Can I use a Huawei smart watch and still preserve my privacy?

phonehelp

I really want a smart watch with a pedometer and heart sensor, price wise I'm intrigued by Huawei's watch (watch fit 4 I think)

I'm guess I need its app to get the step and heart data off the watch.

I'm thinking about using a separate profile just for Huawei's app and then immeidately cutting wifi and data connection on it.

Is that going to be enough? Or would you guys suggest forgoing the watch altogether and getting something else?

I've used the Pinetime and its...not consumer ready and that's being generous. The pebble is launching but its more expensive and it really does look dated.

Sigismund

phonehelp take what I say however you like, but I hate all the "smart" things, especially when it comes to watches etc. yes I understand the irony of replying from a smartphone but if I'd have the option of use an old nokia 3310 reliably for communication I'd rather do it.

Everything "smart" comes with an extra price on top of the money needed to buy it. And this is of course your data. It's not worth it in my opinion. A watch should be just that, a means to track time. Not my movement, my heart ratio etc, not to mention the sensors in the "cheap" models are often crap.

Do you really need a fancy toy instead of an actual watch? Do yourself a favor and at least find one that can have all radios turned off while not syncing with phone.

r134a

phonehelp Perhaps u can look into gadgetbridge, and its supported devices, that way u could use a smartwatch without relying on a proprietary app.

oci3o

phonehelp I would recommend a Garmin or the new Pebble smart watches which are coming out (if you can wait for Q4).
Another is Casio, there is a FOSS app that talks to the watch, Casio will outlive the above by decades, but they are not as feature rich as say a Garmin.
https://github.com/izivkov/CasioGShockSmartSync

manugraph

phonehelp I'm using a Huawei Watch Fit 3 together with Gadgetbridge and everything works quite well.

You have to connect it, though, to the Huawei app if you want to update the watch.

And one drawback for me is the "AGPS" that is not working with Gadgetbridge. So if you want to use GPS with the watch alone, the first GPS fix takes around 10 minutes in my case. Sometimes it's quicker, but for a quick satellite fix you usually have to update the AGPS-data via the app regularly. Gadgetbridge does not do that. What Gadgetbridge can do, is, to send Smartphone GPS tracking to the watch during a workout. So together with the phone at least this works.

As far as I know this AGPS-data-thing works with Garmin, though. But I don't have personal experience in this regard.

So tldr: if you need GPS on the watch without a connected smartphone, the Huawei might be a bit slow.

phonehelp

Sigismund

I totally agree with you and share your mentality.

I just want something that counts steps and monitors my heart rate.

If you have any suggestions for something that can do that, I'd really appreciate it.

troika

I am Chinese，Huawei Watch once measured the heart rate of ham sausage

phonehelp

troika

Maybe you just like your sausage very very rare

phonehelp

r134a

SO I've looked into gadgetbridge, and maybe I'm not looking into it right, but it just says supported.

It doesn't say well supported nor can I get a breakdown of what's supported

LeslieFH

I'm using a Mi Band with Notify & Fitness App which does not send anything to the internet and can work with the Internet access revoked. (Well, it needs internet for some sleep analysis models, but it does have the option of local analysis, and it needs internet access if you want weather to be displayed on the band, but otherwise in can be ran purely local)

You do need to register the app with a Xiaomi app once to get the auth key, though.

basedFOSS

oci3o
Reasons against Garmin:

No E2E encrypted cloud backup (only Apple has E2E encryption as dar as I know)
inaccurate for such a high price (See YT: Quantified scientist)

Reasons in favor of Garmin:

Support for Gadgetbridge
Durable

phonehelp

oci3o

Yeah as I said I"m aware of teh new Pebble...but it looks super outdated. And I"m not sure the tech in there is modern either.

Its probably my fallback option

There is a new casio, however its like $500 and I'm not sure if it is supported on FOSS apps. That watch is way overkill for me, I''m looking for something simpler (and thus cheaper)

phonehelp

basedFOSS

Does Garmin do what I want it to do (step counter and heart rate).

Can you recommmend a specific model that is wells upported on gadgetbridge.

I do recall looking into Garmin a while ago, but hte prices I found to be...more than what I wanted to pay

phonehelp

manugraph

So dumb question: why do I need AGPS? Or is it related tot he step counter thing?

But thank you for the feedback

troika

phonehelp https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1PF5Ab3l0cU&pp=ygUX5Y2O5Li65omL6KGoICDngavohb_ogqA%3D

oci3o

phonehelp The new Pebble should have "newer" hardware, I have one of the OG ones and it works fine :)
You dont need to spend $500 on a casio, max I've seen is $320, there are cheaper ones also, I have an old GBD model which doesnt do heart rate, but it does steps and that cost me about £80 2 years ago, still works perfectly fine :)

manugraph

phonehelp no, for step counting and heart rate, agps is not necessary.
Probably then you would not even need to update the watch and can just use it directly with Gadgetbridge if you just want to use the core functionalities.

r134a

troika lol