Using bangle.js with gloves?

I've been looking into smartwatches and so far bangle.js seems to be the only reasonable option. All the other options either don't have a GPS sensor independent from my phone or rely on some sort of online account or synchronization feature that I really don't want. There's only one thing that's missing, and that's buttons. I live in a climate where I have to wear thick gloves for a big part of the year, and I can't use any capacitive touchscreen with them. Some watches have multiple physical buttons and allow you to navigate at least a fraction of the menus and answer calls without taking off a glove, which is a huge advantage for me. When it comes to bangle.js 2, it doesn't have any buttons other than the lock/unlock one, but I saw some references to "taps" where you tap the side of your watch and that registers as an event. I have a couple questions about that:

1. How do these taps work, I mean physically? Is there a dedicated sensor in each side? If so, is it capacitive? Or are these events generated by the accelerometer? If so, how reliable is it?
   
2. Could I write an app that runs in the background and translates these taps into touch/swipe events, transparently to other apps? Or would I have to fork other apps to make them natively support tap events?
   
3. Are there any other ways to use bangle.js with gloves that I'm missing? Please don't suggest "touchscreen gloves", those are the cheap thin knit gloves that don't provide much warmth, I wear either really thick multi-layer knit gloves or leather gloves with fur lining.