I am trying to get some more measurable results while training, and I would like to get a watch that can measure my pulse during workouts. I see that the market is HUGE for watches meant for this, but I am a bit lost. Here are some things that are relevant to finding a good watch for me:
- I have smallish wrists.
- I would like to wear it also while swimming or showering
- I need it to work really well independently of any phone, as I don’t use iOS or any Android variant. This also means that the watch needs to be good at keeping the time without syncing with a phone.
- I need the watch to be privacy respecting. Even though I don’t plan on using it with a phone at the moment, I do not wish to support a scummy company.
Do you have a favorite watch that could fit some of these points?
I was searching for the same thing like you and decided to get a Garmin, as they seem to work with Gadgetbridge without needing to fair with their app first. It’ll arrive tomorrow, so I could give you some more insights then. But from what I’ve read online, Garmin watches are the top for sporty activities.
I’m very interested in hearing about your experience with your new Garmin. They do seem like great watches.
So, I received it yesterday, and I’m absolutely enamored with it: it’s perfect. No need to download some crappy app that god know where sends your data, and thankfully it’s possible to first pair it directly with gadgetbridge. Absolutely peak. Then it acts like a normal smartwatch, I guess. I’m not much interested by the notifications/smart aspects of it; I mainly got it so I could consult maps when going hiking without having to have my phone in my hand all the time. In that aspect, this garmin watch I have (vivoactive 6) let’s you have a line of your course on the display on at all times, so not really a very colorful map with lots of stuff, but exactly what I needed. For the maps themselves, you can select whatever gpx file from your phone and ‘share’ it via the android menu to gadgetbridge, it’ll send the file to the watch that way and you can then open it on the watch. Another thing i want to do with it is use it as a heartbeat sensor while riding my indoor trainer; I haven’t had the time to try that yet tho. A very cool thing is that this watch supports music on device!! It has 8gb onboard, and you can download music from amazon music, spotify, deezer, and others, idk. But as I download my music from bandcamp I found no use for those. Thankfully by plugging the watch in a pc with their cable it acts as a media storage device, and then you can upload your own mp3 files. Looks like it doesn’t support flac, so you’ll need to transcode those if you have you music in that format. Navidrome’s UI let’s you do that easily when downloading an album. Ah, the watch itself doesn’t have a speaker, but you can connect headphones, up to LDAC it seems? Mine have the aac/sbc codecs disabled, only LDAC is enabled, and it still works, so cool ig? Ah, I found that to setup garmin pay you need the official app, but after the initial setup you can uninstall it. Anyway, my bank isn’t supported so idc.
I hope i have been exhaustive, and that this rant of mine could maybe help you make your decision. Overall, i’m pretty happy: works pretty well for what I need, and is totally private. My data isn’t feeding god knows what algorithm, and there are no important features locked behind a paywall (their garmin trainer or whatever is, but who tf cares about that)
Ah, and the alarms on the watch seem to wake you up just fine.
That watch sounds like something I could really like! Glad it works so well for you with Gadgetbridge. I’ll see if I can find a Linux alternative, maybe a Garmin could be the right fit. Thank you for your thoughtful post.
A linux smartwatch ? Then definetly look into asteroid OS ! The devices they support can be bought for very cheap on vinted. I opted for a garmin because of the battery life : i do not want to plug my watch in everynight.
I am using Garmin venu 2 with gadgetbridge and I can confidently say the sync got so much better lately, it even integrates now with endurain and auto upload my workouts. The only thing that I think is less then ideal is agps (assisted gps), basically I had to setup cron job that downloads the agps file every day and stores it where gadgetbridge sees it (smb share) and can provide it to the watch on request. Without this it took 15+ minutes to lock gps…