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Yes, that may have been Covid ... so even when I'm in contact with the manufacturer and pushing them to keep things the same, they still sometimes have to make changes.
Well they do it quite regularly to optimize costs or parts availability. The P8 had several variants of displays, touch, accel, basically everything except nrf52 and SPI flash - the flash pinout was the only stable thing across a lot of DaFit devices. In the end they removed 32kHz crystal from nrf52 version of P8 and then replaced CPU by GR5515 while still keeping the name and form factor exactly the same.
Those IDOO guys making various ID1xx fitness trackers and ID205 were similar. The ID130 Color
https://github.com/fanoush/ds-d6/tree/master/espruino/DFU/ID130Color had at least 5 revisions, I got a pack of like 10-20 them for very cheap from one seller and got 3 revisions mixed in it.
DaFit has a big device database in JSON via web API and it is normal to have many revisions for watches that are sold for longer time each with different firmware download. And BTW it can be seen from it that they basically stopped using nrf52 platform completely and moved to other (better/cheaper?) stuff.sourcing watches or some other device
that is the hardest part IMO, as for nrf52 they are basically gone, we would need to move to something else or design custom nrf5x watch
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The drop shipping is a nice idea, and it is something I have approached companies about several times in the past, but it's been quite hard to convince companies as I don't really have huge sales.
I think it can work well when the product is generic and you basically don't need to care about the details or outsource also the development. But yes that's how it probably works with bigger volumes, e.g. Colmi sells branded watches https://www.colmi.info/collections/p-series-colmi-smart-watch like e.g. the P81 with JL7012F6 and both the firmware and android app is done by Moyoung and you outsource everything. You can order customized hardware firmware and possibly also customized android app = generic stuff with your images/logos/name or just keep default DaFit app and brand just the box and posibly bluetooth name. And they possibly also offer same watch hardware to other brands too like e.g. Zeblaze - the GTS3 https://zeblaze.info/gts3.html is also DaFit watch with JL7012. And when they change hardware they will change the firmware for you too and you as Colmi/Zeblaze just don't need to care. You just pay for the whole thing including hosting the firmware on their servers. And when you stop paying for older devices they will delete the stuff from servers/app.
I am not sure how this could work with Espruino as it is now. You would probably not have the hardware/software under control?
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fanoush
@Gordon
TK78G looks really promising - it's good to see there are still some Nordic-based watches being produced, and the body temperature monitoring looks really interesting.
@yngv126399 @eanon - thank you, I really appreciate the support (@eanon thanks for the donation - I was pretty sure I sent you an email at the time?). Please feel free to post your progress with the watches on the forums though (and if we can pull changes back into the main Espruino repo without overcomplicating things I'm all for it - the increased MTU for @eanon was great) - increasingly I feel like any publicity is good publicity. It feels like there's a pretty clear case for Bangle.js alongside the others - if you can run the code on a bunch of watches it may work for some people or just be a bit of fun, but for an 'every day' watch in most cases right now Bangle.js wins out.
That's super impressive!
Yes, that may have been Covid - but (and folks don't generally see/notice this luckily) Bangle.js 2 has changed slightly over time too (for instance the HRM and pressure sensors) so even when I'm in contact with the manufacturer and pushing them to keep things the same, they still sometimes have to make changes.
@andiohn I'm sorry this (and the Gadgetbridge post) seemed to turn into a bit of a negative discussion. Re-reading over the comments I don't feel like @fanoush is being rude or mean, but it can be hard to judge the intended tone of posts.
The drop shipping is a nice idea, and it is something I have approached companies about several times in the past, but it's been quite hard to convince companies as I don't really have huge sales. I really do want to hear new ideas, but I'm juggling a lot of different things and I don't think I can take on new stuff unless I feel confident in it. Sometimes it does happen though - I think Bangle.js came out of seeing folks on the forum talking about and playing with smart bands.
On the custom watch front, if you or anyone else fancies taking this on yourselves - sourcing watches or some other device, flashing them with Espruino, selling and donating some of the profit back - then please get in touch. I'm all for it and as long as buyers know what they're getting I can't really see a downside.