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Comment by hentrep | Hacker News Reader

19 points·hentrep··8 comments

The title doesn't feel accurate: per the article the watches don't actively leak your personal data (e.g. via issues in the Garmin Connect platform), but instead the data they generate is totally readable at rest via USB.

And what can be seen as a loss for privacy is a win for openness. Honestly, if you've stolen my watch I'm going to be pissed you stole my watch, I don't really care if you know I'm a slow runner.

My takeaway is that Garmin could probably stand to put a layer on top of this to stop it being embarassingly accessible while continuing to keep the data in open user-readable standards. This could be as simple as "(optionally, default do) prompt for a PIN on the device when mass storage / MTP is requested".

I don't find Apple's watch offering compelling, but I can appreciate that it won't just dump all your data e.g. at a customs checkpoint.

Part of the whole reason I like Garmin is because the data is easily accessible without "storing it in the cloud".

I gladly accept the openness given the alternative is to just trust some company with it and hope they one day don't take away my ability to access the data directly without some kind of subscription.

This feels intentional as Garmin is allowing users to do whatever they want with their own data in a non-proprietary format. This seems like a good thing to me.

This seems to just be a description of the normal, desired, advertised functionality of the watch.

I flagged this, because the title sounds like something is wrong with Garmin watches. But having full access to my own data is a feature that garmin watches provide.

For a those interested in openness, I definitely suggest gadget bridge as an alternative.

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