I have a Watchy, I didn't have any problems yet, it's fairly open and a lot of fun to play around with.
They also have an aluminum watch case I ordered together with mine
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
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Privacy
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This is where I'd start
are there any decent wrist watches that respect your privacy and don't send all the dam data home?
I've heard Garmin is decent, and Pebble is coming back
Personally, I'm pretty excited about the Pebble coming back. Cautiously optimistic, but optimistic nonetheless.
Garmin sends all your health data to the cloud and the app won't work without an Internet connection.
On the plus side, they're not part of the Google/Apple/Samsung data ecosystems, and I don't think actually they do anything with the data, beyond computing statistics for you.
Depends how much you're prepared to trust them I guess.
Gadgetbridge supports a good chunk of their watches. Completely offline and you can configure watch settings through it.
Does it support heart rate tracking?
Mine does (a fenix 7). I think any model that has a heart rate sensor would probably work based on the wiki page. There are certain models that offload sleep tracking to the official app, and I don't think those support sleep tracking in gadgetbridge yet (last I checked this was the case), but the ones that handle it on the watch like mine fully support that too (and you can view stats and a graph in gadgetbridge).
Speaking of the wiki page: https://gadgetbridge.org/basics/topics/garmin/ - there's a lot to parse since so many models apply, but my fenix 7 has had full support aside from live cloud maps in the weather app, and I've been issue-free since last October aside from a couple things they quickly fixed for me after I opened them.
There are 2 main gotchyas:
-
despite the weather sync not requiring the official app (gadgetbridge can sync with breezy weather), the watch stops trying to refresh it if it's been ~3 months since rotating the api key. In the advanced settings you can have gadgetbridge create a new api key for you, but that may break the ability to use the official app (I don't so I went with that).
-
gadgetbridge can't update the firmware or maps, however you can update directly on the watch via wifi, or you can use the PC app (which works great in a libvirt windows vm).
How do you like the sleep tracking? Is it fairly accurate? I tried a cheap Colmi ring and the sleep data was all over the place, registering sleep when I had insomnia and occasionally awake when I was asleep
It's definitely not perfect, like I can grab a nap and not have it notice sometimes so I assume there are a bunch of heuristics at play that create a "best guess".
That said, how rested I feel does typically line up with the number of hours it shows (regardless of how long I've actually spent in bed), and it has a short description about the quality of sleep like "restorative" or "not enough rem" that further lines up with how I feel.
That is cool so data from the watch is retrieved and seen through gadget bridge if I'm getting it right for the features it is able to access?
I've never had a smart watch, but I guess with the way it would work with gadget bridge for supported watches is that you can keep it not connected to the wifi and just rely solely on Bluetooth to communicate with gadget bridge?
Exactly. Gadgetbridge reverse engineered the protocol so it can configure all the same settings the Garmin app can, notifications get forwarded to the watch, the watch sends its sensor data, gps tracks, etc and Gadgetbridge knows what to do with the data so it's displayed in graphs and lists, etc.
And yeah, if you get a watch without wifi or don't connect one with it to a network, then all data i/o is going to be exclusively bluetooth with Gadgetbridge, which specifically avoids the network permission (so there's zero chance of anything leaking to a server somewhere.) That's why it communicates with a weather app fur that data instead if pulling it in itself.
It also works with more than just smart watches; like I can use it to configure the buttons, noise cancelling state, etc on my bluetooth headphones.
Garmin sends all your health data to the cloud and the app won't work without an Internet connection.
However, unless something has changed with newer models, you do not need to use the application or connect to Garmin's servers to use the watch.
however if you want to change goals (eg steps per day) you have to use the app
I consider that quite a minor feature (that I don't use) as a Forerunner owner who bought mine specifcally for running and other activity tracking, but Garmin does have a wide range of models so I'm sure there are people who would require the app for other things like you say.
Their privacy policy is good
there are different approaches to this, but some of these links should help:
Hardware:
https://pine64.org/devices/pinetime/
Gadgetbridge:
I personally use a garmin, which is paired to gadgetbridge
+1 for PineTime. I have had mine now for 3-4 years. Love the little guy
Been curious on pine time. But I'm no developer, just a tinkerer. What can you do on it now?
+1 for the BangleJS. So open hardware, you can buy it as a kit you assemble yourself. Or, prebuilt.
I have every model of þe Pebble, including þe absolutely horrible Round. BangleJS is better þan Pebble was, and completely privacy friendly.
Pebble has an open source OS and companion phone app.
It's made for developers, tinkerers, and tech enthusiasts. There are many community made apps and watch faces available in the phone app, and fairly good documentation and examples if you want to make your own.
Man I adored my Pebble back in the day, and I'll never forgive FitBit for buying the company just to kill off competition. I kind of want to buy the new one, but with them being based in the US I'm a bit scared of getting a nasty surprise due to import taxes...
Iirc the watches ship from China, international buyers won't get hit with us terrifs
Whoa! I didnt know they brought them back! I may have to order one! Thanks!
https://lilygo.cc/products/t-watch-ultra
There's also a Plus version.
Also: https://open-smartwatch.github.io/
If you search for "ESP32 open source watch" there are quite a few out there.
I guess nobody here knowing about "lilygo t watch" which u can buy on aliexpress it based on esp and entire firmware can be recompiled modified from source code in github https://github.com/sharandac/My-TTGO-Watch It can integrate in gadget bridge too
I have a few Seiko watches, a Citizen, a couple Casios. All of which respect my privacy.
AsteroidOS is a linux based replacement for wearOS (android for watches) which is FOSS and removes all the google privacy issues.
Mechanical ones, sure. :)
Daaaaaaaaannnngggg...
https://www.citizenwatch.com/us/en/product/CC4075-50L.html?cgid=mens
+1 for banglejs. Been loving mine
I've heard of the SQFMI Watchy and the Bangle.js but I haven't used them myself.
Bangle.JS seems interesting and more capable than Watchy. But guess the latter's battery lasts longer because of sink screen?
I would assume so, but I haven’t used them myself to confirm.
Overall the bangle seems better built.
Not to sound stupid, but it really depends on how smart you want the watch to be. From connectionless firmware device to fully-featured Android. +1 for gadget bridge either way.
I have a Fossil Hybrid, that combines physical hands with a 2-color e-ink display. It can't do apps, but it has standalone timers, notifications, media control, pulse/oxygen and step counter. I personally don't need more. It's cloudless and lasts a week.
If you need full Android/WearOS check AsteroidOS and specific ROMs. Hardware tends to be on the older side here.
The only thing that's hard to do is sleep tracking. That tends to rely on proprietary algorithms and cloud compute a lot.
I suppose you're talking about smart watches?
sensorwatch.net is the only one I'd want. Note it doesn't have any data communications to speak of. It's an old fashioned digital watch with some cool features including software thermocompensation for accuracy within a few seconds per year. And it runs on a regular coin cell for a year or so, not a stupid nightly recharge like it thinks it's a phone.
I've not played with it and don't know much about it, but maybe the pinetime?