So I want te find the most feature rich smartwatch that doesn’t send data to the manufacure. I have tried the Pinetime watch, but it died after 6 months.
Infinitytime (OS) was not realy that feature rish, so I want to secrufise an Open Source watch OS. But I still want to connect it with Open Source software, like gadged bridge.
What is my best option under €200? Maybe the Xioami Mi band 7 (€50) that is supported by gadgedbrigde?
I’ve mad a MiBand 6 for a while now - seems solid and you could, in theory grab all the data from it and process it yourself (via the Notify app). I don’t know exactly how bolted down it is privacy-wise though.
The latest 7 looks very nice. 16 days battery life, 5 days with always-on apparently… sadly if you want to pair it with your phone, you need the Xiaomi App and then (as OP asked) you get trapped in privacy Hell and send all your data (Health, Location, User Content, Financial Information, Contact Info and identifiers) to china. At least on iOS as I can read in the App-Store description. Bummer. It looks like a nice watch.
You can just use gadgetbridge after the initial pairing and key generation. You need to install the xiaomi app once in some burner phone with empty contacts, or maybe you can pair it without giving it access to contacts first. Once you have the key (described in the gadgetbridge guide) you can just dump the official app and use GB without using any xiaomi data/servers.
You could always go with an older version - mine’s never been on the Xiaomi app and is merrily feeding the data to my Raspberry Pi.
Ah, thats good to know. I also saw a blog post for a way to use it without the App by using a modded App APK on Android were you can extract the auth-Key… but that was way to complicated. I wish there were an open standard for digital watches to enable sync of data with the OS of choice without going through a proprietary app. I will look into the RPI Solution. Thanks.
I imagine the manufacturers would fight that all the way to the courts.
As best as I can tell Notify for Mi Band isn’t from Xiaomi, they produce a number of similar apps that give you control over your phone and a key that allows Home Assistant (and I am sure other services) to pull in the data and you are away. Apparently, it’s a relatively recent update that means you don’t have to do any workarounds - it’s straight through the app and should work for all Mi Bands and Amazfits.