Peter Gamma (Physiologist & Director) Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS)

Linux AsteroidOS sports watch

Last Updated on November 1, 2022 by pg@petergamma.org

For an open source Linux sports watch with external BLE sensors:

additionally GPS would be very helpful. Is there an AsteroidOS watch which supports GPS? What about the Huawei 2 GPS watch?

https://github.com/AsteroidOS/asteroid/issues/101

Peter Gamma 13.4.2021 16:29

I asked the AsteroidOS IRC chat:

10:49:17PeterGammaFor an open source Linux sports watch with external BLE sensors, additionally GPS would be very helpful. The Kingwear KW88 Pro has GPS, but as far as I know, the Bluetooth stack is a mess. Is there another AsteroidOS watch which supports GPS?
20:02:09AsteroidBot[asteroid-btsyncd] MagneFire synchronized Pull Request #19 BatteryService: Use systemsettings for battery information. (gatesgarth_v2 -> master): https://git.io/JYduj
22:35:01MagneFirePeterGamma: There are some other watches that have GPS (The Sony Smartwatch 3 and Huawei Watch 2 come to mind) but it’s not supported from AsteroidOS just yet.
22:55:05PeterGammaMagneFire: Thanks, MagneFire. I am currently using a Garmin watch with a BLE footpod, and I don t use GPS at all, since a foot pod is very accurate, and battery life with GPS is shorter. But for an open source sports watch to be taken serious by athletes, GPS is required. I saw some developement work for the Huawei Watch 2 on the AsteroidOS GITHUB which looked great. What do you think. Is GPS for the Huawei Watch 2 far away to be developed?
23:15:02MagneFirePeterGamma: I didn’t have a look into this so will probably take some time 😉 Though I did get GPS to at least scan on the Sony smartwatch 3, but that’s where it stopped (couldn’t get a GPS location fix)

Source: AsteroidOS IRC Logs 13.4.2021

Linux AsteroidOS open source sports watch at XDA developers:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/linux-asteroidos-open-source-sports-watch.4262243/

Good news: GPS works too now on the Huawei Watch 2

MagneFire in the AsteroidOS IRC chat: “Ok so GPS works too now on the Huawei Watch 2, but it does not stop even after closing the asteroid-gps-test app. Is this a known issue for other watches?”GPS works too now on the Huawei Watch 2, that is good news. Maybe an athlete with good coding skills knows how to solve the issue? GPS makes the Huawei Watch 2 interesting to be used as a sports watch (source: AsteroidOS IRC Logs 14.4.2021)

16.4.2021 09:04 Peter Gamma

Which is the optimal watch to make an open source sports watch out of it?

I could find the Huawei watch 2 second hand. But where can the Huawei watch 2 4g be found? To access sensor data from Garmin watches is difficult. They have their proprietary .fit file format. ANT+ sensors need special hardware, for instance ANT+ sticks, and it is hard do find another way than synchroniz sports sensor data to Garmin connect. Real-time processing of sports sensor data is even more difficult. Was this was the goal of the companies who developed these products? Many people tried to solve this problem. I made a list of these projects on my Github page:

https://github.com/PeterGamma/Live-stream-of-ANT-plus-and-BLE-sensor-data

Most of these project consist only of a backbone. From there it is possible to develop a project of your choice.

Peter Gamma. 17.4.2021 14:15

Huawei watch 2 as an open source Linux AsteroidOS sports watch at XDA developers

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/huawei-watch-2-as-an-open-source-linux-asteroidos-sports-watch.4263517/

Peter Gamma. 17.4.2021 19:02

Linux AsteroidOS sports watch on DC Rainmakers blog?

DC Rainmaker, the blog Ray Maker that reviews technology used for runners, cyclists, and triathletes, deleted my link to my AsteroidOS watch blog, or at least I cannot find it anymore. I put I link on his review about peloton bike computers to my AsteroidOS watch blog:

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2021/02/peloton-bike-plus-in-depth-review.html

I did not know where else to put it. But I can t find the link anymore. Did Ray delete the link?. It is time to build an AsteroidOS sports watch, so that Ray can review the watch. Then, we can discuss with Ray on his blog about the watch.

Peter Gamma 17.4.2021 21:04

AsteroidOS sports watch with BLEHeartRateLogger.py?

I suggest to start building an AsteroidOS sports with a heart rate chest strap monitor like the Polar H7 or the Polar H10 and GPS. That is all which is needed for a fully funcional sports watch. The first Garmin watches had as far as I know only a heart rate chest strap and a foot pod. Then, they had a major break trough with GPS watches. Which GPS and a chest strap, we can try again to sell the watch to DC Rainmaker. DC Rainmaker has he has a huge impact on athletes. The easiest way I could find to do this is to integrate the BLEHeartRateLogger app into an AsteroidOS watch.

https://github.com/fg1/BLEHeartRateLogger

BLEHeartRateLogger.py is a Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) data logger written in Python for Linux. With this tool you can log your heart rate and heart rate variability (RR) during exercise, sleep or whatever comes to mind.

Polar has a Polar SDK

The Polar Sensor Logger app with MQTT support for a real-time stream to Matlab, Python, Influx Database, etc.:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.j_ware.polarsensorlogger&gl=CH

is also based on the Polar SDK, and I suppose also the BLEHeartRateLogger app. Jukka Happonen, Senior Specialist at Polar Electro Oy Research Center made a very helpful contribution with his Polar Sensor Logger app, which can record many parameters from Polar sensors to .txt files, and can stream sensor data over MQTT to Influx Data Base. The Polar Sensor Logger app seems not to be an offical Polar app, but is really an easy and contemporary solution for sensor data streaming. But unfortunately, the Polar Sensor Logger app is not open source.

Peter Gamma 18.4.2021 9:02

Shellscripts and python scripts already run on AsteroidOS (personal communication jrt, AsteroidOS IRC chat)

18.4.2021 09:32:18

jrt: Hi, I’m not entirely sure what you want to archive. Shellscripts and python scripts already run on AsteroidOS. There is a python 3 package available in the repository.

18.4.2021 15:54:12

PeterGamma: Thanks, jrt

Peter Gamma 18.4.2021 16:00

New Fossil AsteroidOS sport watch?

All components are already there to build a Asteroid sports watch for instance on the basis of a Huawei 2 watch. But a miss a new watch with AsteroidOS as a basis for a sports watch. Kingwear K87 is new, and has an AsteroidOS port by Chandler Swift. But according to the AsteroidOS chat, the Bluetooth stack is a mess. For external Bluetooth low energy sensors, BLE is important.
I miss a high quality watch with an AsteroidOS port, for instance a port for the new Fossil watch as a basis for an open source sports watch. According to the Asteroid IRC chat, the bootloader of the new Xiaomi watch cannot be unlocked.The new Fossil watch is an alternative.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/fossil-sports-watch-with-asteroid-os.4264417/

Peter Gamma 19.4.2021 16:65