Somebody asked about porting wasp-os to different similar watches recently and I think my reply makes sense in this thread too (although I have edited it fairly rampantly so this isn't just a repost).
In most cases, underneath the covers there's not really many important technical differences between PineTime and other similar smart watches. The vast majority are based around the same nRF52832 device and many even have the same display controller and 240x240 display. That, however, is missing the point!
The big difference between PineTime and other similarly priced (or even cheaper) smart watches isn't a technical one. The difference is the community. By selling a watch with the intention that it be hacked every which way from Sunday then we get a bigger stronger community focused on PineTime. There is a strong support forum, multiple different OS developers (who share ideas and knowledge even if hacking on very different code bases), reasonably good hardware documentation[1] and you don't need to remove the back of a test device with a hacksaw in order to get started[2]. There's a lot of fun to be had buying something off-the-shelf, prying it open and turning it into something different but these devices are sold for relatively short periods and so it can be very hard for a community to form so you'll mostly be working on your own or in very small groups.
Or put more succinctly, If you want to enjoy the social and community aspects of open source watch development then get a PineTime ;-).
To be clear, this is a personal view, but it does express why I've been sinking my spare time into this project rather than something else.
[1] Sure the wiki could be better... but it's a wiki... if it isn't good enough then you can make it better.
[2] DaFlasher is totally awesome BTW and does make it possible to hack on smart watches without the hacksaw. However if you need to do any bootloader development then you should definitely buy two so you can open one up for testing.
In most cases, underneath the covers there's not really many important technical differences between PineTime and other similar smart watches. The vast majority are based around the same nRF52832 device and many even have the same display controller and 240x240 display. That, however, is missing the point!
The big difference between PineTime and other similarly priced (or even cheaper) smart watches isn't a technical one. The difference is the community. By selling a watch with the intention that it be hacked every which way from Sunday then we get a bigger stronger community focused on PineTime. There is a strong support forum, multiple different OS developers (who share ideas and knowledge even if hacking on very different code bases), reasonably good hardware documentation[1] and you don't need to remove the back of a test device with a hacksaw in order to get started[2]. There's a lot of fun to be had buying something off-the-shelf, prying it open and turning it into something different but these devices are sold for relatively short periods and so it can be very hard for a community to form so you'll mostly be working on your own or in very small groups.
Or put more succinctly, If you want to enjoy the social and community aspects of open source watch development then get a PineTime ;-).
To be clear, this is a personal view, but it does express why I've been sinking my spare time into this project rather than something else.
[1] Sure the wiki could be better... but it's a wiki... if it isn't good enough then you can make it better.
[2] DaFlasher is totally awesome BTW and does make it possible to hack on smart watches without the hacksaw. However if you need to do any bootloader development then you should definitely buy two so you can open one up for testing.
