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> The watch is simply missing the two 5.1k resistors connecting the CC1 and CC2 pins of the USB-C connector to ground that are required to indicate to whatever is plugged in that it wants 5v power.
This is so annoying. Back when USB-C was less prevalent, I bought a pair of wireless earbuds over another for the same reason as the title - because it used USB-C. But then I cannot charge it with my macbook, unless I add a USB-C to USB-A adapter.
This problem seems prevalent on cheaper devices. When I buy a device and discover it has this problem I always return it. I've seen it on the Hypervolt Go 2 (which I returned and replaced with a Theragun Mini) and on the Hitachi Magic Wand Micro (which I replaced with a Dame Dip).
Like the post mentions, I think this happens because the devices are missing two resistors that are needed to indicate, when connected via a USB-C to USB-C cable to a charging brick, that the device wants 5V power. Resistors are cheap and I think the only reason they get dropped is carelessness.
The whole point of USB-C is that you can charge any device with any power supply.
> This problem seems prevalent on cheaper devices.
I’ve seen it on plenty of higher-end devices as well; and even worse.
The worst offender I’ve encountered is the TermoWorks Billows. ThermoWorks is a well established brand that makes high end thermometers and is considered one of the best on the market. So I was quite surprised to discover how their ‘Billows’ product is powered.
The device itself needs 12v and has a USB-C port for power. You’d think it would do USB-PD to negotiate it’s power needs so you can just use any old USB-C adapter. Not the case. It comes with a USB-A to USB-C cable and requires a special adapter with a USB-A port on it that puts 12v on the pins that normally supply 5v.
I have no idea how they came up with this abomination. Why even use USB-A connectors if it’s not going to work with a standard USB-A adapter, and why supply an adapter that’s basically going to kill most USB-A devices you plug into it? If you have a custom adapter anyway, why not just use a simple barrel connector? Why put a USB=C port on the device if it can’t use USB-PD?
I can imagine some Chinese ali-express product using such an abomination to save a few cents on components, but why would a well-respected brand like ThermoWorks ship such a thing? It boggles the mind.
I've seen even worse. I was upgrading an old device that had a 12v barrel connector, and was happy to see the new one used USB-C instead.
It came with a power brick that I happened look at and noticed that the output voltage was listed simply as 12v (instead of all possible outputs like usbc bricks normally do). I hooked it up to a USB-PD breakout board I had and tested it. Sure enough, it output at 12v regardless of what is asked for.
Luckily, the device itself actually did USB-PD, so I was able to throw away that monstrosity before it fried anything. Annoyingly, the device only supported 12V, which is hot or miss on being supported by chargers, but at least a mismatch there isn't going to fry anything.
So it's based on Qualcomm Quick Charge? QC is a competing, slightly older, slightly simpler standard to USB-PD that can do what you described. It's...useful sometimes.
No, it’s not based on anything. A QC charger will output 5v by default and only increase the voltage after a negotiation. This is exactly as described: a USB-A style charger brick only it outputs 12v instead of 5v, no negotiation, nothing preventing you from plugging in a device expecting 5v and getting 12v. The only ‘safety feature’ is that it has ‘12V’ printed on it.
You can find it here: https://www.thermoworks.com/12volt-ac-adapter/
ThermoWorks products are made in China
and marketed to gullible Americans.
There are high-end brands that spec products to a high standard and have them made (to that standard) in China. But I agree, GP is confusing high-price with high-end.
That said, thermometry is pretty easy and well understood and you don't need crazy accuracy for cooking, so 'low-end' is fine really, just don't pay high-price for it.
The year is 2025 not 1985. If you pay them the Chinese can make you anything you want.
The thing is that there are lot of dollar stores in the West that want cheap shit for the paupers. And that is were the bad reputation comes from.
I think there's a (wrong) expectation that an American manufacturer would idiot-proof their products and not do anything dumb like double the voltage while keeping the connector the same.
The number of times I've heard people complain about "cursed" M-M 3 prong AC power cables suggests that there is no amount of idiot-proof proofing that will keep a determined American safe from themselves.
Yes, not sure if you meant that to be disagreeing, but I completely agree. China has is at par with if not surpassing the most advanced manufacturing capability of anywhere else in many areas. It can just also offer very cheap poor tolerance mass produced crap.
> ThermoWorks products are made in China
Not sure what you are trying to imply here. Products manufactured in China are of poor quality? iPhones are made in China and it would be a challenge to find any device with higher build quality than that. On the flip side, we all know how terrible the quality of US made cars is.
This happens because these devices had USB microB before and the manufacturer just replaced the port without reading the spec.
Even some mainstream products have this issue. I have an automatic door opener from a large company and the battery pack has the same issue. It is shipped with a special cable you have to use as no other USB-C cable works.
There is also another problem. The spec is large and it's not aimed at those who want to implement the simplest possible USB C compliant device.
Based on the table of contents the most promising section is "2.3.4 USB Type-C VBUS Current Detection and Usage" but it doesn't actually talk about anything you actually need. You're supposed to click through to the section "4.6.2.1 USB Type-C Current" where it shows the reference circuit, but it doesn't tell you the values of Rd, which are in section "4.11.1 Termination Parameters".
It's a 300+ page document where you must already know what you're looking for. If you didn't already know that you need two resistors, you wouldn't be able to figure it out with the spec alone.
Sounds like an "annotated spec" or some guides for implementers would be really useful.
When you use a well-documented chip, the datasheet will contain diagrams and they'll have a working demo board which they'll give you the full schematic for. Closer to 3 pages than 300.
Of course, a person can still get it wrong...
There's also this dreadful thing[1][2]
This is insanely common.
I have about 6 devices with this problem, and I consider it unforgivable.
Not only did you not include USBC charging, you went out of your way to trick me and lie and pretend you did. I would have preferred just using micro usb at that point.
Powkiddy committed fraud and said the RGB30 can charge from USB-C, but they lied, it can only charge from USB A to C cables. Using it is a massive pain because I have to get adapters I shouldn't need. I'll never buy anything from them ever again.
I feel like the USB committee might be somewhat to blame. When most people think USB-C they're just thinking the cable. Why can't it just do regular slow charging with C to C cable?
It can, it just needs the two resistors, which is the cheapest possible thing the standards committee could have asked manufacturers to do.
USB-C gets complicated at the high end, but for basic functionality I think the standards committee did a very good job at making the cheapest way to do it the correct way, e.g. a USB-C to 3.5mm audio adaptor can be entirely passive, it just needs the right resistor in it.
Then a lot of phones don't support it, so it took me three attempts to find a usb-c to 3.5mm adapter that didn't have it's own DAC that would work with my phone's FM radio lol
Audio Adapter Accessory Mode was deprecated last year so devices using it will be disappearing.
Do you mind sharing? I was looking for something like this a couple years ago.
>e.g. a USB-C to 3.5mm audio adaptor can be entirely passive, it just needs the right resistor in it.
How does that work? is each USB-C host port, or downstream USB-C hub port required to contain a stereo DAC? Does the standard impose performance requirements like dynamic range, noise, minimum sample rate,...? Does it also mandate the jack can be used for mic / line-in? Does it similarily stipulate inclusion of an ADC in each port?
It doesn't mandate any of that, it's an optional feature.
The data pins are repurposed for analog audio, so it won't work with hubs. You'd of course need a DAC for output and an ADC for mic input, but the point is to replace a headset jack, so you'd have those already.
https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB%20Type-C%20Spec%... (PDF, page 309)
The PCB designer could simply type "Type-C电路图" into Baidu and follow the instructions in the top result. But they couldn't be bothered.
Maybe, but there's no good excuse for this making it past the prototyping phase. If nobody plugged it into a USB-C power supply and noticed it doesn't work, that's negligent.
By 2019 or so, when USB-C was five years old, somebody on any product design team should have been aware this is a common problem and checked for it when selecting components.
It's not the usb c committee problem, the devices you are buying are out of spec
This is because the cable is 2 sided so it can't assume polarity
So it's a tradeoff for not having to guess how to insert the cable
>This is because the cable is 2 sided so it can't assume polarity
Not really. The USB-C connection pinout is symmetric about a 180 degree rotation, at least as far as power connections go. It's entirely possible (and common, e.g. when using passive converters) to just put power out of it constantly. The main reason for the signaling resistors is to avoid having power presented on the pins when it's not connected, which is more about avoiding corrosion or wear due to small sparks on connection.
And to avoid having two sources (perhaps with slightly different voltages) connected together and leading to hijinks. E.g. a usb A-C cable plugged into a USB-C power supply.
By 2-sided, OP probably means that the problem is that the cable has two USB-C ends, not that the USC-c connector is symmetric.
If you have an A end and a B or C end, you can assume that the device on the A end is supplying power and the device on the B or C end is consuming power without breaking anything. The A end cannot supply power to it's device by design, so an A to C cable cannot be used to power the A device from the C device, regardless of whether the device on the C end can supply power.
But if you have two C ends, you need some way to establish which device is the supply device and which is the consuming device, because the cable can be used to connect two devices which both can supply power (e.g. a laptop and a phone).
> This is because the cable is 2 sided so it can't assume polarity
To clarify (and to tell my own tale on the topic):
The power pins on both sides should be connected in both a plug and in a socket. However, when it comes to the USB 2.0 data pins only the socket end must be double-sided (short A6 to B6 and A7 to B7).
Back when "Type C" was new, I wanted to build a project with it, so I got one of the first socket breakout boards available. I built a mechanical keyboard out of aluminium with a slot milled to fit that breakout board. After everything was painted and soldered did I plug it in and it did not work ... It took me a while of troubleshooting before I retried it with the cable plugged in the other orientation. The breakout board had connected only A6/A7. B6/B7 were not available.
And if you completely discharge the powkiddy you can't charge it anymore, unless you open it up and physically disconnect the battery, plug the charger in, and then the battery back in.
> I have about 6 devices with this problem, and I consider it unforgivable.
If you still have them, you've forgiven it.
Return them and complain about it, or the manufacturers have no way to tell it bothers you.
The RGB10 Max 3 Pro has the same issue, kinda annoyed with that since my new battery pack is USB-C only..
This was exactly my complaint when the USB C standards were coming in - having a universal connector means nothing I you need a specific cable and/or power supply to charge it. You might say it’s not spec compliant and that’s fine - but it’s still a USB C port. We’d all be better off if they had just kept it as micro usb because at least then I’d _know_ I need a different cable for it
Here's a simple thing that will fix cheapo electronics with this problem: https://www.tindie.com/products/edison517/usb-chyna/
(it just connects CC1 + CC2 with the appropriate 5.1k resistors)
Would it be possible to build some kind of adapter or C-to-C cable that just contains the missing resistors? (And also probably would have to block any USB PD communication, in case you plug in any device that actually does try to use PD. So the goal would be that the charger always sees a 5V requesting device without PD support while the device always sees a "dumb" 5V charger - regardless of what capabilities the device and charger really have)
It would still suck to have to use a special cable for charging, but at least it's better than not being able to use any modern charger.
Sure, just grab a C-to-A adapter and A-to-C cable. Doesn't block communication though, you could block it by using a 2-wire A-to-C cable.
OK, that's easier than I thought. And I think it should even block the PD communication as the CC line is not passed through.
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I have an Amazfit smartwatch that gets charged by a simple USB cable with two pins that magnetically attaches to the back of the watch. When I was on vacation and forgot that cable I was able to make my own by cutting a USB cable and attaching the wires to the contacts of the watch with tape. That simplicity is hard to beat. And this watch is water resistant.
The battery is the single reason why I got the Amazfit. I use as a dumb health tracker and occasional GPS running. It easily lasts 4 weeks on a single charge. That's one less proprietary charging cable to bring on a trip.
I've been dying to ask about this somewhere where I might get a really informed response:
What's the deal with Amazfit? I have an Amazfit GTR and it's been rock solid for a couple of years. Before that, I had an Amazfit Bip for a few years which was incredible. It did notification, GPS, heart rate tracking, always on display and battery life of 2 - 4 weeks. It did this years and years ago, when the best Android could do was 24 - 48 hours, and it did it for like £60 instead of £200. It still works too!
The Bip in particular seemed so ahead of what the average person expected from a smartwatch due to state of Android and Apple offerings at the time.
Before that, I had an Amazfit Bip for a few years which was incredible. It did notification, GPS, heart rate tracking, always on display and battery life of 2 - 4 weeks. It did this years and years ago, when the best Android could do was 24 - 48 hours, and it did it for like £60 instead of £200. It still works too!
I don't know about Amazfit, but I have a Garmin that also lasts weeks. There are some differences: WearOS/WatchOS watches essentially use a more power-efficient/less powerful version of a smartphone-class SoC. They have to because they run a full Linux/XNU kernel and a pretty complete userland. Watches with weeks-long battery life typically use something that is more akin to a powerful microcontroller with operating systems tailored to such low-end hardware.
Besides that some watches (like several Garmin models) use transflective displays. They do not have to actively emit light during daytime (in contrast to OLED), sunlight is reflected. In contrast, OLED displays have to be more bright in sunlight to be visible.
> Watches with weeks-long battery life typically use something that is more akin to a powerful microcontroller with operating systems tailored to such low-end hardware.
This is what I'd assumed. But then I also assumed that's actually an exceptionally expensive and high resource approach to take compared to using higher level smartphone chips. By using lower level hardware, they're having to do more bespoke hardware design, and more bespoke low-level firmware and software creation, and also support all of that extra creation. This seems like the super expensive, heavy, slow way of building a smartwatch.
So I guess the "what's the deal" what's trying to understand how some random knockoff looking company ("Amazfit" in 2016) took the super expensive, heavy, slow way of building a smartwatch, and got better results than some of the largest most notorious software/hardware companies on the planet.
Ultimately, they took the pebble approach, and pebble also got a huge amount of backing and extra funding, time, support etc. and seemed to commercially fail. But Amazfit is still going strong.
Your question is “what is the deal with Amazfit?”
There is an implied question there, but you may want to get a bit more specific. The deal seems to be that you get a really good fitness watch for a fraction of the cost of Android and Apple offerings, if your statement and my first review of their website is accurate.
> The deal seems to be that you get a really good fitness watch for a fraction of the cost of Android and Apple offerings
Fair point, I elaborated a bit here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44854032
You're right in your assessment. My "what's the deal" was more asking "how did such a small unknown-to-me company do this with similar or better results to the worlds largest hardware/software companies (Apple/Google) in 2015/2016?" It sounds like they did it with even more specific and low level hardware and software, which makes it even more impressive.
Like I said, my bip did GPS, bluetooth notifications, hardrate tracking and most of the other things an iWatch did, but it had 20x the battery life and cost 1/5 of the price. I find this an unbelievable achievement that I don't understand, and it's rarely talked about.
The BIP used e-ink, it's a shame they stopped using that IMO.
I used to have a bip and loved it. The big thing was battery life and always on screen. It used a reflective LCD screen to do it. No newer amazefits use them.
I’ve since moved to using COROS watches. Not as cheap but really good. Always screen, weeks of battery. Even GPS functions are efficient . Recently did 11 hr hike with GPS and only used about 23% battery.
I really want a smartwatch with proper always on screen (so memory LCD, like those COROS ones), but I also need LTE so I don't have to bring my phone on short errands. Unfortunately no such product currently exists for some reason.
The Apples, Galaxies and Pixels offer always-on, but they dim down a lot in order to not drain the power, which kind of defeats the purpose. A memory LCD screen on one of these watches would be perfect for me.
Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE launched four years ago, and it has LTE plus an always-on screen.
It has LTE but apparently does not support phone calls or SMS, without being paired to a phone. Close, but not quite there.
I had an Amazfit too a while back. Decent watch for the price, but battery life absolutely tanked after a year of use. Went from lasting days to lasting hours after one year.
That's strange. I have mine for several years now (I think three) and it still goes at least a week without charging. I can't imagine having to charge my watch ever day.
I can confirm. Almost 3 years with an GTR 3 and I get 10-14 days, depeding if I do outside activities where GPS draws a bit more then normal. Rock solid and waterproof ( perfect for swimming! )
I like Amazfit because it can fully function without sending any data whatsoever to a server. I can export data from the app very easily.
You mean with GadgetBridge and Android right? The official app does not have nice conditions when I last read through it. Note that I couldn’t find the 1 month battery mode anymore. Just the pro which sadly has a normal lcd screen and max 1 week battery.
I'm sure this is what commenter meant. GadgetBridge even works without the need of accessing the internet, and open source app that gets regular updates and has a nightly build available. I get my wearables and others from their list of supported devices https://gadgetbridge.org/gadgets/
I use amazfit w/ gadgetbridge as well
Those proprietary cables are terrible.
USB (abc, micro etc) are everywhere. Any house, hotel, office, glove box, has some lying around.
But when I forgot my Fitbit charger, I couldn't get one anywhere. The only option was a large electronics store where I could buy an entire new Fitbit. I didn't shove out €200 just to get hold of a charging cable.
The EU should quickly impose rules on waterproof chargers like they did with USB chargers. It will settle worldwide just as fast as the USB enforced standard.
Depending on your Fitbit, it can be charged by a Google Pixel Watch 2 or 3 charging cable.
I have one too and I swear by it, but let's face it - it's not £16. But thanks for the tip about the cable!
It's not £16 but I got mine (GTS 2 mini) when there was some kind of sale in a huge online warehouse for around 50 Euros. Since then I tried in vain to find it again for that price, until recently someone sold a bunch of new ones on eBay for around 45 Euros. So now I got my spare one in a drawer :) The £16 got no GPS, too.
You can recharge Garmin watches the same way. I've had to do it a few times.
TBH, such a low price for so many working (!) features is an amazing achievement if not subsidized! What bothers me here, however, is...a provenance. Let me guess, it asks from your smartphone access to your location, contacts, calendar, SMS archive, email, medical records and political views and attitude towards CCP and then does some shady syncs with .cn servers "just to keep you data safe in case a meteor hits you"... Sad.
ADDED: Oh, seems like some people like to pretend that the results of "some other" companies getting this information are totally, totally the same.
Why is it so hard for americans to accept that china makes great tech without coping about "le CCP spyware!" - it seems so absurd, like why would the CCP want to know the heart rate of the type of guy who buys a 16 pound smartwatch? Why dont americans create 16 pound smartwatches?
Because APT will use any devices to infiltrate.
>Why dont americans create 16 pound smartwatches?
Because labor is much more expensive in America. This is not a mystery
Labor is a factor but it helps to have the insane manufacturing synergies they have where almost all of the parts are made down the road from you.
But American companies make their smartwatches in China.
I don't think that's enough to explain it. What's the ratio of labor costs?
$15/hour in the US vs $2/hour in China
That would put an upper bound of 120 pounds for the USA manufactured watch with zero materials cost and all labor.
Yeah, highly inflated e-mail job economy does that to you.
Don't worry god emperor Trump will fix that.
No more safety and environmental regulations. Children can work full time. Union bosses get sent to the gulag. Forced labor camps for the homeless and criminals.
Because sinophobia, or put in a more crass way, racism, imperialism, and patriotism.
Why should I care if the Communinst Party of China is spying on me? They can't get at me. I have no connection to China. I have no property there and don't know anyone there. What are they going to do to me?
Bottom line is that everyone on the planet should be concerned with their own government's intelligence angencies more than any others. It's the people who can get at you in meatspace that you need to worry about.
They might not care that much about YOU unless you try to enter China at some point in your life.
But they REALLY care about the activites of Chinese people living abroad.
The CCP was operating secret 'police stations' in the UK and most likely elsewhere outside of their jurisdiction.
[0] https://news.stv.tv/west-central/chinese-secret-police-stati...
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Yes. Both are bad.
China hopes that if they sell enough some will end up on the wrists of military or intelligence personnel, or more likely the family members of such people.
They don't need to do that they can just buy and pay american politicians directly just like Israel does.
You think american military or intelligence personnel is gonna go on aliexpress to buy a 16 dollar smartwatch?
Yeah, probably. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42853072
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Please avoid swipes on HN, even if others have posted hostile comments. Flag the comment instead, and if you like, email us so we can take action.
Care to be more specific with the examples from history you mean, with you being so smart and all?
@dang, since when it's allowed on HN to insult users without getting flagged?
Tagging doesn't do anything on HN.
The comment is flagged and killed and I'm now posting them a warning, but you should email us, not tag. You should also avoid swipes like "The mental gymnastics i read on HN is mind boggling stupid", which was obviously an attack on the parent commenter and the broader community, if you want to demonstrate that you care about the guidelines.
If you'd read my blog post, you'd see that it functions just fine without access to those permissions.
You're also welcome to disassemble the APK to show where it is sending data to.
But, as I say, it works just find with an Open Source alternative if you prefer that.
Just like any other Apple Watch. Don’t see the difference between them and CCP (probably because I’m not American)
The difference between Apple and the CCP is that CCP is the one running the slave labor to make widgets, and Apple is the one paying for it and puts the sticker "Designed in California" to wash it off.
Implying all US electronics don't ask from your smartphone access to your location, contacts, calendar, SMS archive, email, medical records and political views and attitude towards the US and Israel and then does some shady syncs with .com servers "just to keep you data safe in case a meteor hits you"... x)
This device seems to be supported by gadgetbridge (nightly), so that should at least take care of your privacy concern: https://gadgetbridge.org/gadgets/wearables/moyoung/
>"Let me guess, it asks from your smartphone access to your location, contacts, calendar..."
Let me try to translate: I do not know fuck all about what it really asks but will let sinophobia and hypocrisy out in full colors regardless
Sounds like any Samsung or Google watch
Please don't pretend you don't understand that risks of Google/Apple maybe even Samsung getting the information is just "a tiny bit different".
To non Americans, and given the current political climate imposed by the American government, no it's not very different.
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Yes, it's worse. Seven eyes almost certainly snoop on me, in partnership with those companies. CCP might, but even if they did, idgaf.
The thing is that in practice, if China knows my secret, they can't do much with it, first because I don't criticize China (I don't live there, I don't know there, why then ?), and the second, is that it is a rather isolated world. Unless you speak Chinese, they don't really care about you. So it's in some way "safer" (unless they resell the data to americans or israeli companies for 'advertising' purposes)
Five Eyes. Seven Eyes is a band, SevenEves is a book by Neil Stephenson.
> Let me guess, it asks from your smartphone access to your location, contacts, calendar, SMS archive, email, medical records and political views
Like every app made by a US corporation does?
And before someone cries "whataboutism", I'm genuinely curious why as someone who isn't Chinese, and has no intention of visiting China, I should be more worried about the CPC than the CIA.
I'm not an American.
I'd trust the CCP a million times more than Google or Apple.
Trust with what? Why would you trust any government except your own to look out for you?
Why would I trust my own government to look out for me?
Trust with my personal data.
> Anything you buy from AliExpress for the cost of a couple of pints is bound to be a bit crap.
This line kinda got me down, because, well, last night I went out for a few pints and paid €16 for two drinks; Here we have a miracle of modern technology available shipped to your door for about the same price of what it now costs to just go out and do the thing people have done when socializing for the last 1500 years.
We're subsidizing the costs of all this modern tech by heavily taxing ourselves on the things once taken as nearly the bare minimum lifestyle.
I think the mistake is seeing the beer to watch ratio and assuming that beers are hard to afford now. One primary reason beer in a pub is expensive is because of cost of labor scaling badly in the pub but extremely well for the watch. It's Baumol Cost Disease. The beer only costs more because the other work the pub staff is doing could be more productive now elsewhere. So in the end of the day, unless you are an alcoholic, you can likely afford more beers just because everything else has gotten so much cheaper.
One caveat I want to call out though is of course the skyrocketing housing cost which also impact rent (or opportunity cost of they own) for the pub and thus the beer price as well. This is where I really don't understand how NIMBYs continue to get their way.
I heard it summarised recently as:
In the past goods were expensive; living was cheap. Now goods are cheap; living is expensive.
Living was always expensive, in developing countries, goods are still expensive but so is living. Save for subsistence farmers, but those are a minority in all but the poorest countries.
I never heard this phrase before now...But, oof, its powerful!
I have a Garmin with a monochrome LCD face. Ok, it can't compete on price but battery life is a couple of weeks (and can top up with solar) so the proprietary cable is not a big problem.
I was also a happy Garmin Instinct Solar user. It is until after two years it started to turn off whenever it vibrates. I disabled vibrations, but it's reduced to an expensive step counter now.
Were the vibrations actually useful? I have an old Garmin something or other on my wrist right now, and I disabled vibrations because unless I'm sitting around doing nothing and I can hear them, I'd never notice them.
They were for me, i.e. at work in the office where definitely I don't want to have sound notifications on. And since my phone usually lies on a desk, I don't want vibrations there either.
Seems like a battery issue. Probably the vibration draws too much current and the battery just drops its voltage. Have you tried changing the battery?
No, I didn't. Maybe it's not a bad idea. I read about the issue on the internet and it seems pretty common issue that sooner or later hits most of Instincts Solar gen 1.
I contacted Garmin support since I've seen that in some of the cases they offered generous discounts for newer models or even gave them for free, but in my case they offered me to pay almost a full price for refurbished Instinct Solar gen 1, that most probably would have the same issue after some time.
> "I plugged it until fully charged, then wore it conti> nuously. After 24 hours of use, even with all my fiddling, that battery was at 80%. After four days, it still had 40% left"*
So if a £16 generic competitor can last 4 days, what's Apple doing wrong? Why can't a £450 Apple Watch (non-Ultra) last a full 24 hours on a charge?
Apple just put in a more capable processor, wifi and cellular, a brighter display and more sensors. They are just consuming the entire battery over a day because it is not such a big deal for customers.
Is it not a big deal? Or do customers lack the choice?
If Apple had two lines of smartwatches, one for city/work crowd with the WiFi, Bright screen, NFC, powerful processor etc. but with tiny battery life. And another for hike/off-grid/travel/festival crowd without wifi, a slower, blander screen, slower hardware, less features but over a week)weeks on one charge.
Would people not buy the second option?
It wouldn't fly and/or would be "one more SKU" to support with expensive software development.
They've seriously stuck themselves in a pickle with their WatchOS offering. They can't move away from touch-screen b/c they've committed to "being able to enter a PIN" from the device (so they can offer AND PROTECT on-watch payment capabilities).
They can't move away from touch-screen b/c they've duped all the uber's and door-dash's, and big-bank.com into writing "watch apps" that assume a touch screen.
The Garmin Fenix has the best response to this that I've seen so far, a "pinch-to-activate" touch screen on some of their watches with "enough" buttons (Up, Down, OK, Back, "light"). You can use the watch normally without fear of accidental activations and when you start up the map-type-stuff, it'll either auto-activate a twiddly touchscreen or you can "pinch to activate" (hold two diagonal buttons for 2-3 seconds) and then start messing with it (or are able to turn it off w/o issue).
They can't move away from bright color screens because then people can't have pictures of their kids on their watch, and at that point it's no longer an "Apple" product.
This cheap device is also touchscreen. Only single point though - no idea if Apple is multi touch.
Apple Watch is multi-touch, if you hold two fingers on the face, it announces the time.
Which relates to the cost and battery life of the Apple Watch, it's a mainstream device that many people with varying disabilities can use. It has a full-fledged screen reader in its operating system, in addition to the development costs to support multiple interaction modalities, some will not be achievable with lower-powered, less specialized processors.
People can buy the second option from someone else, like RePebble.
Of course if they want to use it with an Apple phone, it will have artificial limitations[0]. That, rather than adding a product line that doesn't align with most of their market is what Apple should fix.
[0] https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-...
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WTF Apple watches cost $450? You can't even run a text editor on it! What are people buying?
I think you jest but I think you can actually dictate text and finger-write notes on it.
Comparing the flagship model to the much cheaper SE, what they're buying is:
* a larger, brighter, always-on display * additional health sensors, monitoring * can go deeper underwater * longer battery life (if you choose low power mode) * faster battery charging * more powerful processor * twice the local storage * Ultra wideband radio (enables directional device finding) * microphone with voice isolation (better sounding calls, voice recordings) * made from more recycled materials (which may make it more expensive)
I'm happy with my non-cellular SE, I do which charging was faster but I don't know the Series 10 charges that much faster and I wouldn't pay an extra ~$150 for that anyway.
You certainly can run text editors on Apple Watch.
For example: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tot-mini/id1644609331
Whether it's a good idea to use a tiny watch screen as your text editor, on the other hand...
That looks like it lets you manipulate some kind of notes object. I wouldn't really call that a text editor.
I don't think there's an app that lets you just edit arbitrary files which can be read by other apps or transferred to/from the watch with something like ssh, just these weird canned things that depend on network services run by Apple and/or the particular developer.
People get surprised how cheap things really can be when they see aliexpress, and the assumption is crap. I bought a ton of stuff from aliexpress, and very rarely-if any- was crappy.
What I've learnt from BigClive on YouTube is don't buy anything that plugs into the wall.
If it's low voltage then you should be fine. I'd still be wary of large lithium ion batteries, though.
You probably meant anything that plugs & stays plugged for extended periods of time.
I probably would hesitate to buy large-battery-powered things from them, for now. Like e-bike etc. Also would hesitate to replace my circuit breakers with zigbee circuit breakers that can also measure power real time, for example.
But there are a lot of good quality stuff that doesn't fit into the dangerous category.
I bought a lot of sensors/smart home stuff, small home stuff like drip irrigation tubes/drip heads, apple find-my compatible trackers, poe cameras, 80x80 fans, label maker tape, poe extender etc.
I dunno mate, I've bought a very popular 60W soldering iron for like 2.5 USD. It has a ceramic heater and a knob to adjust the temperature, the default tip it came with is great, and it's also easily disassemblable. It's far better in quality than anything I could've bought locally for the same price.
Got a link to a it ? I love to replace my under power USB soldering iron
I am surprised they can break even with such a product. Considering 25% of the cost go to selling/fulfillment/etc., maybe 8 Pounds for the BOM (?) they might earn 3-4 Pounds per item sold. To offset the cost of development (maybe 20-30 man years at 20k USD for Chinese engineers), would imply the want to sell at least 100.000 units just to break even. Is there enough market for this?
All numbers spit-balled.
As I say in the post, they're using an OEM. I suspect it is Mo Young who do the R&D - amortised over all their products.
AliExpress prices don't include shipping, which are effectively baked into Amazon's pricing to cover SuperSaver & Prime customers.
A lot of stuff is practically free for shipping. For small items, 10+$.
I bought a lot of 5-10$ things that costs more than 3 times on amazon.
Aliexpress is much cheaper even if you include shipping if there's separate shipping fee.
Amazon is convenient for speed + returns.
The shipping isn't actually free. It's artificially low with externalized costs because of the postal union treaty.
To be clear £16 was the total cost including shipping to the UK.
Took a week or so to arrive, and prices fluctuate all the time. So slower than Amazon shipping - which is usually same or next day.
The colmi p8 (p80 i don’t know) can run micropython.
The Colmi P8, which is older, long replaced by myriads of newer china watches and now hard to even find, was one of the last cheap smartwatches to be based on the nRF52832 microcontroller/SOC which had the advantage (for that purpose) of being both well documented and yet not locked down. The successor SOC, the nRF52840, already had a flash securing feature that (except for devices that wouldn't use it or that would have exploitable vulns) made it easy for the manufacturer to lock the device down and to prevent the install of alternative firmwares. Also about that time, cheaper chinese SOCs came out and cheapo china smartwatches switched to using those instead of nRF. Trouble being: most of those chinese SOCs for smartwatches, aside from probably also having the lockdown problem, don't have much in terms of openly accessible documentation or developer tools.
Consequently, pretty much all open source projects for cheapo china smartwatches apparently only support devices that are so old that you don't even find them anymore on aliexpress or other such shops.
I'd be interested to know for what currently easily available cheap (i.e. not in a much higher price category) china smart watches there is an open source alternative firmware that does not miss half of the features.
I’ve started playing with esp32/rp2350 based boards that have everything in the same form factor. The only thing missing is a fully waterproof enclosure (they expose the back pcb). And vibration motor.
that could indeed be an option depending on your use case. The problem with those (aside from finding a suitable enclosure) is that while more powerful, they aren't at all optimized for use in really low-power conditions and that their energy consumption is consequently enormously higher than that of e.g. an nRF52 (e.g. nRF52832 or nRF52840), so that the battery time would likely be significantly shorter.
Regarding power I agree - a weeks worth is hard to get. inside i don’t mind plugging in power and outside if a lipo battery can last afew hours (while jogging etc) I’m good to go. Also these cpus have very good sleep modes.
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Anybody know if there is some effort for an open source firmware? It would be so cool to have a watch like that with the pinetime firmware...
Why not the software itself? https://github.com/google/pebble
Or the whole stack: https://open-smartwatch.github.io/
You may like Pinetime smartwatch, which is cheap and runs free software.
I would totally support the Pine64 folks as I already did with the PineCil (really good iron btw, and I have also Wellers), but the PineTime price going from $26.99 in the US to €66.25 if bought in the EU is simply an invite to shop from Aliexpress.
Thanks to tariffs, the PineTime is $26 plus $25 shipping+duty now, so you're in good company.
If a few people in the bay area wanted to do a group buy, you can get up to 5 watches for that same $25 shipping fee...
AFAIK you don't have to buy it in their EU shop. You can order it from China.
Wow! “built in torch” immediately puts this one ahead of all other competition I’ve seen so far. Not even kidding.
I use LED on my phone as a torch more often than I use it as a camera flash.
I think they "just" meant "set OLED screen to full brightness white", which is the kind of app my cheap Amazfit has too. And I can say from experience that that is still really useful, because OLED screens are pretty darn bright.
In the case of Amazfit (which I presume is similar here) you can set it up to turn on when long-pressing the dial, it can switch between white and red light by turning the dial, and it takes a few seconds to reach full brightness instead of just switching on. Meaning you have a chance to change it to red without waking everyone up in the middle of a camping trip.
> There's a built in LED which acts as a torch - which is only useful if you wear it on the left wrist.
Could be useful on the other hand if you could flip the face upside down.
Surely people who wear watches on their right wrist prefer the wheel to be on the left side and the LED is on the same side.
Dunno about this one, but my Amazfits all have the option for wearing direction, so you can decide which way the controls face on asymmetrical models. It works and I've thought about using it even though I'm not a southpaw; worn distally, the Balance's digital crown tends to snag on things.
You can also automate night mode by time of day, which is nice if like me you prefer simply to wear your watch to sleep. The red night display mode, at minimal brightness in a dark room, is enough to see when you want it but not enough to disturb when you don't.
As someone who loathes jewelry on myself and has no interest in the watch culture, nonetheless I have an interest in smart watches I can monitor things with. I'm turned off by big ugly blocks with childish straps.. is there anything remotely attractive?
This might sound like an odd approach, but buying a small and cheap band (Xiaomi or Amazfit, even last or yesteryear's model) and try it for a while can be great.
You'll get decent tracking and alert management if that's what you're into. I won't be top notch but 95% there, and it will last for a week or two on a single charge instead of dying everyday .
Then after a week or two you'll know if you really cared about these numbers, how it helps you or not, and how you feel about the form factor.
Mine if off in a drawer most of the time and I get it out once every few weeks when hiking, but there is no sunk cost for something this cheap, and now I know I wouldn't have kept wearing something more advanced either.
Look into hybrid smart watches. Withings are fairly good, but there are a handful of alternatives. They're watches that use mechanical hands like a normal watch, but also include smart components like health tracking and notifications and things.
They tend to be less powerful than other smart watches (in particular, you won't be able to download arbitrary apps to the watch or deeply configure it), and if you want a dedicated health tracker, you're probably better off with a minimalist Fitbit or something similar, but I really like them. They strike a nice balance between providing me with useful things, and still looking like a decent looking watch.
The main companies in this space are Withings and Garmin.
I'd really love to see a hybrid Amazfit! The line's programmability is really delightful, and having mechanical hands above the face would clear up really my last regret about wearing a smartwatch at all.
Look at Amazfit. Oh, they market to folks who like squares too, but not only. Many of their more classically proportioned models take standard straps, and in several months of use I've found the Balance so delightful as to decide to stock a couple of spares; it's been reliable thus far, but I'm hard on a watch. (It has to keep up!) The customizability and programmability also can't be beat; the experience obviously takes heavy DX notes from Apple, but without almost all the overhead. And I get compliments!
Honestly the top brand right now. And if you don't want a watch, they also have a whoop-like strap for 99.99$
I had an Amazfit GTR-4, bought a Whoop because I wanted to wear classical watches and I really can't wait for my subscription to expire so I can go back to Amazfit.
The watch is amazing - it looks great, has a long lasting battery (2-3 weeks), quite a solid app to go with it, has GPS that you can enable when you need to and has mini apps on it that are sometimes quite useful (voice notes, timers, stretches, even a ChatGPT mini-app someone made). And it's a 3 year old watch - the new ones are even better and look nicer.
While they had some issues previously with algorithm accuracy for HR and sleep, last year it has improved wildly and the updates hit the old devices too, leaving it on par with top tier watches.
I really can't imagine getting a smartwatch whose battery lasts less than 2-3 days. Makes it super impractical for any traveling/hiking/camping or any kind of a trip where you won't have your charger with you.
I could see hybrids having a moment.
We're obviously well into an Apple watch fashion backlash, to a point where "not obviously a smartwatch" in itself can help sell, and most of the really useful complications can present enough UI on a dot-addressable partial-face display. (By the standards of early digitals, this is luxury!) And with something like a momentarily backlit transflective LCD costing microampere-hours to run, weeks to months of battery should be achievable with careful programming.
Strictly, I don't suppose there's a reason why a hypothetical top-end model couldn't present a full-face display as at present, but with physical hands via a central holepunch, and a touchscreen integrated into the crystal as well as the usual physical controls. It seems like the best of both worlds, and I'd easily pay half a grand or more to find out, but now I'm just dreaming out loud.
Oh definitely, I recently bought my mother a similar Garmin - it is elegant, looks lady-like and is basically a physical watch with smart features integrated. The way the display is integrated into the dial is actually supersmooth and really surprised me, did not expect it from such a relatively cheap watch (vivomove). Definitely check out their offer, as it might be what you're looking for.
Withings makes smartwatches that do not scream Apple Watch
Garmin is my typical recommendation for decent fitness watches with good battery life. The venue and vivoactive have bright high res screens with raise to wake or always on (with a big battery life hit). There are also things like the lily or the vivomove.
The straps are usually standard watch straps and easily changed.
I have the Forerunner 965 with the screen always on. Still manage about a week with several hours of gps tracking.
I like my Coros Pace 2, it's round and looks like a normal watch, instead of the rounded rectangle/square slab of glass that was popularized by Apple Watch, an aesthetic I find terrible.
Try on the smaller versions (sometimes called "women's" versions), a few mms less make a huge difference.
Many smartwatches are simply too large, compared to regular watches.
This company which was reviewed in the article has a ton of smartwatches. This is the URL - https://www.colmi.info/ Pick what you like and then search for the same model on Aliexpress. You will usually find most of their models between $10 and $30.
Depending on what you find attractive, Sensor Watch?
https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/sensor-wa...
The straps on this one are replaceable if you'd rather have one made cloth or metal etc.
But, yeah, no denying it is a chunky monkey.
If you are interested in monitoring not the screen maybe a ring would be a better fit?
It sounds like fitness tracker bands or the rings would be a better fit for you
If you use an iphone, get a regular Apple Watch with a metal link strap.
> I'm turned off by big ugly blocks with childish straps.. is there anything remotely attractive?
You can't get much sleeker with a smartwatch than the apple watch, square shape aside, it's neither childish nor ugly.
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Hey, I'm not here to argue with you. Whatever gets you through the day, right?
Fossil?
You may still be able to get an old model, but they're not making smart watches anymore, unfortunately.
I used to have a similarly priced Withings smartwatch clone; worked very well for years until I switched to a new phone and the app turned out to be gone from the store and the log in servers were offline. Without the app you can't get notifications or even sync the time and the watch is useless. Yes, well-known brands also discontinue software, but with a cheap watch like this, it's almost guaranteed to become a paperweight in a few years.
Now I have a real Withings, at 10 times the price of the fake, it honestly offers only a marginally better experience.
I will try very hard not to buy any product that requires a companion app for major functionality unless it's based on an open protocol (e.g. Matter), the app is open source (e.g. Pebble), or it's well-supported by a third-party open source solution (e.g. gadgetbridge.org).
I can see usb-c being convenient for a smartwatch, but for a fitness watch they you are going to wear while hiking, swimming or any type of rugged outdoor activity it is important to not be a hole that can get a bunch of stuff stuck in it. Unlike proprietary cables for smartphones of the past the connector on high end smartwatches aren't there because they are trying to sell you a bunch of expensive cables and accessories that use that port.
As I mention in the post, there's an integrated rubber lug which protects the port.
Hoping for open source watch OS some day, so many OEM / white label cheap smartwatch/fitness bands. Already exists for cheap cloud cameras. Could be the F91W of our time.
Also I'd gladly ditch USB C for a few programmable media buttons. Standardize on some sort of bogo pins and buy 20 adapters or split cables to keep the water proofing.
Pinetime is decent: https://pine64.org/devices/pinetime/
You're in luck! https://banglejs.com/
What I would love is a watch like this where I can fetch the raw HR and O2 data and run my own analysis. Last time I checked there wasn't much in that direction, outside of super expensive "research grade" equipment, and a single model of polar HR strap (I want a watch).
One thing I wonder though is why they’d need to charge a watch on the bus when battery life on smart watches is typically way more than 1 day and you can charge it overnight? I mean each to their own but I would haaate the hassle of charging anything on a bus…
The post mentions it does sleep tracking
That’s fair I suppose. That being said, modern smart watches charge so fast there’s surely another way. I also just personally use an old smart watch I have lying around for sleep tracking. I’d still rather buy two $16 smart watches than have to charge one on the bus haha.
"Should I buy one? That's up to you, champ. I'm not your real dad"
cool cool cool....
Sorry son, I didn't mean for you to find out this way. Xoxoxo
I’m concerned about all privacy angle of this personal information vacuum device category. What are the recommended privacy focused alternatives?
Also a smart watch without firmware updates seems like an infection spreader?
You can use this with GadgetBridge if you're concerned about your privacy.
Given the small amount of memory and its inability to run 3rd party code, I'd be staggered if this could be used as a vector for anything. What's it going to do, spam ignorable BLE messages?
There's a category which is unbelievable it doesn't have as much popularity on open protocols/oss support which is a killer feature for these kind of wearables: glucose levels tracking with reverse engineered vendor lock-ins (think of Abbott sensors, etc).
I’ve never understood the value proposition of a smart watch for that reason. It seems mostly a fantasy thing based on having been conditioned by movies all their lives. Even the primary use case as a fitness tracker does not make any real sense; because as a beginner through novice, you don’t need to track minute details, it’s about simply getting to a consistent habit, and as an advanced person, you get nothing more from what a watch can track than you would from simply performing your routine and maybe timing yourself and journaling, which has its own separate benefits that are lost with a “smart watch”.
Given all the negatives (to users, not to the corporations you become a harvested product to), it simply does not make sense to have a smart watch, aka a tracking bracelet.
It's always good to remember that battery life in sports watches (aren't they smart?) can last a whole week, and some models even have complementary solar charging.
I have a Garmin Instinct 2 Solar. The Solar feature is more of a gimmick, unless youre out in the sun the whole day for weeks it doesnt really make a difference.
But it doesnt matter much, the battery lasts 3 weeks. Its a great watch if you like the old-style digital watch screens
Just a week? I have a USB smartwatch with a 1 year battery life, the Timex Data Link USB.
You can also use a "dumb" watch that has 10 years battery life.
Or that constantly charges with a solar face or mechanical motion.
You can get a Rolex
In my case it’s just a Citizen chronograph from eBay for $100.
A Casio 5610 also charges with sunlight. To me it is the ultimate watch.
Sure, but I was talking in the context of smart watches that have several health sensors.
Xiaomi mi band's 10 battery lasts a week with all the functions enabled at the most expensive setting
Unironically this was one of the reasons I bought an iPhone 15
I was exhausted with keeping up with Android, but was not buying n-number of Lightning cables until they released it on USB-C
Why does anyone need to charge a smartwatch on a bus? They charge very quickly and last for days. A Pine64 is not much more expensive, and works with the Gadgetbridge app, and is open (there is even a choice of two OSes). It works with Gadgetbridge so the app does not have all the same functionality and also has rough edges (but so does any cheap smartwatch). I even prefer the charger as its a magnetic cradle so the watch snaps into place when placed on it.
Not only the smart watch, but a hundred other gadgets including a toothbrush. Presumably this process involves bringing a USB hub onto the bus, or else the bus is not the main point here. I think it's like I want to be able to charge my watch on the bus if I feel like it.
Lotta electric buses in the UK have a USB-A charging port at every seat. Carrying a cable with you can pay off!
Why do you charge your phone on the bus? You've never left the house and realised you're running low on battery?
A smartwatch is very different from a phone. its less important to have it working, it charges faster, and the battery lasts a lot longer - several days of normal use is typical.
I mean your smartphone can take over the functionality of your watch if absolutely necessary?
Even includes a screen protector on a GBP16 item!
Not sure what it’s like in other countries, but here in South Africa you struggle to find a smart phone cover for much less than that.
If you’re at the shops of the local scumbag company with a monopoly on legally distributing Apple products, they don’t offer a cover for less than USD25.
Apple Watch covers cost a bit less at only like USD15.
For screen protectors typical prices are around USD10, but you can point out the lunacy of what they’re charging for a single sheet of plastic and you can get that down to 7.5.
It’s super annoying how much we get ripped off here, having covers and protectors is basically essential and all the sellers here seem to have a secret pact to not charge anything less than completely outrageous prices.
Order the stuff from china instead of paying your local distributor a convenience tax.
You can have it cheap or fast.
With shipping cost on an overall small item cost, it’s unlikely to be much cheaper.
We also have the problem here where if the shipper doesn’t use a courier service and tries to rely on the local postal service, it’s a bit of a gamble you’ll get the item at all, and if you do, it tends to take months.
Takealot brother, or visit your closest shopping center, there will be a store there with a man of asian decent willing to sell you whatever you need at a reasonable price.
Screen protector for R89 on takealot right now, that’s what 5 dollars? And was the first result, did not even need to look hard.
It would be great if this review had a bit more pixels. Bit hard to tell how good the screen is
Does it require the manufacturer's servers to be available to function?
I find it strange that in this whole, cool, nerdy review there's no mention of whether the device is fully yours and works on your phone, or if the app is (like in most smartwatches) just a glorified browser tab for your health data stored plaintext on a free service
As I say in the post:
> You can always uninstall the app once done setting it up.
So no need to rely on 3rd party servers.
I also mention that you can use GadgetBridge if you want to store your own data locally.
Oh nice, I missed that bit, thank you! Saw the mention of Gadgetbridge but didn't know that meant it's usable offline. I've only ever used it for upgrading Pinetime firmware iirc
That makes this a seriously good option, I was looking for this a while ago but didn't find anything besides Pinetime, so I ordered a Pinetime and found out the heartbeat sensor is about as accurate on my wrist as tarot cards (I know it works for a few people, but most seemed to have the same issue). Everything else I could find back then was cloud-based or didn't do health tracking (or, n=1, didn't support Android)
I hate those watches with direct USB ports, I prefer those magnetic connectors via USB-C. Can also charge them in the bus, if needed. You get such watches from Ali for ~20€, with all the sensors. With gadgetbridge.org you got a proper Software app without phoning home to China, only to the NSA via Google. My favorite is still the Huawei/Honor Smart Watch 2, but the GT5 comes close. Still have to try the HarmonyOS watches, which should be better than Android. And a GPS routing connector to Google Maps
Impressive for a 16GBP watch !
Xiaomi mi bands used to cost the same and were much better
But no USB-C
But subpar everything
I bought one. The touch screen was not good. The heart rate sensor was wild inaccurate at times. It was a pain to sync with my phone. And the strap gave me a rash.
Not that I expect the watch in the article to be any better.
There is also huawei band, which has similar low price but with seemingly better software than the xiaomi smart band. At the very least, the sync process is easy on both android and ios.
It also works with Gadgetbridge without having to pair it in the official app first (for Xiaomi bands, you need to do it to extract a key, not sure how consistently it's doable nowadays). Apparently the supported featureset is not as complete as for Xiaomi devices, but seems to be enough to cover the basics.
So Huawei are also easier to use without having to send your data anywhere.
I would buy it to try to deploy code on it, just cuz I can connect via usbc
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Can it run doo...
I misread this as "I bought a £16 _sandwich_ just because it used USB-C" so I await that future blog post...
Time for USB - D
well, ehm, China is unstoppable.
not really watch related but
> cost of a couple of pints
in 2025, I guess it can be a maximum of 2.5 pints. Because in Luxembourg, the price of a pint became 6-8 euros...
This is the oldest trick in the book. In 1946 a guy named Diet Smith invented the 2-Way Wrist Radio:
- In June 1954, the radio was upgraded to increase the range from 500 miles to 1,000 miles, then again in 1956 to 2,500 miles.
- In 1964, the 2-Way Wrist Radio was upgraded to the 2-Way Wrist TV.
- Tracy gave his young son Joe an obsolete Wrist Radio, which Joe was able to use to call for help when he was abducted and held hostage by dognappers.
We've been falling for this stuff for 80 years!
Crafted by Rajat
Source Code