[redorb]

This is the barebones Android smart watch I want. As a side note why won't apple make it's watch work well with android - wouldn't that add a few million users? ~ or do they sell it as a loss leader for IOS?

I want a future where we have bare-metal versions of smart watches with low power screens, thin form factor and long battery life compete with full feature dick tracy phone watches.

[PaulsWallet]

> As a side note why won't apple make it's watch work well with android

This is the way Apple works. You don't own enough products so you aren't worthy of full functionality. Last time I checked you can't update Airpods firmware without another Apple device nor can you change settings on the pro XDR display without a device running macOS.

[lloeki]

> nor can you change settings on the pro XDR display without a device running macOS.

You can't even natively change brightness nor volume on non-Apple displays, even though DDC/CI is a thing and third party apps can do just that. The Mac Mini M1 HDMI port is even crippled at the hardware level and DDC/CI flat out doesn't work there (works fine via USB-C which uses DP).

The usual public rationale from Apple is that a perfect experience can only be achieved within a fully owned ecosystem.

I don't quite buy that the core strategic intent is intentionally using this to push people into owning only/buying more of Apple stuff, I bet it's more about not having to handle dev, fixes, workarounds, and a storm of support cases for third party hardware that may be of less than stellar quality, and then Apple being blamed for things not working.

IOW brand image control + dev resources, not a sales ploy.

[imoverclocked]

This is the way a lot of companies work and have historically worked. Why spend a ton of resources supporting every operating system and hardware combination out there for all of your devices when you have a perfectly good way of doing it in house?

[jsmith45]

Yeah, for me, what I really want in a smartwatch are the following:

1. long battery life. (as in a week+) 2. Always on display. 3. Notifications. (Ability to display all notifications that make a sound/vibrate in android, ideally also providing access to notification's quick actions, and ability to dismiss notification from phone. It should also provide incoming call notification, with caller name or number and hang-up button support). 4. Media controls for phone. (I don't really care about this, but if a watch lacks it, it would be suspicious). 5. Basic watch functions, like time, date, stopwatch, timer, alarms. (Possibly synchronized with android device, but not is not a requirement).

Beyond those five, things health sensors, app support or whatever are just bonuses.

The display should probably be a reflective display with optional backlight triggered by tilt-to-view, or even a button. It probably should use something like epaper or memory lcd to be low power. Honestly color is not even critical, although would be a nice-to-have.

Pebble came somewhat close, although its notification support was somewhat more limited than I would have liked. But I've seen nothing else since then. Everybody is too focused on apps, fitness sensors, etc, and have laughable battery life, even without an always on display.

[deaddodo]

You literally just described the Garmin Fenix (or a vast majority of their more affordable options, the Fenix is just the Jack-of-all-trades model).

  1) Gets about 14 days with default sensors (HR, GPS, altimeter, barometer, compass, etc) enabled (turning on high resolution Sp02, for instance, will knock it down to 6-8 days)    
  2) Yup    
  3) Yup, all features requested    
  4) Technically, only for a few apps. And it supports Android's media APIs better than Apple's. But they're there. This is probably the weakest supported of your requirements.    
  5) Admirably.

[Zeppelin1492]

Maybe check out Pinetime, Bangle js 2 or Watchy.

https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/

https://banglejs.com/

https://www.crowdsupply.com/sqfmi/watchy

[deevious]

You might want to give the Amazfit Bip a go, it's as barebones as it gets. The only gripes I have with it is the craptastic app and the lack of vibration, it only has a beeper.

[abecedarius]

There's an open-source replacement app called gadgetbridge. (I'm not sure it works with the exact model you mention, but I did use it with a cheap Android watch from, iirc, Amazfit.)