I received my PineTime development kit a few days ago and I decided that before I
start to fool with it I should take a baseline of how it works as delivered.

Summary: The supplied software implements every hardware feature on the watch. The
screen is bright and clear and colourful.  The touch screen works well. Battery life is
excellent. Bluetooth connection between the phone and watch is erratic.  Most
hardware features work well, however it shows values for Blood Pressure and SPO2
and the data sheet for the Heart Rate Sensor doesn't mention being able to do this.
Overall an impressive piece of hardware.

Details:
Hardware: PineTime Dev Kit
Software: MOY-TBH5-1.7.8
Battery took slightly over two hours to charge initially.  Drew 84 milliamps while charging
(measured with a Drok USB meter). Battery life is extremely good so far, only dropped
10% in five days.
Screen is normally turned off.  Brightness can be adjusted.  Tilt to wake (called Quick
View in the phone app) works well if you are standing or sitting, not very well if you are
lying down.  Screen stays on for three seconds then turns off.  I have not found out how
to change this.
Watch face cannot be changed from the watch (see phone app below).
Watch can connect to phone app using Bluetooth.  Connection so far has been erratic,
it drops and reconnects at random intervals.
Watch will display phone number (or name if in phone contact list) of calls received on
phone (if connected to phone app).  Cannot decline call from watch.
Watch will display text messages received on phone (if connected to phone app).
Cannot reply to message from watch.
Multiple apps on the watch.
Step count works, showed 2,612 steps for a walk that I counted as 2,410 steps, a little
over 8% error.
Message displays the last three text messages received by the watch.
Sleep I have not tested.
Heart Rate works. It shows a value to start and the value varies for several seconds,
then shows a final value and the watch vibrates. It showed 75 when I measured 72.
Sports I have not tested.
Blood Pressure shows values (no idea how accurate it is or if it is valid).
Blood oxygen level (SPO2) shows values (no idea how accurate it is or if it is valid).
Music works if the music is started from the phone.  Then you can start, stop, and skip
through your phone playlist (if connected to phone app). Music plays on phone.
Camera works if Shutter option in phone app is selected first.  Then you can trigger a
picture from the watch (if connected to phone app).
Stop Watch works.
No Alarm app (have to set from phone app).
Weather works if location is set using the phone app first.

Phone hardware: LG V20
Software: Android 8.0.0
App: Da Fit by CRREPA, V2.0.0-135-g86a89387
The app recognizes the watch as a Y7S device.
The app has three sections, one a user profile, one for exercise and performance
graphs and one to configure the watch.  I filled in the user profile and ignored the
exercise section.  The configuration section allows you to:
Set a watch face (over 50 available, most very similar but some are unique).
Specify which notifications the watch should get.
Set an alarm on the watch.
Work with the watch to remotely control the camera shutter.
Specify formats like 12 or 24 hour time, British or Metric measurements, etc.
Specify when or if Quick View (tilt to wake) is used.
Specify Weather location.

The design for the official Pinephone keyboard is set to resemble that of Psion which will make room for a relatively large keyboard. The typing experience will most likely be excellent considering the size. I am very thankful that Pine64 is planning a keyboard for the Pinephone!

That said, some users was maybe picturing a slide out keyboard similar to Nokia N900 or early Droid phones which would make typing on the go with your thumbs more comfortable. One other aspect is the ability to see and use the screen and notification led while the keyboard is tucked away. 

So, the question is if there is demand for a slide out keyboard (and if someone can make one)? In this thread we can discuss how a slide out keyboard could be designed and also get a feel for the demand.

I will start with a picture of a cheap BT keyboard for a iPhone, which resembles what I personally had in mind.



Thoughts:
-If there is no hole in the keyboard for the camera, then you would have to slide out the keyboard every time you wanted to take a picture. 
-The weight of the phone is far greater than that of the keyboard. This could make for an unpleasant typing experience and would also put extra stress on the slide out mechanism. Adding for example a extra battery in the keyboard part would counter this, but would ad to total thickness.
-The keyboard area would be much smaller than that of a Psion design, so one would have to really think through what keys to include. A quick look at the Fxtec Pro 1 can help with desiding since they have put a lot of thought in to the matter already. A software bar at the bottom of the screen is also possible but would take time to develop.
-Is dedicated gaming buttons something to consider? Look at GPD Win and Dragonbox Pyra for inspiration.
-The N900 had a kickstand that was excellent when viewing videos and the N7 and Fxtec Pro 1 tilts the screen when using the keyboard. I have seen keyboards similar to the one in the picture above that has a hinge, but I suspect it might make the design less sturdy and there is also the problem with weight distribution.

Please share your thought and keep it friendly and constructive

Attached Files

  31xanPKB6DL.jpg (Size: 13.77 KB / Downloads: 1581)

Hello!

See subject. What does it mean?
[reboot does not work]

Sincerely,

JC Magras

Hello!

I am getting this message (repeated thousands of times):

rockchip-sip::function[82000008]: args:[2,0,2]=> res:[0,2ed96880,0,0]

The rock64 platform maybe ubuntu or ayufun.... I m not 100 % sure.

Any ideas?

Sincerely,

JC Magras

I may be a bit old-fashioned, but I feel mobile software has way too much eye candy nowadays.

Why are HTML codes needed in e-mails?
Why can't data collection be done in CSV with a suitable front end?
Why do I need avatars and bubbles in an SMS screen?
Why does a weather app in Android have to be somewhere in the region of 30MB only to show me some pretty clouds? (I know what they usually  look like, thanks!)
And don't get me started on trying to find a simple little time waster game, which is nearly impossible nowadays.

There may be more examples, but my point is: In keeping the software practical and simple, it will make much better use of the Pinephone hardware within its limitations.

Developers, please do not try and compete with Android. Ask yourself what your app and/or OS is supposed to do and concentrate on that. 

Naturally, there's bound to be some great wallpapers from and for the community. Per our ongoing skinning thread, I'm kicking out our 1080P wallpaper collection. Here's a WP version of the Star Trail skin art. It may see some tweaks, as a lot of the layer structure and effects didn't carry over properly when copying between the two working files.

Due to differences in monitor profiles (it appears very different on the 2 monitors at my workstation,) if anyone notices visibility issues with this image on their PBP, please let me know so I can fix it.

I'll work on converting the carbon weave skins to wallpapers as well. If anyone wants to request specific ones to start, just let me know.



If you have a wallpaper design of your own, share it with us!

Is there work on being able to replace uboot with coreboot on the Pinebook Pro? 

I know coreboot/depthcharge (payload) would work for ChromeOS pn Pinebook Pro, but what about coreboot/GRUB2(payload) for Pinebook Pro?


https://review.coreboot.org/cgit/coreboo...hip/rk3399
https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/

https://doc.coreboot.org/payloads.html#grub2


Alexander Graf (SUSE) has some interesting talks regarding GRUB2 and UEFI on ARM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNL1pd-rwCU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJAkJ3nmWgM

Has anyone else had issues loading forums and threads in Tapatalk? When I select the forums using the logo, and then proceed to Forums, no threads ever populate. I can see notifications and recent posts/replies from the Home screen, but I cannot actually browse any of the forums.

I don't think this has been linked here. I found the comparison quite useful. Gives a bit of perspective as to what the differences are and maybe also on how the field might develop in the future.

https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2019/12...-librem-5/

Hi,
how do I get access to the RK3399 based PINE64/RK3399 SOM modules Gerber/layout files?
Thanks.