| ▲ | torstenvl 4 days ago |
| Still waiting on literally anyone but Apple to make a fitness watch/tracker that syncs over Bluetooth. (Stealing the cellular data connection over Bluetooth to sync to the cloud does not count. True Bluetooth sync works when there is no cell service.) |
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| ▲ | nnutter 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| I didn't realize this. Just verified on my Forerunner 965, if I put my phone in Airplane Mode, turn off Wi-Fi, leave Bluetooth on, then Garmin Connect disabled the sync button and says "No Internet connection". |
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| ▲ | mcintyre1994 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This is why when Garmin Connect has outages you can’t sync the watch to the phone, it’s a pretty bad architecture. It should sync to the phone without internet or any services and then use internet to sync from the phone to the cloud. | | |
| ▲ | DebtDeflation 3 days ago | parent [-] | | It's utterly bizarre. I was impacted by that outage a year or so ago and they claimed that they were going provide offline syncing in the future but I still don't see it. It seems the flow is Watch ->(Bluetooth)-> Phone ->(LTE/WiFi) -> Garmin Cloud ->(LTE/WiFi) Phone. There's no reason for the Cloud step other than that Garmin wants your data but the sync won't work without it. |
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| ▲ | alt227 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | In my experience, airplane mode also disables Bluetooth. You would just need to turn wifi off to test this. | | |
| ▲ | jjani 4 days ago | parent [-] | | IME it very much doesn't. Bluetooth headphones/earphones in the airplane while on airplane mode are now part of near every flight. |
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| ▲ | mananaysiempre 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| As a rule, non-LTE watches upload data over Bluetooth to the app (offline), which then relays that to whatever cloud service once there’s a connection. If you don’t want the second part, install Gadgetbridge and have your pick of the supported devices[1] (keeping in mind that that support not a boolean but rather feature-per-feature, so check the details). [1] https://gadgetbridge.org/gadgets/wearables/ |
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| ▲ | torstenvl 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This has not been my experience. If you know of a fitness tracker or smartwatch that can sync without a cloud account or cellular data connection I would be very interested. But I have not found any devices that meet those criteria. (And GadgetBridge does not work on iOS. It is Android-only.) | | |
| ▲ | eightys3v3n 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Mi Band with Notify on Android works just fine with no internet access or cloud account. You do need a cloud account at some point to get the key to access the watch though. | | |
| ▲ | torstenvl 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > You do need a cloud account at some point... This is not "without a cloud account." | | |
| ▲ | eightys3v3n 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I consider it to be so because the product cannot be taken away through any form of update after you have started using it without the cloud account.
At that point it's basically a purchasing account and is functionally useless after that.
Though I do understand the frustration. I hope Pebble releases something that is cloud free and no-service usable. | |
| ▲ | mananaysiempre 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It’s not, unfortunately, and that sucks. That’s why the Gadgetbridge compatibility list specifically warns about that whenever relevant. (As far as Gadgetbridge not being present on iOS, sorry, you knew what you were buying when you came into the Apple store.) It is, however, a very mild case of cloud suckage, because the only thing the vendor learns in the process is an association between an email address and a device, after which you (delete the vendor app and) never communicate with them again. (You could in principle use a temporary email address if you’re particularly adventurous and don’t plan to resell.) |
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| ▲ | shrx a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Thanks for the GadgetBridge mention, seems to be working with my Instinct 3 Solar so I can ditch the Garmin Connect app. | |
| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | d-sky 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I have a 2 year old Amazfit GTR 4. I just disabled wifi & cellular data on my phone, opened the Zepp app, pulled down to sync and it happily downloaded my today's activity to the app. And oh, compared to Apple, I only need to charge it once per two weeks (with almost everything enabled, except always on display). |
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| ▲ | pomian 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Try Suunto. Works over Bluetooth only. Great system... So far. |
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| ▲ | ondra 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Works with a Samsung watch and their app. (I wouldn't really recommend it, though.) |
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| ▲ | guerrilla 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > Still waiting on literally anyone but Apple to make a fitness watch/tracker that syncs over Bluetooth. Huh? Do not all FitBits do this? |
