edent

On Android you can designate certain notifications to be high priority.

Or, in GB, on the notifications app list you can click the cog next to an app and use those filters. I haven't played much with it yet though.

It doesn't have storage or a headphone port. But it will stream music over Bluetooth. So if you want to annoy everyone you job with, you can listen to its tinny speaker :-)

Yeah. GadgetBridge allows me to set up an allow-list / block-list for notifications. So I can get SMS on my wrist but ignore social media pings.

It has a small rubber lug - which has worked so far at keeping out the grime. But I don't have a manual labour job.

Get something which works with GadgetBridge. You'll be in complete control.

Thank you 😄

I wrote about it at https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/01/graphing-the-connections-between-my-blog-posts/

Happy to say the latest nightly does support notifications. My wrist is buzzing with action!

I'm the author. I've now set up notifications on the advice of just about everyone. It's pretty cool!

In which case, you might like the eInk screen on the Watchy. I reviewed it at https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/06/review-watchy-an-eink-watch-full-of-interesting-compromises/

Screen is always on but eInk gives it great battery life. Although the rest of the watch is even more experimental than the USB-C one 😆

Hold on, so now you want to use USB C for data transfer?

Sure, why not? My headphones have a built-in MP3 player which I can load up with 32GB of music. Flash memory is tiny and cheap - why shouldn't my watch have my music collection on it? Is grabbing a CSV of my data via USB easier than trying to send it via BT? Might be. Let's find out.

Because again, ALL smartwatches need more battery than they currently have.

For you, maybe. This £16 one has lasted nearly 5 days of doing continual heart monitoring and is still on 40% battery. Even better, I don't need to take it off if I want to charge it. Weekly charging is better than my phone or laptop.

I slightly disagree with you about the screen needing to be always on. I'm not always looking at my watch, so it might as well save battery where it can. I don't leave my laptop screen on when I walk away from it, and that has a much bigger battery.

weird hardware is weird and weird is fun.

On that we can agree! This is a fun experiment.

You need a solution that fits all cases with near-optimal performance.

I disagree. I think it is OK to have some choice in the market. Some people will prefer magnetic wireless, some wired, some plutonium batteries.

and if anything focusing on it distracts from the very real need to come to a proper standard in this space, which I find somewhat annoying.

Like, mate, I don't have the power to enact anything. I'm just one guy blogging. I'm not involved in the design, manufacture, or standardisation of anything watch related. I don't understand why you're getting annoyed by me talking about it though.

OK, but why do you care about uniformity? If it's just some OCD-adjacent urge - that's fine; do what makes you happy.

But from a technical point of view, VLC will play back no matter what the codec and compression level.

The question is why do you want to convert them?

If you use something like JellyFin as your media server and client, it will transcode them as you watch them. If you're on your phone using crappy WiFi, it will adapt the bitrate down automatically. If you're at home using a projector connected by Ethernet, you'll get the original file.

If you think you're running out of space, it's often easier and cheaper to buy more HDDs. H265 and modern audio codec will save you a maximum of 50%. For about £200 you can get a 15TB HDD.