Apple Watch with Android | Hacker News Reader

Apple Watch with Android

abishekmuthian.com

I thought Apple Watch was compatible with Android, just not as smooth to use. This is eye opening.

At the same time, though I agree Apple Watch has the best sleep tracking (and I work in the sleep space), the difference in sleep tracking compared to others probably isn't big enough to justify jumping through all these hoops, unless, like the author, you enjoy doing this sort of thing.

The Whoop sleep tracking is quite good, but a rather expensive (I think) subscription just to get data about a health function you have very little direct influence over.

The Xaoimi Bands are inexpensive, and from what I understand, also have good sleep tracking.

I also just came across this https://cardiomood.com/, which seems to be like a non-subscription, but rather expensive Whoop.

Do you have an opinion on the sleep tracking in Garmin Fenix watches?

I have both an Apple Watch 8 and the Garmin Fenix and I use the Fenix for sleep tracking. I find the Apple Watch to be too general with the stats. The Fenix gives a lot more detail. You can debate if the extra detail is useful or not. I also like the heart rate variability tracking with the Fenix (it seems to mirror how tire I feel pretty well). Lastly, the Fenix can hold a charge for several days. I can use it to sleep track and run and repeat and it charges quickly. If I sleep track with my Apple Watch, it may not have enough battery for the rest of the day. I run with both -- the Fenix for running specific tracking and the Apple for calling friends, listening to Audible, or podcasts.

my experience with garmin (vivoactive, not fenix) was that they had all kinds of precision and detail, but it also didn't even notice when i got up to pee in the middle of the night - just a straight line through the graphs as though i hadn't woken up at all. that was the end of my trust in their sleep tracking.

The Quantified Scientist does very detailed, measurement-based tests on all sort of smart watches, you might want to see where your device stands in his charts in terms of accuracy.

Mine reliably notices that I woke up and immediately go under when my wife comes home late in the night, which happens basically every day (because bartender) so I get somewhat statistically significant results in that regard.

It's accurate enough.

Had a Garmin that would say my table had a heartbeat.

that actually might have been accurate.

my garmin was really good at picking up my heart rate. there was one time i had it in a waist pack, and i was wearing a chest strap that was not paired to the garmin, and the garmin managed to pick up a pretty accurate heart rate for most of a bike ride.

> hold a charge for several days

That would be an understatement, are you running/cycling a lot outside, or is it a smaller model (thus small battery because physics)?

Mine (Fenix 7) holds charge for 15 days minimum and that's with tracking workouts 3-5x/week (no GPS though, winter so I treadmill for runs). On a couple of months where I didn't do sports it held up 25-30 days.

I have SpO2 tracking disabled because it's quite battery intensive and the only use for it would be high altitude acclimation, although I must admit I looked at it during my "stop smoking" process.

Data aside, neither are ideal. I can’t sleep with the Apple Watch because it needs to be charged while I sleep to get through the day, and the Fenix is too heavy for my wrist at night. I use an old Mi Band, which tracks approximate data that suits me.

FWIW, I charge my watch while taking a shower before bed and in the morning, and that seems to be enough to get me through the day and through the night.

According to reviewers, Mi Bands and generally all of Xiaomi's devices are fairly bad at sleep tracking. So much so that it's almost pointless to use them for that.

I know it’s fully anecdotal, but my Xiaomi/Huami (former Xiaomi sub-brand) devices have matched up sleep duration quite well with what I feel in the morning - and I’m quite sensitive to less sleep. I think it’s quite good for sleep duration, but I don’t rely on REM duration etc as I don’t have much use for it. When it predicts a good sleep score I’ve definitely slept well, though sometimes it gives a lesser score even when I don’t appear to have slept poorly.

(I’ve used a Mi Band 1, an Amazfit Bip, and currently an Amazfit Band 7.)

Could be true. But I have no use for more precise and deeper info. I need it only to fight possible anxiety spikes and attribute them to a bad sleep.

I’m still using old Fitbit Inspire, which is not too big for sleep tracking. And it’s very accurate, for me.

I recently got a Fenix 7, but not for sleep tracking purposes. I find it ok. I definitely think it isn't great at measuring wakefulness at night, but I also have a very low HR and high HRV (while awake), which so this causes the margin for error in the device to be very low.

As I usually say, all of the devices are good enough. You're getting historical data about what your body did. You can't go back and change it anyway. I don't see real value in knowing my historical sleep data.

I had the fenix 7 and I liked the sleep tracking.

Because the garmin can function without requiring and acount/online nonsense, it does the sleep analysis and recommendations on the watch.

Not OP but I have a Fenix 7x. What happens very infrequently is that I would wake up during the night, and then be absolutely still (I'm trying to go back to sleep) except for checking my watch every 15-20mn. This does not get detected as "awake" the following morning.

I don't really care because I got this watch so I can upload a track and follow it while recording various metrics during 5+ days, and for this it works perfectly.

There are two data points you need to accurately track sleep: Motion and respiration rate. With that information you can identify light sleep vs. deep sleep, and sometimes you can differentiate between light sleep and being still.

Source: Worked on the ResMed S+ and got a theory dump from the PhDs running the project.

Sleep versus awake from a sensor on the wrist is always going to be subject to wide error bars.

Source: worked on an experiment trying to make people fall asleep while driving (in a simulated environment so it was safe- I built the simulated environment). It took a lot of EEG wires and gel in subject's hair etc. to accurately figure that out.

I would think that "pressing the button to turn on the backlight so I can check the time" would be a good indication that I'm awake :)

Same experience for me. If I wake up but lie still it's not nearly as accurate. What I do find useful is the Body Battery score, that generally maps well to how I feel the next day. And the Stress Score is an eerily good indicator of when I'm getting sick and when the illness is stopping.

How does apple watch compare with the ooma ring for sleep tracking?

I think you mean Oura ring.

I used an Oura for a while, and it is quite good.

The thing I say about all of them is...what's the value in you having better tracking?

Let's say it's off by 4% and that you got 4% less deep sleep last night than your tracker says? What are you going to do about it? You can't change the data from the past anyway. They're all "good enough" I'd say.

The value of accurate tracking is comparison. As someone who suffers from chronic sleep issues, being able to accurately compare the effect of interventions on my sleep pattern, as well as account for seasonality etc is invaluable. Accurate tracking also helps forestall habituation - it's like keeping a paper diary, obviously you can't change the past (no one ever suggested you could) but you can make yourself aware of large changes that happened too gradually to be obvious.

Yeah I'm not sure what I'd use this for. I tend to know if I've had a bad night's sleep, and the interventions I'd try are all things I should do anyway - don't drink, less caffeine, lower stress.

> The thing I say about all of them is...what's the value in you having better tracking?

Same reason I weigh myself almost every day. If there are changes or I have some other issue I can go back over the data with my doctor.

The Oura ring does a lot more analytics. There's a "sleep score", a "readiness score", various algorithms to suggest an "optimal sleep time", etc.

The Apple Watch just records stuff and throws it in the Health app. That's it. They added a "vitals" app that mostly alerts you when the numbers it records are drastically different than the norm, but it's not really analyzing or suggesting anything.

I get the feeling that Apple thought there would be a whole ecosystem of apps that would analyze your sleep data, so they didn't need to build any of it into the watch or the health app itself.

(or they just wait for a well-loved third-party app to emerge, and then copy its functionality into the core OS, killing it altogether, the apple way)

This guy actively went the hard path. He didn’t need to do the for Kids pairing. It’s actually a case study in getting too in the weeds of a problem that’s tangential to what you’re trying to solve: good health reporting.

Some of the article you’d probably still want to do with Android, however (e.g. calendar syncing).

That said, I got an Apple Watch to attempt to replace my cell phone when leaving the house, but Apple seems to intentionally or nonintentionally wants to sabotage this use case.

How is the use case being sabotaged? They actively advertise that

I think a perfect example is swipe to type. It’s would actually be easy to type on the watch if it supported this.

It’s been a few years, so I might be out of date here, but the last update here was that there was an app that supported this (FlickType, only for Messages because app APIs, sure fine) but Apple banned the app after a lengthy but successful App Store approval and several updates (it appears to be back now).

I consistently ran into issues similar to this, where a solution was so obvious but Apple either totally missed it or seemed to actively make the issue harder without a phone.

I wish a wrote a blog post at the time about each one but I didn’t. Syncing music also comes to mind — I think you had to sync specific playlists, not your library, and it really, really sucked with almost no feedback. You also needed the iPhone watch app to do it — sync to phone then sync to watch. I was surprised Apple shipped it.

This comes from a happy macOS, Arch Linux and iPhone user who buys/uses an Android every 5 years for a year.

I’m going to charge the watch and update it to see if Apple implemented it. I just don’t think Apple is interested nor financially motivated to make the watch a first class citizen.

Has it been a bad experience? I feel bad about how much time I spend staring at my phone, and I think the watch would be the ideal form factor for me, but I haven’t pulled the trigger because it feels silly spending more money on tech to reduce my dependency on tech

Get a kale phone

I had to try Apple Watch for kids because my initial goal was not to buy iPhone to get the Apple Watch working.

The Xiaomi Bands are quite poor according this tester[1]. Huawei Bands are slightly better but I guess you can't complain much for the price.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_aS0Q188tY

The MiBand7 is fairly far on the right, based on the price. But you're right, I thought more of the Mi products where higher.

It seems like the "best" solution depends on how much one values ecosystem freedom, data accuracy or simplicity of use

Indeed, Apple gadgets work well if your body and lifestyle are close to what Apple tests for. Apple Watch is good “in general”, but for example it would regularly show me to be below sea level, not capture my heart rate (like measure it wildly off by 20-30 units) etc. AirPods as hearing aids — what if I'm not using an iPhone? So yes, the post is quite accurate and there really is no choice at the end, the wall of the garden is impossibly high.

From what I've heard, Whoop (https://whoop.com) has the best sleep tracking, but it is subscription based and the monthly price is ridiculous for a device that has not even a screen

For years, I was an Apple Watch user: I assumed that all medium/top end trackers were the same, and that Apple Watch was pretty much the benchmark.

…but now that is have had the opportunity to use extensively Garmin watches, my experience is that they offer far superior accuracy, precision and technical details for activity tracking and sleeping than Apple Watch.

My picks would be in the following order:

1) Garmin high-end watches, they are truly a work of love

2) Aura ring, because of great convenience and reliability

3) Apple Watch, because they are great all-rounders

4) Coros, Suunto, Whoops, because they are highly reliable, but lack some of the smart functions

5) Withings, Fitbit, etc…, they are a solid option, but they generally lack distinctive features/capabilities

I would stay away from any brands offering super cheap products, due to privacy concerns and lower reliability and lack of advanced features.

I would love to hear more about your opinions on this as someone who has been experimenting with as a semi-serious runner after years of being Apple Watch exclusive.

What I see is benefits around battery life, form factor (buttons are awesome), and good native support for "compound metrics" like Endurance Score, Hill Score, Training Status, etc.

But when it comes to actual stats and metrics, Apple Watch feels superior in most ways. Garmin sleep tracking anecdotally feels much less accurate. It baffles me that it only shows pace to the nearest 5 seconds during a workout. It confuses me that it only shows a Vo2max estimate to zero decimal places.

Then, Apple Watch is at least 10x more customizable via third party apps. Want a Whoop-like experience with strain score, recovery score, etc.? Bevel and Athlytic are there. Want a much more in-depth and customizable workout experience? WorkOutdoors puts Garmin to shame here.

What am I missing that makes Garmin so pervasive, while Apple Watch is derided as "not a serious sports watch"?

I'm hardly a serious runner, but I'd say the pros you laid out for Garmin are quite nice, and the cons are inconsequential to your average fitness tracker user. I'd probably argue they're inconsequential to everyone but the absolute elite and, for them, are pointless.

Sleep tracking is hard to action on for the average user outside "you slept this long" and none of the writst-based devices are that good anyway.

Pace to sub 5 is a little more annoying, but probably not useful for the majority considering most people are just running, not craning over their watch the whole time.

VO2 max is also a wild estimate, and I'd hazard it's not particularly accurate for the average person. It's off by close to 20% for me, and I should be a pretty good candidate.

On the flipside, you can get tons of data out of a Garmin that costs significantly less than an Apple watch. Plus, the majority of Garmins sold are fitness devices with some smart features, with Apple watches being primarily a smart watch. While maybe not justified (I think the Apple watch features are quite nice) I'd expect that's a major part of the reason Garmin has the rep it does.

If someone is buying a device to run, most would recommend the cheaper, light, simple, specialized, long battery life watch over the opposite. If you already have an Apple watch, it's probably a no brainer. For the high-end Garmin devices, it's a little more complex, but not many people are considering a US$800+ device without knowing the nuances of the discussion, or having enough money to not care.

I think you're probably right on a lot of this.

I do think the pace having more granularity than five seconds is important for anyone who's doing any kind of speed work, where a pace off by 5 seconds can result in a fairly significant variance. Admittedly I am not a total novice, but my 5k and 10k pace times are about 10 seconds apart, and I do some interval workouts at 5k pace and some at 10k pace. 5 second granularity doesn't give much wiggle room there! Although of course, GPS and cadence-based paces are also estimates, so maybe the 5 second accuracy is better than 1 second which could inpsire a false sense of confidence in the estimate.

As far as Vo2Max goes, totally agree – my lab test results vary widely from both watches. However, I think that actually makes Apple's 1 decimal place more significant – it has a lot of value in offering a fitness trend, even if it's inaccurate. I might train hard for 3 weeks and see 0 movement in my Garmin Vo2Max, whereas I might see a 0.3 increase in the Apple Watch. This is valuable for even the novice runner.

That's very true, and I'd love to see some actual documentation on how they get to pace numbers.

I'm in the same boat with regard to 5K/10K pace, but I reckon it's probably not a huge issue in the long run. While plans specify those times, I think it's more about shorthand for effort zone where 5K is "this hard" and 10K is "a little bit less hard".

VO2 max improvement is a good point, though, and I'd probably agree. If I had a hazard a guess, Garmin would say that their training productivity tracker/race estimated are the preferred way of presenting that data. as an aside, I think VO2max has sorta been coopted as a "fitness number" when it actually represents a very specific thing that may or may not be emblematic of actual performance in the majority of cases. It is nice to have a a single value to look at that can sum up whether what you've been doing lately is productive, though.

That could just be me coming from the world of cycling where watts are king and there's far less variability. In my mind, all these running stats are mushy, but that might not actually be the case.

I feel the important piece to remember with VO2Max estimation is: Its an estimation. Its significant figures [1]; reporting the value to one or more decimal places communicates a level of confidence inappropriate for how inaccurate these estimations generally are. Especially the Apple Watch's; Garmin's is known for being pretty decent, usually +/- 2, but Apple Watch's is all over the place and is infamous for being really inaccurate.

Clamping pace to 5 seconds is a similar idea. GPS isn't super accurate: within 16 feet some sources say [2], though it gets better if you've got dual band, if you're moving; but it gets worse when you don't have an open sky. Just ten feet of GPS inaccuracy over a ten minute mile means your recorded pace is somewhere between 9:58/mile to 10:02/mile. And, experimentally, these systems are way, way more inaccurate than that: on a recent bike ride, with no major sky obstructions, I wore both an Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Garmin Enduro 3; the AWU2 recorded 25.05 miles, Enduro 3 recorded 25.18 miles. That's a difference of ~686 feet; ~27 feet/mile.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_figures

[2] https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/

If vo2max is displayed without decimals it would take months to see progress for most people starting running. It’s baffling that they would make such a mistake.

I was considering a Garmin watch, but if they make such a stupid decision regarding vo2max then what other mistakes are lurking in their apps?

IMO the biggest reason why the Apple Watch is oftentimes interpreted as an "unserious" exercise smartwatch is actually quite simple: The display & lack of physical buttons makes it difficult to interface with in the variety of conditions that outdoor activity enthusiasts often find themselves in. If its bright out, the mps displays on many Garmins will outperform OLED. If its raining; good luck using a touchscreen. If you're wearing gloves; ditto. If you've just ran a marathon, you're dying, your vision is blurry, you're sweaty and collapsing, that "swipe over a screen then click the end workout button" workflow is the end of the world; it wasn't designed by someone who has ever been in that situation, its designed for and by people who take their nice little walks to the cute little grocery story.

Battery is another less major factor: Even the AW Ultra 2 struggles to make it through a full marathon run (~70-90% battery usage IME) and that's not an uncommon-enough situation for users of the quote"ULTRA"endquote to be an invalid criticism.

Nothing else matters. Your comment continues into talking about sleep tracking and recovery scores and strain scores and third party apps and literally none of that matters. That's silicon valley brain stuff that many customers don't care about. The Apple Watch is, to some people, a Bugatti without a steering wheel; it gets a lot of the basics wrong.

One note though: Many Garmin users would also say that Garmin is, sadly, also losing track of what their core userbase wants, as the experience has become more buggy and less focused over the years. I'm not asserting that Garmin is king and Apple are idiots; Garmin just has momentum and is generally great at the things its users care about.

*Oura ring I assume, for anyone googling

FWIW, the Pixel Watch 3 45mm is basically equivalent to the Apple Watch in accuracy according to testing by the same YouTuber mentioned in the blog post [1]. And it works out of the box with Android. Personally I also like the form factor better, since it's round rather than square, and unlike the Apple Watch, it still has a working SpO2 sensor...

1: https://youtu.be/Jr4p66vSmLY

Agreed, I'm really not a fan of the square look, and the Pixel Watch looks great. I'd probably get one if Google sold a claspable mesh band like the one I use with my Galaxy Watch[1], or had better support for third-party bands. I don't get the obsession with magnetic bands; the one time I reluctantly gave one a chance, the watch fell and broke and I returned it for a replacement, then the replacement fell and broke and I had to get a refund.

1: https://web.archive.org/web/20210622043132/https://www.welly...

I just got a Pixel Watch 3 and find it impossible to understand how they have such an advanced monitoring on so many health aspects, including sleep cycles, but it doesn't support Smart Alarms (aka. Smart Wake or similar names), i.e. an alarm that is able to wake you up when you are in the lightest phase of sleep.

(just like what Fitbit bands themselves had, or what apps such as "Sleep as Android smart alarm" try to guesstimate)

That's weird. The fitbit bands that Google still sells do have that. They seem to be having a really hard time making the fitbit acquisition work in many ways so I guess that's not surprising.

I use Sleep as Android on my Pixel Watch 3 for smart alarm. I also found the lack of native smart alarm feature on pixel watches weird.

> I just got a Pixel Watch 3 and find it impossible to understand how they have such an advanced monitoring on so many health aspects, including sleep cycles

The Fitbit integration with the Pixel watches is not great. The Fitbit support is even worse - it actually makes Google's support look decent by comparison, which is really saying something.

I prefer using "Sleep as Android" as nothing changes when I change to a different smart watch or android phone.

What’s that about the SpO2?

Apple illegally cloned a smaller company's patented SpO2 sensor [1], which resulted in a US ban on Apple using the cloned SpO2 sensors. As of 2024 new Apple Watches in the US can't detect blood oxygen levels due to the ban.

Google didn't clone anything, and instead acquired a smaller company (Fitbit) that had the tech they wanted to put in their watches. So new Pixel Watches still have a working SpO2 sensor.

1: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/18/1225432506/apple-watch-blood-...

This isn’t quite accurate. Google/Fitbit just weren’t a big target compared to Apple. After the Apple-Watch ban, Google signed a deal with Masimo.

Also, while it’s suspicious circumstances, we don’t know Apple stole the tech. The lawsuits are still ongoing (after mis-trialing) but Apple lost the appeal to sell the products during the trial. To make it even messier, courts (with a jury) have found that Masimo copied Apple about some design aspects. This is probably one of the messiest corporate litigations in a long time - Apple isn't known for making deals.

File this under "Lies the internet told me."

Note that the verdict is under appeal.

The killer app that Pixel is missing is the WorkOutDoors app for Apple Watch (gps tracking app with your path shown on offline cached vector maps). 80% of the time I bother wearing the watch is to use that app. And I will buy a Pixel watch for my Android-using partner if something equally good comes out for Pixel.

I should have made a better job of explaining that I have a de-googled android phone & even though I don't like Apple's business practices I would rather trust my data with Apple than Google.

Besides I bought the refurbished Apple Watch for third the price of Pixel Watch 3.

But I'm glad that Android users now have a good smart watch & there's competition in the space.

If you dislike both Apple and Google, then I wonder, with your skills, why you didn't consider using and improving PineTime with a GNU/Linux phone (Pinephone or Librem 5).

PineTime doesn't seem to have that many sensors i'm guessing the author wanted more sensors than just a Accelerometer and Heart rate sensor

It's obviously true, although I don't believe that investing in a proprietary platform, which move toward more closeness, is a good decision in the long term.

I have contributed to both Wasp OS (Colmi P8) & Asteroid OS albeit with just bug reports; Pinephone/Librem arent available in my country and since my goal is health with this project,the sensors in these devices are not accurate enough yet.

just curious: What's your view on Asteroid OS and its evolution, is it growing as a usable alternative for Android Wear OS?

I have it on my radar since v1.0, and whenever I see the two older Android Wear devices in my drawer I keep thinking that I should put them to some new use (i.e. make them control home devices directly or similar).

AsteroidOS by itself impressed me with its fluidity & UX, at time when wearOS was pure garbage. But I faced connectivity issues with the companion app; both in android and in Linux phones.

Now that Gadgetbridge supports AsteroidOS, I would like to give it a try again but my device require a battery change and it's been hard to find one. That brings the major issue with AsteroidOS - very limited compatibility for newer devices.

I was one of the implementers of the Apple Watch (OS 1.0) CalDAV support. We always wanted people to be able to "bring your own server".

You're welcome.

Thank you.

CalDAV and CardDAV are wonderful cross-platform protocols that I use every day (including on Apple Watch) and I hope they continue to be supported in the future.

In practice it's unlikely you're using CalDAV or CardDAV on Apple Watch, those data classes are synced from your paired phone unless you've set your watch up as a stand-alone device, which is rare.

One day, hopefully!

Thank you.

I'm the author of this post, I assumed Apple still has support for these protocols because of legacy business systems.

I hope that the support for interoperable protocols continue to remain in future versions of Apple Operating Systems.

This is beautiful!

I've been using an Apple Watch Ultra with my Pixel using some of the same hacks.

0. I use messaging apps like WhatsApp, and Messenger which are multi device. So I log into them on the home iPhone. (WA finally added 'login as companion device' on iOS only a year ago). 1. Pushover to get notifications from any other apps that don't support multi device. (Signal ugh). I used Buzzkill to do the pushing from the android devices. Very reliable once set up. 2. I use Google Voice for my calls and SMS so that was easy to get on iPhone. (No calls though. The watch doesn't support sip/voip calls except Apple's own FaceTime ugh) 3. I spent a year doing cellular on Watch. I joined various family members' premium plans of the big 3 US networks (as well asany MVNOs like Visible) to use cellular on the watch. I paid ~$10/mo via this route. All good. But I stopped early this year because I found the cellular reliability to be just... piss poor garbage. (This is extensive use across US as well as international travel in Europe and Asia) It really wasn't worth cellular I realized.

4. I use Apple laptops, so the "watch to unlock" feature is useful multiple times a day :)

Thank you for sharing your techniques, much appreciated. I looked out for Buzzkill type apps and couldn't find any the FOSS space; instead I wrote a script in Termux.

Might try Buzzkill as it might be easier for those who aren't familiar with the terminal but I'm bit weary about the privacy implications especially since famous apps get acquired by shady actors all the time.

I've added blacklist in my script to prevent notifications from sensitive apps being sent over Pushover.

edit: Buzzkill depends upon Tasker for sending messages to pushover? That's a buzzkill(sorry) as Tasker heavily relies on GMS & not an option for de-googled phones.

I've been using cellular on an Apple Watch 8 for years in the NYC metro area and it works flawlessly.

Signal can be a bit weaker on the watch up here in Canada but is otherwise adequate. The problem with Apple Watch cellular when not using an iPhone to forward data is (1) battery life on LTE is terrible compared to data over Bluetooth, using wifi, or turning on airplane mode and (2) call forwarding from iPhone to Watch, on some Canadian carriers, is charged per minute due to a carrier bug (Telus) which you can call to get refunded but is still frustrating. Normally calls go to your iPhone and the voice is forwarded to the watch over Bluetooth, I believe. Basically the Apple Watch more often acts like an AirPod than a cell phone.

I end up carrying my iPhome with my Android phone to avoid this. I mount the iPhone to my bike/scooter when available using Quad Lock waterproof cases.

Fixed newlines:

> 0. I use messaging apps like WhatsApp, and Messenger which are multi device. So I log into them on the home iPhone. (WA finally added 'login as companion device' on iOS only a year ago).

> 1. Pushover to get notifications from any other apps that don't support multi device. (Signal ugh). I used Buzzkill to do the pushing from the android devices. Very reliable once set up.

> 2. I use Google Voice for my calls and SMS so that was easy to get on iPhone. (No calls though. The watch doesn't support sip/voip calls except Apple's own FaceTime ugh)

> 3. I spent a year doing cellular on Watch. I joined various family members' premium plans of the big 3 US networks (as well asany MVNOs like Visible) to use cellular on the watch. I paid ~$10/mo via this route. All good. But I stopped early this year because I found the cellular reliability to be just... piss poor garbage. (This is extensive use across US as well as international travel in Europe and Asia) It really wasn't worth cellular I realized.

Won't it vibrate both on your arm and in your pocket, then? I can't even stand when someone decides to send 10 one-line message, let alone when it happens where both my watch and phone vibrates..

(Seriously, why is vibration cooldown not a thing? I believe android will have something like this, but this should have been available for a decade! Like if I had 2 notification from someone 0.3 seconds ago, then I will surely not need a third one now)

Interesting background: Apple was, for a while, planning on officially supporting Android as a "host phone OS", but axed the project out of ecosystem concerns: https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/22/apple-watch-compatible-androi...

Personally, this is actually how they got me – I used to use Android phones for many years, but found the Apple Watch so much more appealing than anything available from Google at the time that I made the switch.

> Personally, this is actually how they got me – I used to use Android phones for many years, but found the Apple Watch so much more appealing than anything available from Google at the time that I made the switch.

Same. Maybe Android watches are better now—it’s been a few years since I looked at them—but at the time they were universally thicker and with worse battery life than the apple watch, which is already thicker than I like.

Their lock-in behavior is what has prevented me from buying anything from Apple.

If Apple was stupid enough to actually document this decision and the ecosystem concerns in written record, I wonder if they'll get dinged by the DMA for gatekeeping (again) over this.

I'm not sure the Apple Watch has enough users, or is considered critical enough, to be covered by the DMA (iMessage, macOS, and iPad OS aren't either, for example).

In any case, this was all long before the DMA went into effect, so it would have to be a regular old antitrust case.

From the US Department of Justice's lawsuit against Apple:

>Apple recognizes that driving users to purchase an Apple Watch, rather than a third-party cross-platform smartwatch, helps drive iPhone sales and reinforce the moat around its smartphone monopoly. For example, in a 2019 email the Vice President of Product Marketing for Apple Watch acknowledged that Apple Watch "may help prevent iPhone customers from switching."...Apple also recognizes that making Apple Watch compatible with Android would “remove[an] iPhone differentiator.”[1]

The lawsuit also alleges that Apple degrades APIs to hurt Third Party watch manufactures.

[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24492020/doj-apple-an...

If you bought an Apple Watch and keep an iPhone connected to the internet, I'm not sure you've completely fulfilled your anti-Apple agenda. XD Still neat though.

You might also check in on Garmin watches. They have many of the same heart rate monitoring (though no automated emergency SOS) and work well with Android.

(Sorry to hear about your friend's passing.)

Garmin has incident detection and will send a message within fifteen seconds unless you cancel.

Oh good to know! Thank you.

Project repo is here - https://github.com/abishekmuthian/apple-watch-with-android .

Really cool project, and thank you for writing it up so well!

My first question is "why" and the post answers that well (my paraphrasing): because Apple Watch is more accurate than anything else on the market, and health can be a matter of life and death.

OP is definitely an open source guy though so even if you'll never buy another Apple product (like myself) it's still a fascinating look at the current state of things!

> I keep my iPhone at home, powered and connected to the Internet but don't use it as a daily driver.

I recently learned that the Google pixel 8 and 9 will soon get a feature that will allow these phones to remain plugged in and turned on without charging and discharging the battery (under certain circumstances).

I really wish this was widely available for all cell phones and tablets. I know new iPhones have a limit charging to 80% option (my iPhone se 2020 does not) but I think the next step is to add this? My main motivation is to do whatever we can to avoid spicy pillow problem in batteries.

Do you have any thoughts on this topic?

Confused by "spicy pillow problem", but I assume you're referring the classic Li-ion BULGE. Im not sure there is any way to protect it in a 24/7 uptime situation outside of a fully removable battery.... Which now has me wondering if the new pixels can run fully disconnected from their battery, like early LG android models.

That's what I understood. I don't own a pixel so I am not sure.

Here is a reddit thread on this topic

https://old.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/1hcfv54/your_p...

They can have circuitry that bypasses the battery.

chargie is one solution for platforms where support is available

https://chargie.org/

I don't think charge can do what I'm asking which is to bypass the battery and run the phone directly off the wall. I am ok if the phone reboots when the power is disrupted. On a computer, we have this setting called last known state, right? Like if the phone was on when the power was disrupted, turn it on again without using the battery when power is restored.

Basically, I want the phone to ignore that there is a battery until the battery charge drops to about 20 percent and then charge to to about 60 or 80 percent but don't use the battery at all. Only use the battery as a power source if the user switches off this dedicated mode or if the user powers on the device without external power present. Something like that.

Some retro handheld devices (Ayn Odin 2 is the one I know for sure because I have it) have that feature.

Caveat though. Reports of spicy pillows are increasing as the age of the device gets closer to more than a year. They may or may not be using that feature.

> I want the phone to ignore that there is a battery until the battery charge drops

Librem 5 has this functionality: https://forums.puri.sm/t/how-to-limit-battery-charge-voltage...

I keep it switched ON, but not always powered because of the fear of spicy pillow; I used an iPad as seconday monitor and ended up with a spicy pillow & destroyed the device with my self-repair attempt.

When I faced a similar dilemma before the smartphones implemented 80% cut off, I was planning a automated smart power strip which cuts down power to charger when the battery reaches 80%; not sure if iOS battery api is accessible though.

Shout to AccA, which helped me limit the battery to 80% on Android before it was implemented within the OS.

[1] https://github.com/MatteCarra/AccA

Samsung at some point a few years ago added the ability to cap charging below the maximum (was 85% until an update this year dropped it to 80%). Settings, Battery, Battery Protection. I believe this roughly corresponded to their extension of providing OS or security updates for 5 years.

iPhones have this capability as demonstrated by their "Optimized battery charging" that caps at 80% overnight "then finishes charging before you normally pick up your phone" or some crap like that, BUT they only let you set an actual cap on the charge level on the 16 (and 15?) even though older models should have the same capability. Yes, this picture you can't see is me flipping Apple the bird while holding my 14 Pro that's down to 87% of original capacity because I can't cap the charge.

This is a cool exploration. The post mentioned the health aspects, yet mostly goes over basic app integrations.

I’m curious about how well the health features translate over to the android phone. Is it mostly just to track health metrics locally on the Apple Watch, or is there any sort of “export/sync to android phone” for health?

I’ve been really curious about other open source (or at least reversed engineered) devices like the Colmi, and while I’m still an Apple consumer, prefer to track and keep things locally and private to myself with my own apps and scripts.

I came here to ask the same question. I hope OP responds!

I responded to parent, I don't have anything interesting to share right now but auto-export & analysis is on pipeline.

Thanks!

I‘d write a small watch app that syncs with Health locally and then exports the data to wherever I want it.

Very valid criticism.

So far the health data is stored within watch and the iPhone. I'm currently fine with it, but planning to export the data and analyze it in future.

There are various existing tools to export and analyze Apple-Health data already[1].

[1] https://github.com/topics/apple-health

You can actually get real compatibility with android directly - https://troopers.de/troopers24/talks/h7mlua/

thanks. quite interesting, must watch

Excellent, Once they get the bluetooth working then there would be no need for the Jailbroken iPhone, making Watch Witch a great choice for using Apple Watch with Android.

>I couldn't dismiss the thought that may be if they had worn a smart watch they could have had better chances of reaching out for help and perhaps even got alerted of some discrepancies in their vitals.

Does this actually work? Apple watch only can detect sudden falls and call 911, but AFAIK it can't auto call 911 if you get a heartattack or whatever.

>I got the cellular working in the Apple Watch by using the same SIM from my Android phone in the iPhone, pairing with the Apple Watch and setting up the mobile data.

>Receiving and making calls via Apple Watch (when Wifi/BT is disabled) works well, but since the SIM is in the Android phone, the SMS functionality doesn't work; with it SOS messages to emergency contacts(even if they're on iMessage ʅ₍ッ₎ʃ ); but SOS calls work.

There's no way this can work unless "calls" actually mean facetime audio rather than PSTN (ie. "regular") phone calls. If the sim isn't in the watch, then there's no way it can receive calls.

Apple Watch now has irregular rhythm notifications[1] which can help alert you to signs that you will soon have a heart attack.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/120276

Apple Watch cellular uses eSIM, so once I pair with iPhone with physical SIM the eSIM gets setup in the watch. You can then put the physical SIM in any device, Apple Watch's cellular is independent.

Apple Watch as AFib alerts, I've linked the health features in my blog.

Also dying in your sleep is pretty much the best way to die.

I actually much prefer Garmin watches, due to battery life, the workout app which has no analogues on iOS, in terms of how it tracks reps and sets, the readable screen, etc. However, its the iOS with it was just unusable. It worked great on Android, but I am used to be able to reply to texts, and I couldn't to pretty much anything on the Garmin watch with iOS, except see some notifications. I hope things get more interoperable, but it's been like this for a decade, so it probably won't get better.

I used to wear AW until I got the Garmin Forerunner. One annoying thing about the new 965 is that the HR monitor is getting inaccurate for faster paces. When I have my recovery runs with HR below 150, the watch works perfectly fine. Once my HR goes over 165, it's a wild guess. I fee like I need to stop running and let the Forerunner"catches" up with its accuracy then it is working OK again. Happens in every intensive run.

This is unfortunately very common for OHRMs. Once your heartbeat approaches your running cadence (~180 bpm), physical movement becomes confused with the color change of your blood that an OHRM relies on. Tightening your wrist strap can help, but if you want accurate heart rate data for workouts, a chest strap is the way to go. Garmin makes a very good and very inexpensive one.

Garmins chest strap recorded that my table had a heartbeat. Your mileage may vary.

I think using the Quantified Scientist's YouTube reviews as reference for the quality of sensors is misleading.

He primarily tests the devices on just his own body type, and often doesn't test long enough for the device to adapt to him (some devices take a few weeks to "learn" your body).

He does make disclaimers about the above, but people seem to take the stats he presents as gospel.

The Apple Watch was a big contributor to my decision to switch back to an iPhone after a decade. I can’t speak to the current smartwatch market, but for many many years, the Apple Watch has been unparalleled in its category.

I wish Apple was more flexible in their products. The watch is plenty capable on its own, and I feel confident the attachment to the iPhone is arbitrary.

Is there a way, without jailbreaking, to use that spare iPhone at home, powered on and connected to the internet, to run/host some server software?

Ask this guy:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42455642

Apparently, the people at Apple are very open to using your own server software with Apple hardware.

You think they're an employee? I read it as a tinkerer like you and me. Their profile doesn't say unfortunately

The simple answer is no, not really. I wouldn't even trust it for baseline FTP provisioning, much less anything like Plex that might need working GPU drivers. The emulated shell is really not enough to do anything remote on an iOS device, in my experience.

There‘s UTM SE on the App Store, which might be ok to use for very minimal distros (no JIT): https://apps.apple.com/at/app/utm-se-retro-pc-emulator/id156...

If you had a second spare iPhone, you could run it semi tethered with JIT and just any ARM/x86 OS: https://docs.getutm.app/installation/ios/

Though a JB would be more convenient. And things start to get interesting with M1 and its virtualization support.

“I decided not to give any more money to Apple so I bought two Apple devices…”

Tell me how to get a streaming music app on that watch without an iPhone and I'll buy you a beer

All major music streaming apps have an Apple Watch version of their app.

An iPhone is required to use them. The watch app is like a remote for the phone app. Some will only play if the watch and the phone are near, others don't have that limitation, but all of them require that you have an iphone

WTF is "aspiration porn"? What is it with people being so salty about Apple and going out of their way to paint them in as malicious a light as possible?

My guess on what the author means by aspiration porn is Apple sell you a product by selling you aspirations: you can be more healthy if you have an Apple Watch, you can be more connected if you have an iPhone, you can be a great developer if you sell on the AppStore, etc, etc.

More generally, I think people's complaints about Apple are due to a combination of brand engineering and market dominance. Apple make amazing hardware, they market their products as premium and they price it accordingly. If they made inferior products, say Surface Books, nobody would care about it. If they didn't sell at high price, they wouldn't make big money which will limit their ability to innovate (or polish if you will).

But doesn't buying a refurbished product of them show you are ok with falling for that?

Yeah, the wording in the intro can be clarified to reflect the change in stance.

Notice the wording - "I decided not to give any more money to Apple years ago". So by his criteria, he's okay.

wait ... what's wrong with a galaxy watch 5 pro?

Wait... What's wrong with dying peacefully in sleep?

This, best way to die imho.

If the author can be believed: accuracy.

I'm not sure about the Galaxy 5 pro, but I'm fairly certain that I've seen it reported that some functionality of the Samsung watches is only available to when paired with Samsung phones. This may be wrong though.

This is a great write up on how to accomplish this, I hope someday Apple just allows the Apple Watch to work standalone.

Having said that, the Apple Watch is the primary reason I switched to the iPhone (and Apple ecosystem with it). I have been using the watch with cellular since April 2019 and I only take my phone with me on the rarest of occasions (usually for events that I want to snap pics or video or if I’m taking a day trip or on holiday). I’ve even taken just the watch on small holidays/trips by keeping my iPhone fully charged but on Wi-Fi to get all notifications.

Once I got used to the workflow I never looked back. I noticed I was more focused at work, at social events, dinners either the wife and family or friends while being more social and attentive, and noticed a huge overall improvement in mood and well being. Part of this is due to more focus on health and fitness and the Apple Watch certainly helped me stay motivated.

Since 2019 I’ve lost 25lbs, gained some muscle mass, I now compete in friendly running races and I’ve lowered my blood pressure. The Apple Watch truly is the most important gadget I’ve ever purchased and owned.

I couldn’t agree more, and this is the reason why I built some apps for the Apple Watch that I was missing: first a keyboard app (before it came built-in with watchOS), a Notes app (there’s still no official app), and most recently a ChatGPT Voice Mode app -- I now feel like I’m carrying a productivity powerhouse on my wrist!

I use an Android phone for 'watch' (time-telling) task, thanks. Before that: several other phones, don't need an analog / digital cufflink on my wrist.

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