks again, most earnestly! Whether or not you meant to do me such a favor, you did; if you're ever in town and want to hit me up, feel free to collect on that very nice meal that I owe you.
I actually preferred my Amazfit over my Apple Watch for several largely surface reasons:
1. The battery life is absurdly good compared to an Apple Watch. I don't understand why Apple Watches continue to have less than a day of battery life this many years into development; it's just not ok.
2. I absolutely LOVED that my notifications would go to my watch AND my phone simultaneously. With an Apple Watch you get one or the other and the Apple Watch doesn't mirror special notification sounds made on the phone for certain contacts/applications so I lose that functionality which is infuriating for me.
3. The only reason I kept the Apple Watch is because it is FAR SUPERIOR for three primary use cases:
- Swimming: the Apple Watch seems to know what strokes I'm doing 90% of the time whereas the Amazfit watch I had did not even track swimming at all, let alone be correct in its assessment of stroke and distance covered.
- Sleep tracking: the Amazfit watch was hours high on sleep and did not at all track sleep quality in line with my experience; the Apple Watch is far closer to my reality.
- Heart rate monitoring: the Amazfit was WAY low on heart rate when compared to an actual monitor whereas the Apple Watch is within miniscule difference. Amazfit was telling me my resting heart rate was in the low 30s when, in reality, it's closer to the low 70s; this just isn't just wrong, it's dangerously wrong.
All good to know, I appreciate it! The HR and O2 sat on this Band 7 line up pretty well with my old finger clip thing, but I haven't really benchmarked it more than that. I do now also have a T-Rex 3 en route, and for an order of magnitude higher cost, I expect to see it perform at least as well.
I wasn't really in the market for a smartwatch, if I'm honest; I haven't bothered with one in at least a decade. But a wearable I can program to this extent, with this interface and sensor suite, as cheaply as these things sell for? Unless they develop a habit of exploding on my wrist or I decide I really do hate bracelets after all, I genuinely can't imagine finding an enormous amount not to like.
Self-replying to note with the T-Rex 3 at least, the HR sensor is extremely sensitive to pressure, in that it easily reads 10bpm high if the watch is tight enough not to slip easily on the wrist. I like a watch this size and weight a little loose so that's OK, but the Band 7 seems to read most accurately when it's tighter. Either way, I doubt I'd rely on these for more than general trend and variation, a finger clip pulse ox is probably a lot more reliable.
I'm sure the Apple Watch is more accurate, but I find it hard to believe that to be that more accurate drops the battery to by a factor of 20. My hunch, as somebody who used to work at Apple, is that the watchOS is no different than any other software and is very far from being optimal.
I didn’t intend to imply the increased accuracy was the reason for the battery life drop; they were just statements about my experience with both and my ultimate choice to stick with the Apple Watch because of the accuracy and more advanced abilities, even with the significant pain in the ass of having to charge the watch every 18h or so.
I have the Amazfit watch as well, and one of the best things about them is that you can use GadgetBridge (Opensource app for Android) in case you don't want to get entrenched in their ecosystem.
You can update the firmware, install watchfaces and have nearly 100% functionality.
There's also https://watchface.zepp.com and the corresponding docs https://docs.zepp.com/docs/guides/tools/watchface/guides/cre...
You still need to generate images for use in that tool.
Cool. I have this band and I didn't know there was a way to put custom faces on it
It could be easier. Also the tools are quite unrefined. But I can say the same about any other Dev tools these days.
How do you get your data off it?
The data is synced with Health app on iOS, and to its own Zepp ecosystem app. You could also write your own app to exfiltrate the data over Bluetooth.
Does anyone have something like this for Xiaomi Band? I have one but the stock faces are an assault on my aesthetic sensibilities.
Edit: apparently there is an app called EasyFace, but it doesn't seem to be open source, and it says it needs to be run with admin privileges. TL;DR: nah, man, I'm good.
Do they have a watch face section in their official app? Just yesterday the watch face in my post was added to the official Amazfit watch face store in their Zepp app. Perhaps Xiomi have something similar.