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Comment by reissbaker | Hacker News Reader

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

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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 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.

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.

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...

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.

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