> The watch is simply missing the two 5.1k resistors connecting the CC1 and CC2 pins of the USB-C connector to ground that are required to indicate to whatever is plugged in that it wants 5v power.
This is so annoying. Back when USB-C was less prevalent, I bought a pair of wireless earbuds over another for the same reason as the title - because it used USB-C. But then I cannot charge it with my macbook, unless I add a USB-C to USB-A adapter.
This problem seems prevalent on cheaper devices. When I buy a device and discover it has this problem I always return it. I've seen it on the Hypervolt Go 2 (which I returned and replaced with a Theragun Mini) and on the Hitachi Magic Wand Micro (which I replaced with a Dame Dip).
Like the post mentions, I think this happens because the devices are missing two resistors that are needed to indicate, when connected via a USB-C to USB-C cable to a charging brick, that the device wants 5V power. Resistors are cheap and I think the only reason they get dropped is carelessness.
The whole point of USB-C is that you can charge any device with any power supply.
I have about 6 devices with this problem, and I consider it unforgivable.
Not only did you not include USBC charging, you went out of your way to trick me and lie and pretend you did. I would have preferred just using micro usb at that point.
Powkiddy committed fraud and said the RGB30 can charge from USB-C, but they lied, it can only charge from USB A to C cables. Using it is a massive pain because I have to get adapters I shouldn't need. I'll never buy anything from them ever again.
This was exactly my complaint when the USB C standards were coming in - having a universal connector means nothing I you need a specific cable and/or power supply to charge it. You might say it’s not spec compliant and that’s fine - but it’s still a USB C port. We’d all be better off if they had just kept it as micro usb because at least then I’d _know_ I need a different cable for it
Would it be possible to build some kind of adapter or C-to-C cable that just contains the missing resistors? (And also probably would have to block any USB PD communication, in case you plug in any device that actually does try to use PD. So the goal would be that the charger always sees a 5V requesting device without PD support while the device always sees a "dumb" 5V charger - regardless of what capabilities the device and charger really have)
It would still suck to have to use a special cable for charging, but at least it's better than not being able to use any modern charger.
I have an Amazfit smartwatch that gets charged by a simple USB cable with two pins that magnetically attaches to the back of the watch. When I was on vacation and forgot that cable I was able to make my own by cutting a USB cable and attaching the wires to the contacts of the watch with tape. That simplicity is hard to beat. And this watch is water resistant.
The battery is the single reason why I got the Amazfit. I use as a dumb health tracker and occasional GPS running. It easily lasts 4 weeks on a single charge. That's one less proprietary charging cable to bring on a trip.
I used to have a bip and loved it. The big thing was battery life and always on screen. It used a reflective LCD screen to do it. No newer amazefits use them.
I’ve since moved to using COROS watches. Not as cheap but really good. Always screen, weeks of battery. Even GPS functions are efficient . Recently did 11 hr hike with GPS and only used about 23% battery.
I had an Amazfit too a while back. Decent watch for the price, but battery life absolutely tanked after a year of use. Went from lasting days to lasting hours after one year.
USB (abc, micro etc) are everywhere. Any house, hotel, office, glove box, has some lying around.
But when I forgot my Fitbit charger, I couldn't get one anywhere. The only option was a large electronics store where I could buy an entire new Fitbit. I didn't shove out €200 just to get hold of a charging cable.
The EU should quickly impose rules on waterproof chargers like they did with USB chargers. It will settle worldwide just as fast as the USB enforced standard.
TBH, such a low price for so many working (!) features is an amazing achievement if not subsidized! What bothers me here, however, is...a provenance. Let me guess, it asks from your smartphone access to your location, contacts, calendar, SMS archive, email, medical records and political views and attitude towards CCP and then does some shady syncs with .cn servers "just to keep you data safe in case a meteor hits you"... Sad.
ADDED: Oh, seems like some people like to pretend that the results of "some other" companies getting this information are totally, totally the same.
Why is it so hard for americans to accept that china makes great tech without coping about "le CCP spyware!" - it seems so absurd, like why would the CCP want to know the heart rate of the type of guy who buys a 16 pound smartwatch? Why dont americans create 16 pound smartwatches?
Implying all US electronics don't ask from your smartphone access to your location, contacts, calendar, SMS archive, email, medical records and political views and attitude towards the US and Israel and then does some shady syncs with .com servers "just to keep you data safe in case a meteor hits you"... x)
> Let me guess, it asks from your smartphone access to your location, contacts, calendar, SMS archive, email, medical records and political views
Like every app made by a US corporation does?
And before someone cries "whataboutism", I'm genuinely curious why as someone who isn't Chinese, and has no intention of visiting China, I should be more worried about the CPC than the CIA.
> Anything you buy from AliExpress for the cost of a couple of pints is bound to be a bit crap.
This line kinda got me down, because, well, last night I went out for a few pints and paid €16 for two drinks; Here we have a miracle of modern technology available shipped to your door for about the same price of what it now costs to just go out and do the thing people have done when socializing for the last 1500 years.
We're subsidizing the costs of all this modern tech by heavily taxing ourselves on the things once taken as nearly the bare minimum lifestyle.
I think the mistake is seeing the beer to watch ratio and assuming that beers are hard to afford now. One primary reason beer in a pub is expensive is because of cost of labor scaling badly in the pub but extremely well for the watch. It's Baumol Cost Disease. The beer only costs more because the other work the pub staff is doing could be more productive now elsewhere. So in the end of the day, unless you are an alcoholic, you can likely afford more beers just because everything else has gotten so much cheaper.
One caveat I want to call out though is of course the skyrocketing housing cost which also impact rent (or opportunity cost of they own) for the pub and thus the beer price as well. This is where I really don't understand how NIMBYs continue to get their way.
I have a Garmin with a monochrome LCD face. Ok, it can't compete on price but battery life is a couple of weeks (and can top up with solar) so the proprietary cable is not a big problem.
I was also a happy Garmin Instinct Solar user. It is until after two years it started to turn off whenever it vibrates. I disabled vibrations, but it's reduced to an expensive step counter now.
> "I plugged it until fully charged, then wore it conti> nuously. After 24 hours of use, even with all my fiddling, that battery was at 80%.
After four days, it still had 40% left"*
So if a £16 generic competitor can last 4 days, what's Apple doing wrong? Why can't a £450 Apple Watch (non-Ultra) last a full 24 hours on a charge?
People get surprised how cheap things really can be when they see aliexpress, and the assumption is crap. I bought a ton of stuff from aliexpress, and very rarely-if any- was crappy.
As someone who loathes jewelry on myself and has no interest in the watch culture, nonetheless I have an interest in smart watches I can monitor things with. I'm turned off by big ugly blocks with childish straps.. is there anything remotely attractive?
I used to have a similarly priced Withings smartwatch clone; worked very well for years until I switched to a new phone and the app turned out to be gone from the store and the log in servers were offline. Without the app you can't get notifications or even sync the time and the watch is useless. Yes, well-known brands also discontinue software, but with a cheap watch like this, it's almost guaranteed to become a paperweight in a few years.
Now I have a real Withings, at 10 times the price of the fake, it honestly offers only a marginally better experience.
I can see usb-c being convenient for a smartwatch, but for a fitness watch they you are going to wear while hiking, swimming or any type of rugged outdoor activity it is important to not be a hole that can get a bunch of stuff stuck in it. Unlike proprietary cables for smartphones of the past the connector on high end smartwatches aren't there because they are trying to sell you a bunch of expensive cables and accessories that use that port.
Hoping for open source watch OS some day, so many OEM / white label cheap smartwatch/fitness bands. Already exists for cheap cloud cameras. Could be the F91W of our time.
Also I'd gladly ditch USB C for a few programmable media buttons. Standardize on some sort of bogo pins and buy 20 adapters or split cables to keep the water proofing.
What I would love is a watch like this where I can fetch the raw HR and O2 data and run my own analysis. Last time I checked there wasn't much in that direction, outside of super expensive "research grade" equipment, and a single model of polar HR strap (I want a watch).
One thing I wonder though is why they’d need to charge a watch on the bus when battery life on smart watches is typically way more than 1 day and you can charge it overnight? I mean each to their own but I would haaate the hassle of charging anything on a bus…
It's always good to remember that battery life in sports watches (aren't they smart?) can last a whole week, and some models even have complementary solar charging.
[+] [-] ackfoobar|7 months ago|reply
This is so annoying. Back when USB-C was less prevalent, I bought a pair of wireless earbuds over another for the same reason as the title - because it used USB-C. But then I cannot charge it with my macbook, unless I add a USB-C to USB-A adapter.
[+] [-] KerrickStaley|7 months ago|reply
Like the post mentions, I think this happens because the devices are missing two resistors that are needed to indicate, when connected via a USB-C to USB-C cable to a charging brick, that the device wants 5V power. Resistors are cheap and I think the only reason they get dropped is carelessness.
The whole point of USB-C is that you can charge any device with any power supply.
[+] [-] DecentShoes|7 months ago|reply
I have about 6 devices with this problem, and I consider it unforgivable.
Not only did you not include USBC charging, you went out of your way to trick me and lie and pretend you did. I would have preferred just using micro usb at that point.
Powkiddy committed fraud and said the RGB30 can charge from USB-C, but they lied, it can only charge from USB A to C cables. Using it is a massive pain because I have to get adapters I shouldn't need. I'll never buy anything from them ever again.
[+] [-] maccard|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] varenc|6 months ago|reply
(it just connects CC1 + CC2 with the appropriate 5.1k resistors)
[+] [-] xg15|7 months ago|reply
It would still suck to have to use a special cable for charging, but at least it's better than not being able to use any modern charger.
[+] [-] unknown|7 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ACCount36|7 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ofrzeta|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] albatrosstrophy|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] feistypharit|7 months ago|reply
I’ve since moved to using COROS watches. Not as cheap but really good. Always screen, weeks of battery. Even GPS functions are efficient . Recently did 11 hr hike with GPS and only used about 23% battery.
[+] [-] fnands|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] __rito__|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] berkes|7 months ago|reply
USB (abc, micro etc) are everywhere. Any house, hotel, office, glove box, has some lying around.
But when I forgot my Fitbit charger, I couldn't get one anywhere. The only option was a large electronics store where I could buy an entire new Fitbit. I didn't shove out €200 just to get hold of a charging cable.
The EU should quickly impose rules on waterproof chargers like they did with USB chargers. It will settle worldwide just as fast as the USB enforced standard.
[+] [-] jkkola|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] chneu|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Arech|7 months ago|reply
ADDED: Oh, seems like some people like to pretend that the results of "some other" companies getting this information are totally, totally the same.
[+] [-] rikafurude21|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] edent|7 months ago|reply
You're also welcome to disassemble the APK to show where it is sending data to.
But, as I say, it works just find with an Open Source alternative if you prefer that.
[+] [-] danielPort9|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] andrepd|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] neurostimulant|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] FpUser|7 months ago|reply
Let me try to translate: I do not know fuck all about what it really asks but will let sinophobia and hypocrisy out in full colors regardless
[+] [-] rvnx|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] RobotToaster|7 months ago|reply
Like every app made by a US corporation does?
And before someone cries "whataboutism", I'm genuinely curious why as someone who isn't Chinese, and has no intention of visiting China, I should be more worried about the CPC than the CIA.
[+] [-] otabdeveloper4|7 months ago|reply
I'd trust the CCP a million times more than Google or Apple.
[+] [-] mk_stjames|7 months ago|reply
This line kinda got me down, because, well, last night I went out for a few pints and paid €16 for two drinks; Here we have a miracle of modern technology available shipped to your door for about the same price of what it now costs to just go out and do the thing people have done when socializing for the last 1500 years.
We're subsidizing the costs of all this modern tech by heavily taxing ourselves on the things once taken as nearly the bare minimum lifestyle.
[+] [-] ajmurmann|7 months ago|reply
One caveat I want to call out though is of course the skyrocketing housing cost which also impact rent (or opportunity cost of they own) for the pub and thus the beer price as well. This is where I really don't understand how NIMBYs continue to get their way.
[+] [-] octo888|7 months ago|reply
In the past goods were expensive; living was cheap. Now goods are cheap; living is expensive.
[+] [-] incone123|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] KORraN|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Reason077|7 months ago|reply
So if a £16 generic competitor can last 4 days, what's Apple doing wrong? Why can't a £450 Apple Watch (non-Ultra) last a full 24 hours on a charge?
[+] [-] tehlike|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ustad|7 months ago|reply
https://github.com/wasp-os/wasp-os
[+] [-] dmoreno|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] cattown|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] mancerayder|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] sdk16420|7 months ago|reply
Now I have a real Withings, at 10 times the price of the fake, it honestly offers only a marginally better experience.
[+] [-] izzydata|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] maxglute|7 months ago|reply
Also I'd gladly ditch USB C for a few programmable media buttons. Standardize on some sort of bogo pins and buy 20 adapters or split cables to keep the water proofing.
[+] [-] phreeza|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jama211|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] arnon|7 months ago|reply
cool cool cool....
[+] [-] pacifika|7 months ago|reply
Also a smart watch without firmware updates seems like an infection spreader?
[+] [-] wslh|7 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lmpdev|7 months ago|reply
I was exhausted with keeping up with Android, but was not buying n-number of Lightning cables until they released it on USB-C