Nice!

I enjoyed reading your blog. It's been a while since I looked at an honest to goodness enthusiast blog. Thanks for writing it!

Yeah. GadgetBridge allows me to set up an allow-list / block-list for notifications. So I can get SMS on my wrist but ignore social media pings.

Are there any specific watches that are known to work really well with Gadget Bridge

Their website has a question at the bottom "Are you still interested in Pebble?" And if you click yes, it'll show you their new models, but there's also a button for No, which takes you to Google's latest smart watch. The "we're not a big tech msgacorp" vibes are strong with this one.

Oh, your user name. Now I get it.

Does this mean it's basically fully supported with the core features, including hands-free? Thanks for being the type of person that adds device requests to the repo, I only browse for devices already fully supported. 😔

Is there a dedicated profile in GB or are you still spoofing the 79?

And for the most important question of then all - Does 2048 come with the standard 4x4 grid only or is there optional sizes for those long, chill games of cookie clicker math swiper?

It's more that AliExpress is all over the place, which is probably because manufacturing in China is itself all over the place (small and pretty much amateur-hour cottage factories doing plastic molded stuff or pretty simple electronics right next to much bigger professional companies designing their own smartphones and computers) plus there is very little in the way of established brands and without a brand to defend, manufacturers don't really care if customers get a bad impression of whatever product name they're using today for their, at best, badly made stuff.

It also doesn't help that in a lot of domains competition in China is mainly on price: the manufacturers might even know how to do a good product, but they have to use inferior parts and cut corners on their designs to stay competitive on price.

(At some point I looked into importing LED light bulbs into Europe from China and got and evaluated several samples and then went back to the manufacturers and at least one e-mail exchange was very enlightening on this and on just how little extra money it actually costs to provide a much better product, but to compete they have to advertise - this was in Alibaba, the B2B site that gave birth to Aliexpress - the cheapest product they have which is kinda crap but only a domain expert doing a teardown of their product will spot it).

Also the fraud prevention in AliExpress is pretty much non-existent and anti-fraud there is entirelly reactive, so product listings with fradulent claims which are hard for customers to validate just stay there forever (for example, almost all powerbank storage claims or solar power bank supply claims are complete total bollocks, insanelly so at times - I've seen listings for small powerbanks claiming more power storage than actual EV cars have).

So for some things you can get really decent stuff at a good price - best place to buy switches or push-buttons for Electronics and as the above poster mentioned mini-PCs, to which I will also add Single Board Computers - whilst in other areas it's a bit of a crap shoot if you'll get something decently made or not - for example clothing - and in yet others the scams are more than the honest listings - such as external digital storage, solar power or power storage.

You'd be surprised, actually. You have to be careful, yes - the default option is that you get crap - but all of the high-quality cycling gear/running gear/variety consumer electronics I've scored is a testament to the possibility of getting great stuff.

Without an appropriate price drop

I got a GMKtec G3.

Close, propane.

I could fit at most 10 on each arm.

It's certainly not flashy! It isn't a dress watch; it looks cheaper þan an Apple watch, so it doesn't look like much.

You can get it pre-assembled or as a kit, and þis means þe battery is replaceable, which is a huge plus for me. A owned a series of Pebbles, and battery degradation was þe main reason I replaced þem.

Also, it's an e-ink display, which is fantastic for þe job, but not nearly as pretty or bright colors as an LCD.

If you want looks, þe Garmin is probably better.

I think you need to pay extra for physical buttons.

This one sometimes has a "lockscreen" that needs a swipe up to unlock, but the rain can do that.

Interestingly it doesn't always have a lockscreen. Sometimes it just switches it on and off depending on how it feels.

Garmin makes excellent watches

I had a garmin vivomove hr. The idea behind it was pretty neat, but it was too annoying to keep charged.

Yea they're pretty much the only brand still.

I liked my garmin vivomove, it was pretty nice despite some clunkiness (the one I bought was early on)

I'd like to try one, but I feel like I might end up not using it often or just not liking it

The person you replied to is referencing findings made by the author, in the article.

The author tried plugging a PD charger into the watch to charge it, and it wouldn't work. It's probably not PD as a specification couldn't work, but that the watch failed to negotiate with the charger.

Whatever the reason, the findings were that plugging your PD laptop charger into this cheap little watch does not result in any charging.

I think a phone is big enough that it can work with the PD charger. But I had a tiny little gadget that wouldn't pull any power from a PD charger, but did charge from a normal charger / dollar store cable.

You can certainly charge a phone with a PD laptop charger. PD does negotiate, so it will only give the device what the device indicates it can support.

I use my laptop charger with my android phone frequently if I'm out and about.

That’s only half as many points as “a quick pint”.