Last Updated on November 22, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org
Rob Braxman uses mechanical watches and never would wear an Apple watch:
But he uses smartphones with open source software on it. Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org uses a Garmin Fenx 6 paired to a Polar Verity Sense. And he uses it only with GPS off. With GPS on there is always the risk that a Police car follows him, wants to control him, and asks a lot of questions about him.
This has recently happened when Peter went for a walk outside in the middle of the night and kept his smartphone on. Peter has reported about this topic recently:
https://petergamma.org/category/legal-affairs-in-switzerland
Peter loves smartwaches. And it is nice to have a smartwatch with some physiological parameters on it. But the first thing which he found negative about for instance Garmin watches is that it is difficult to use those without the web, and often not satisfying.
Peter has looked at several open source alternatives. There are some available, but they are still quiet basic:
AsteroidOS smartwatches are quiet interesting:
And every now and then a new watch appears which runs AsteroidOS which is open source:
https://asteroidos.org/watches
But for me personally as a physiologist it takes time to study all the different watches. And I can live with my Fenix 6 with GPS off. The Fenix 6 was the first watch I know which shows respiration rate. It is not very accurate, but still helpful. And to develop our own open source smartwatch is time consuming. The development of open source smartwatches is not as far developed as open source smartphones.
But if you still are interested in the development of smartwatches, you can find what I found about those on the tag „Open Source Watches“:
https://petergamma.org/category/linux-watches
And I suppose sooner or later more open source watches will come and eventually even Rob Braxman finds one among those which fits his (privacy) needs.