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Thanks, this sounds like it's customizable enough for me to hack something together. I think for now just answering phone calls (as a remote control for my phone) and reading/dismissing notifications would be enough, but I might think of other use cases as I start using it. I've never had a real smart watch before, so I'm not exactly sure what I'd use it for. I was interested in GPS recording and step counting for hiking, but I tend to do that more in summer so it's not as important to have a glove-friendly interface for that.
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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:
- 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?
- 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?
- 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.
- 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?
Oh yeah, if the power button can be reprogrammed, I could make that work too. I have a flashlight that has all sorts of advanced features accessed through up to 13 clicks on the same button, you can navigate entire multi-level menus with that... the problem is I always forget how many times I have to click it, but it would still work well for just a few actions like answering/rejecting a call or dismissing a notification.