Search results for:

@andresdju on github

Gordon, the bangle.js2 software could literally power 10s or 100s of watches [...]

Espruino was originally created as a way to bring together a bunch of third party hardware that was otherwise hard to program, but I had to swap to selling hardware

In my opinion, for consumer hardware like this smartwatches selling the hardware is the only option for having good support. Consumer hardware manufacturers don't care about third party software. The model names doesn't mean anything, except the same external design and similar features. This happens with things like routers, you end looking for specific revisions of what is supposed to be the same model, probably looking for old revisions as you don't know if newer ones would work (or you know that don't). You don't know the specific revision of the device sold over the Internet, not even the seller cares which revision it is.

I no doubt prefer Gordon selling the watch. In addition to funding the development, he, buying way higher number than we could, can get the correct revisions. If only a new revision is available he can port the code for the exact revision he starts to sell. I'm tired of running free software on half working devices. If I need a new watch I would buy Bangle.js 2 again until Gordon moves to a new device.

I would be afraid of melting/burning the plastic around it.

I will apply the solder with solder wick, not directly with the soldering iron. I know I could cause some damage to the plastic, but the problem is that the watch is not charging anymore.

Also I am not sure how stable and healthy/allergic is solder - it is not just Sn but other metals (possibly even lead) and also flux and other chemicals. Also tin is relatively soft and may oxidize too.

The solder is lead-free. I will clean the flux after the work and I'm going to start using the silicone cover, not only to protect my skin, but also to reduce oxidation as much as possible.

As I said, nickel-gold plating would be ideal, but I don't think I'm going to follow that route.

Hi. I have the same problem. I have used mine for running 4 days a week for around a year and a half. I had the two internal contacts covered as sold by Espruino, but it seems the sweat has filtered under it. The charging contacts are also corroded. I thought that the contacts where from a connector and not a PCB, something like this:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/Components/Cables/USB-MAG-4-PCB/

Ideally we should remove the corroded plating to expose the base metal, then make nickel plating and on top of that gold plating. Because buying the chemicals for just four contacts is expensive and the chemicals seem to be pretty nasty, what I want to do is tinning the contacts with a soldering iron. I was going to do it tomorrow, I can record it and upload the video if the contacts make good connection again.

Is the "glue" on the barometer solution a good one to obtain at least 1ATM ?

What does 1ATM mean? If you mean swimming underwater up to 10 meters, I don't think so. 1ATM more or less means: With a watch in new condition, it should survive light rain if you don't push the button with a drop of water around it. That's what bangle.js already has. Gluing the barometer hole could help, but even then I would not use it for swimming, bathing, showering, putting it under the tap... By the way, salty water would ruin the charging and programming contacts very rapidly.

Waterproofing is a complex topic. There are some comments and conversations here about it:

https://forum.espruino.com/comments/16734558/

https://forum.espruino.com/conversations/389438/

There is also a crazy guy that probably has the most waterproof bangle.js "mod":

https://forum.espruino.com/conversations/396132/

I have the exact same issue. My bangle.js 2 accumulates around 40 to 45 seconds per day, so it seems that it would be like 5 minutes per week.

Right now I have stable 2.22. I used to have the watch unconnected for several days and it didn't happen before. Recently I have connected nearly every day, so I don't know which update broke it. My guess is that it happens since some development update during 2.21.x.

I'm not sure if they are compatible with Bangle.js 1 or Bangle.js 2, but Olimex is selling this kind of conectors (both cables and device connectors).

https://olimex.wordpress.com/2024/05/07/new-usb-2-0-cables-with-snap-magnetic-connectors-in-stock/

Also I'd say Bangle 2 is not ugly at first sight so it is definitely not "apple-like" rectangular shape

I agree, Bangle.js 2 is more similar to Amazfit Bip smartwatches.

...and any new watch should be circular, not the "apple-like" rectangular shape the bangle 2 currently resembles.

Some of us prefer a rectangular watch while others prefer a circular one. Analog wristwatches used to be circular because they make better use of the space for the hands (rectangular watches also existed, but were less common). Digital watches since the 1970's have been usually rectangular because they make better use of rectangular displays (which are better from a hardware point of view and for displaying information). Circular digital watches are the "new trend" and in my opinion are worse for ergonomics and displaying information. I think that nearly all of us would agree that circular watches with rectangular displays (like Bangle.js 1) are the worst of both worlds.

I really like the Bangle.js 2 display, but I would prefer the display to be larger with thinner bezels.

Apple is the devil

Yes, but they didn't invent rectangular watches (like with most things people associate Apple with).

Hi avanc.

@user156811 was asking for a Bangle.js 1 to buy for development testing purposes. I don't know if he already got one.

On the charger front, I'm surprised you're having issues with it coming off - someone else complained recently, but until that point I hadn't really heard of anyone having issues

I have never complained because it is something that I can live with (and nothing you can done to fix it). But the connector is very bad: the connector in the watch side is not recessed, the magnets are too weak and the connector too tall. The connector twists and stops making connection with just a gentle movement of the cable or the watch. A USB-C is my ideal option, but it would take a lot of internal space.

Do you know that you can change the screen orientation? that way you can have the button away from your hand. 'Settings'->'System'->'LCD'->'Rotate'

That's a nice suggestion, I will think about it. But pressing by mistake could also happen with the sleeve or whatever. It also needs new muscle memory for pressing the button.

Looking for the Bangle.js 2 silicon cover side effects, I only found this conversation about charging:

https://forum.espruino.com/conversations/376087/

What other side effects the cover has? Specially I'd like to know:

1. Button. I very often press the button accidentally while running (for example while I put on my globes). Is it more difficult to press the button by accident? Is it more difficult to press the button on purpose?
   
2. HRM. Does the cover affect the heart rate readings?
   

It looks nice. Did you use a pink Bangle.js 2 or a black one? Did you used hot glue? I suppose that the cover would also work as protection for the watch.

I have been a happy user of a Bangle.js 2 for a year now. Both Bangle.js version of Gadgetbridge and the App Manager (https://banglejs.com/apps/) are nice.

One aspect that I don't think looks very professional is the question about updates. Knowing that Gordon does so much work in development and replying in the forums, I'd like to make some suggestions that I hope don't require much work and will decrease the work in the forums about problems with the firmware and apps that are old or incompatible with the installed firmware. I propose:

1. That the App Manager (as called in Gadgetbridge or bangle.js apps loader webpage) changes to the "My Apps" tab when there are any updates. It would be better if the apps that are going to be upgraded are more easily spotted (like using a yellow background). I would be perfect if Gadgetbridge could show a different icon for the "App Manager" that indicates that updates are available when apps or firmware updates are available.

2. That a popup shows in the "My Apps" tab when a a new stable firmware version exists. It could say that upgrading the firmware is recommended before upgrading any apps. It should allow installing from the pop up or exiting the popup. The development app repository could show any new firmware even RC (about this latter) or cutting edge versions. The "Firmware Update" "app" could be maintained for manual selection and installation of firmware versions.

3. That an RC version of the firmware is uploaded and announced in the forum (with the Changelog) so people could test it a couple of days before a stable version is uploaded. The forum message could also say for which bugs people affected are urged to update to the RC, in addition to anyone wanting to test it. I usually use cutting edge versions of the firmware, but I don't upgrade to every new version. With the announcement of RC versions I could upgrade to every of them and test the things I usually do with the Bangle.js 2 (or even things I don't usually do but could be affected by the changes reported in the Changelog).

For the points 1 and 2 I could tried to do them myself after returning from vacation.

And just as a question: Why is the advanced option "Automatically reload watch after app App Loader actions (removes "Hold button" prompt)" not the default? Any problem with this being automatic?

Thanks for any opinion or feedback.

I only use the Bangle.js 2 for running or hiking. I don't like to wear a watch, specially at night, so I don't track my sleep. For step counting, I do enough training that the rest of my walking activity doesn't count much. I don't think that the support of the notifications is good enough to overtake my dislike of wearing the watch.

1. GPS: It's a bit annoying that the AGPS data lasts for just a few hours, so I download it just before going for the training session. With AGPS it takes like 5 seconds to get a lock, it seems to help that I only use the GPS network. It has a great precision while running outdoors. After the session I download the GPX files generated by the Recored App and I visualize them with the OsmAnd app in the Android phone.

2. HRM: Because I do my training with the excellent Polar H10 sensor, I'm not too worried about the internal HR precision. I would like to help in improving the algorithm anyway. For tracking the training sessions I use the proprietary Polar Apps, which are not great. I should start using open source apps for this also.

3. Apps: The Run/Run+ apps are a bit limited, but I use a slightly modified version of the former. I'd like to write a more complete app for running/hiking but no major work for this so far.

4. The Espruino framework is very nice, the main reason why I chose this watch (other alternatives are not even close). The hardware is good enough for a running watch except for only having one button, which is also of bad quality (sometimes I don't manage to start or stop the timer at the first try, very annoying for sprint reps).

I think that my banglejs2 synchronizes to my android phone's time when connecting to Gadgetbridge. The A-GPS data tip was for getting a GPS fix. I suppose that you need "GPS Time" to sync to the GPS time or "GPS auto time" to synchronize every time you get a GPS fix.

¡Damn! My bad (anyway, it was a normal question mark, the upside down one was at the end of the question). I was talking about "A-GPS Data Downloader App" but it seems that it only works with Gadgetbridge on Android. You can use "Assisted GPS Updater (AGPS)" which is not really an app but downloads A-GPS data from the App Loader.

I can't help much because I use Android. In my case it synchronize the time correctly. About GPS, ¿are you updating AGPS data in the previous 24 hours? There is an app that updates the data periodically and allows downloading it manually. It also seems to help using GPS only instead of more than one satellite system.

Doing a little research, it looks like BLE support on the laptop may be a bit dodgy.

What is impressive is in smartphones, with all the high speed signals (memory, storage, usb3, sdio, mipi dsi, mipi csi), wifi, bt (including ble), gps, several antennas etc. all that cramped in a small volume and everything works so well. As Gordon said a few days ago, we are so used to have a gps in the smartphone that works so well and gets connection pretty much everywhere, that we forgot how unreliable was pre-smartphone gps.

However nothing I could do would actually make the upload happen. I may be a bit stupid here, but why isn't there a big friendly "UPLOAD" button on the page?

From memory, I think that you have to touch the version you want to upload (the development version is at the end). Then an UPLOAD button appears at the end, you touch it and the upload starts. Yes, maybe not very intuitive. I hope this works for you.

Are you talking about connecting to the Espruino IDE or to the app repository? Have you tried connecting to a smartphone? The connection to the app repository is very reliable for me with several android devices.

I know that in many USB3 wifi dongles BT is disabled, even if the chipset inside supports it, and for many dongles that don't disable it the connection is very unreliable. It seems that designing the circuit so USB3 and BT don't affect the other is quite tricky (for the frequencies that USB2 uses there is no problem).

Also, I don't know how good the BLE support is with BT devices in computers. Is that the reason why many BT mouses have their own usb dongle?

Having more buttons is not only desirable when wearing gloves. I use the watch mainly as a sport watch, and for that use case the touch screen is nearly unusable while doing the activity.

I update AGPS data always before launching the GPS Info app. I always upload all 3 datasets: GPS+BDS+GLONASS.

Have you tried with GPS only? I get a very good precision with just it enabled.

I noticed that the watch never gets to “view” GPS satellites. Only BD and GL. Is that normal?

In A-GPS Data settings I have "GPS" selected, so I don't think I have BD or GL working.

Is it normal that I have to wait 5 min to start receiving data from the satellites?

I don't think so. With AGPS data updated I get a fix after 5 to 10 seconds. If APGS is not up to date it takes minutes to get a fix, sometimes it doesn't get a fix at all. This is all outside. Are you sure you have AGPS data updated.