Life After Apple Watch

I thought replacing my Apple Watch would be the most difficult part of switching to GrapheneOS. I wasn't wrong, and I acknowledge that I did this to myself. First by moving off of iOS. Second by choosing GrapheneOS. Third by wanting to limit third-party apps for devices. I had heard of GadgetBridge and wanted to use it. All of these factors limited my watch choices. I limited my search to devices that were at least mostly supported by GadgetBridge. I also wanted to a watch that I could pair directly with GadgetBridge. Not only that, but I wanted to avoid the need to create an account to get a key/token for pairing. This limited the choices. I really wanted to get a Garmin but given the price of the three models that were at least mostly supported I decided to not go this route. I'm also worried that support could be broken by Garmin in the future. The Venu 3 would be my choice if I do ever break down. It looks like a nice watch for the price.

I decided on the Bangle.js 2; I bought it in February and got it in early March. It's basic. It reminds me of my Pebble many years ago. There are more apps for it than I expected covering a pretty wide range. I installed one that basically does DND on a schedule since the watch doesn't have that natively. I've been pretty happy with it. Furthermore, I've gotten used to using a physical card for payments. The screen is small but usable. I then started having issues charging it and dropping connection to my phone. The charging issues are caused by the contacts on the back corroding. This is a known issue with a preventative measure but not much can be done once it's started. I scrubbed the contacts which helped a bit but the disconnects continued.

I decided to look at watches again. The charging with the Bangle was an issue and I thought the connection issues were with it too. I started looking at Garmin's again. There weren't additional models with good GadgetBridge support which led me back to me original choice. I couldn't spend that money on something that might not work with GadgetBridge in the future.

I came across the CMF Watch Pro 2 again. CMF is a sub-brand of Nothing. It is mostly supported by GadgetBridge and can be paired without their app. I saw it on Amazon in late June on sale for about $60. I didn't do any more research; I ordered it. Likewise, I've been using it for about two weeks and I like the watch more than the Bangle.js 2. It looks like a modern smartwatch not something to hack with. I like the circular design; probably because it's novel after using Apple Watches for almost ten years.

Oddly to me, it's less customizable than the Bangle. I'm guessing that is because I'm using GadgetBridge and not their app. The Bangle uses GadgetBridge, they don't have their own app. The alarms don't sync correctly. Weather doesn't work without their app. Notifications show briefly before the watch returns to the watch face. The Bangle handled this better and also has a setting to control how notifications are handled. The vibration motor makes more noise than vibrations but is effective enough. It's noisy enough that my wife has taken to mocking it. She didn't hear the Apple Watch or Bangle. The heart rate sensor seems better than the Bangle. I prefer the watch face gestures; important functions are quickly accessible. The touch screen is more accurate. The Bangle is notorious for being somewhat inaccurate; it has a calibration utility. That helps, but you still have to pay attention to where you touch.

The connection issues I had with the Bangle persisted with the CMF. They went away after removing GadgetBridge and installing from the nightly build release. The backup and restore worked brilliantly. GadgetBridge is a really polished piece of software. I think it's impressive how well thought out it is. It's also nice to have data from multiple devices in one app.

If you're keeping count, I'm on my second smartwatch since switching from an iPhone. Luckily I'm only out about $100 so far with the two since I bought the Bangle with card points. I've already selected my third watch. In the spring, I pre-ordered the Core Time 2 from Core Devices. This is a new version of the Pebble Time 2 from Eric Migicovsky's new company. I'm really trying to get to December/January when those start shipping which is another reason not to buy a more expensive watch. I don't know if GadgetBridge will support it, but I'm hopeful since they support the original Pebbles and these new watches run PebbleOS.

This is a journey. I can see not getting the new Pebble. Maybe something else will be released. Maybe I will decide to work on improving GadgetBridge support for the CMF watch. More. To. Come.