this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
247 points (98.1% liked)

Technology

59600 readers
3776 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
L3s@fry.gs
L4s@fry.gs
L4s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
247
Fossil is quitting smartwatches (www.theverge.com)
submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
85 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Fossil is quitting smartwatches::Fossil is going to stop making smartwatches. It was one of the most prolific companies creating Wear OS watches.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TheWorstMailman@lemm.ee 22 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I'd love a smartwatch that, along with telling time, is just a screen that shows me my notifications and a button to pause my music.

[–] nawa@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Garmin hybrid watch might be something you'd like.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are dozens like those...

[–] TheWorstMailman@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Such as? Not doubting, I just want to know

[–] Canuck@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago

PineTime

[–] hagelslager@feddit.nl 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Another shout out for the PineTime here, which is open source.

[–] jkrtn@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Is it running a little Linux on there? How easy is it to program for? I want something that taps me every 15 minutes and asks if I'm doing something I want or doomscrolling.

[–] hagelslager@feddit.nl 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I bought the "closed" version, since I'm not a programmer myself and rely on community efforts. So unfortunately I can't provide you with an answer!

Edit: I don't think Infinitime is Linux based, but it is open source: https://infinitime.io/

[–] Tja@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Withings, Garmin and Casio have them in very different styles, plus a lot of Chinese ones which names I don't remember.

Literally months of battery time, up to unlimited for the solar ones.

[–] 9715698@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As someone with a Garmin Instinct Solar, the unlimited battery is really dependent on your habits. You really need to be exposed to the sun for long periods on a daily basis for it to noticeably charge via solar. Still though the idea of a watch that you never need to charge is really neat.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago

I'm sure it'll charge from the dim light of my screens just fine /s

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Important thing with those is... avoid Garmin at all costs. They are nasty company who will drop support for your device 6 months after purchase forcing you to buy a new device and similar nasty moves.

[–] Marin_Rider@aussie.zone 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

what? my fenix 5x is going strong years later despite being a couple gens behind

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Hardware is generally great. Software is the sucky part. And I didn't say device stops working, but Garmin stops providing support for it, as in no software updates or bug fixes. What you buy is what you get. Perhaps first half a year you might get a fix or two if there are serious enough issues. But that's about it. It might be different since Fenix is their premium line, but with my Forerunner it was as I describe.

[–] harrybo93@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Can you provide some examples…? I still have an original Vivomove that still functions fine? Not sure what you mean by “dropping” them- you’re implying they stop working when they don’t

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

It's not that device stops working, but they refuse to provide updates. I have Forerunner 220, which was released at about time when Android watches were starting to be a thing. Unfortunately for me, I ran into many issues with the device, where device would freeze mid run and similar issues. I even had watch create corrupted activity file which would cause whole software to crash and restart if you tried to go into activity listing on it. I contacted Garmin, even documented all the issues, provided file system dump, etc. Garmin ignored the bug report and told me to do factory reset. Basically universal solution to them.

Then when Android started pushing features like bluetooth control from watches, Garmin dropped support for 220, and released 235, which was same hardware and slightly updated software. Forerunner 220 never got a software update again after that.

I even went so far to create my own open source tool for synchronization and activity tracking. Garmin wanted 5000$ single time payment for API access, which I was not going to give them. They are ass-backwards company when it comes to software and it shows. Even got some of their developers contact me privately to help but under a promise I won't reveal who they are in fear of retaliation. So no thanks, Garmin never again.

[–] tehbilly@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago

Literally this. Maybe let me see a preview of notifications, but that's not a make-or-break issue for me.