Google-free Android kit tipped to sell buckets Some optimists are betting on Google own-brand devices to save the smartwatch. Others are betting that new generations of Google-free Android-based hardware will do the same thing. And one of the latter is IDC. IDC has predicted the smartwatch category will return to growth in the next few years. How so? IDC points out that …
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More surreal IoT news below... As someone who has to stay in hotels a lot, I'd settle for beefed up cyber-security protecting Credit Cards / Wi-Fi in hotels. Hell, how about tech to stop conferences outside your door at 5am / letting doors slam?!
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Today's early adopter, hyper-connected global traveller wants a level of personalisation unlike ever before, and that means being able to control their hotel experience with the sound of their voice
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44534597
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WTF is this, CIA / NSA / 3-letter-spying-agency Hotels Inc?
With microg.org you can even avoid Google and the Play store for apps.
But even with Google services, Lineageos is still worth it for the absence of manufacturer crap, the ability to minimise the amount of Google stuff on the home screen and to get weekly updates for 5 year old devices
....now....I might buy some of that....just so long as someone can tell me that the "Google-free Android kit" is COMPLETELY free of spyware....and can be kept free of all of the secret and invasive c**p which infests all Apple and Google kit.
*
I guess I'll be waiting for hell to freeze over!
You'd need a team of auditors to screen applications for spyware - the job is too big to do it yourself. This auditing could be open source (for apps whose developers wish to disclose the source code to all and sundry including competitors), or could be run by a company that uses its business model (hardware sales plus hefty percentage of app store sales) as a differentiator to Google's (data collection to fuel advertising). You'd have to pay a bit more upfront for the latter, and even more so if you use the same administration software that sensitive organisations use (e.g Blackberry Suite for iOS).
Auditing the source code is time consuming and thus unfeasible (remember how long it took a team to audit TrueCrypt) but I guess a middle ground might be crowd-sourced monitoring - i.e, everyone inspecting packets sent from a phone with 'Bob's Scientific Calculator' installed against a control. However, this would only catch the trawlers, not the tailored attacks.
Another approach is to spoof the data harvesters with false information as Safari has done for a few years now. It's still cat and mouse, but at least you're denying them the low hanging fruit.
> You'd need a team of auditors to screen applications for spyware
Not really... you can put it behind a router or firewall, and see what connections it makes. It's not infallible, but if the device starts blurting data all over the place, you can put it on the naughty step.
That doesn't really get very much of it. Here comes a big data blob out, and another one in. What was that? Was it spyware sending your data to a C&C, with the next set of data coming back? Or was that your music player syncing your playlists, or even just checking for updates? There are many devices that would be caught by something like that, but the more you attempt to have the thing online, the more data it will send that you can't make any sense of. If you can't be certain that the connection to the cloud for the GPS data to be interpreted (that's something that won't run on a watch for a while) doesn't also contain anything sneaky, worry is justified.
It's a simple question that nobody ever asked me, and I doubt anyone ever asked anyone. Instead they just think what can we put in it and hope it will sell.
BTW my list is:
Over 7 day battery life
Accurate time and date always on the screen
Alerts from my phone
Pedometer with google fit integration
Pulse meter with readings every few minutes
Water resistance would be nice too
I have been waiting for an android/wearos watch to be released that meets my requirements since Motorola lost my moto360 when it was sent back for repair 2.5 years ago.
My list of requirements, in rough order of importance, is:
Android/WearOS
Round screen (can have a flat tyre, it doesn't actually matter)
Changeable straps
NO LTE (not needed, adds too much bulk, destroys battery life)
Qi charging
Pedometer
GPS
Heart rate monitor
NFC
Your list is bobbins! this is mine:
Proper video calls like in the films
Laser weapon that can cut through a mustang engine block
Holographic projector to make me look like anyone I choose
Holographic projector to make me invisible
Universal (not just earth) real time voice translation
anti gravity function
tells the time
White hands on a dark grey background - it's rare to see a watch display the time as clearly as an Omega Chronostop. A new company called Roue* come close but no cigar.
*On the subject of targeted advertising, I saw an advertisement in the Register for Roue after writing a post about the sheer functionality of old Omega, Braun and Seiko wristwatches - the very brands Roue state as their inspirations.
@sabroni
You missed:
Changes the time.
Then you'll be wanting the Homura Akemi model watch.
"tells the time" <-- wooden bobbins, I tells ya!
My list is:
* time-travels you to whatever time you want it to be -- never be late again!
* charges "Instantly" by time-travelling after charging back to the point at which it need charging
* split-time heirloom mode where on the death of the first heir it time-travels back to be inherited by the second heir (using the diagonal slash rule to cope with any number of heirs and sub-heirs).
* time travel shopping - buy a holographic anti-gravity translator combination from etsy-bay in future end-of-line close-out sales at bargain prices
All I want is a watch that tells the time accurate to the second. Battery life measured in decades. Other complications would include date, day. stopwatch, etc. Waterproof and shock proof.
It already exists. My watch is all the above and solar powered. The only thing I need do is look at it. Everything is automatic. I give you the old Edifice waveceptor range by Casio. Ruined now by the inclusion of bluetooth and phone pairing.
What I want from a smartwatch:
week-long battery life
ability to act as an extension to my phone: see incoming calls and texts, see notifications, vibrate when a call or text arrives at my phone, display navigation directions.
That's about it.
What I don't want in a smartwatch: the ability to replace a smartphone.
@JohnFen: Your comment about your requirements are exactly the same as mine! Can we really be the only two people who want something so straight-forward? ("What I want from a smartwatch:
week-long battery life
ability to act as an extension to my phone: see incoming calls and texts, see notifications, vibrate when a call or text arrives at my phone, display navigation directions.
That's about it.
What I don't want in a smartwatch: the ability to replace a smartphone.")
Ok, I have some very specific things I want from a smartwatch:
At least a couple of days battery (mine has that)
Stupidly cool watch faces like animated Matrix dropper, incomprehensible binary watch with blue lights, mechanical flip watchface and a watchface based on circular bands wiv numbers onnit and a text based watch that displays stuff like 'It is twenty past four' (mine has that too!)
TV Begone clone for surreptitiously switching off all the TVs in JB HiFi (well, would you believe it? mine has that one as well!)
I'm a man of relatively simple (as in childish needs)
Fitness tracking seems to be what people want, with a few smartwatch features thrown in. Fitbit et al are selling by the bucket load.
They have a pedometer, sometimes with google fit integration
They measure Heart Rate etc.
Some are waterproof (though you'd have thought that was a basic feature of a fitness tracker?)
They give alerts from your phone (in case by some amazing fluke its not in your hand/pocket/bag)
The smartwatch is alive and well, its just not what we thought it was.
While it looks like a 'failure' or at best a niche product, that's only because it is measured against the iPhone monster. Tim Cook said the Watch business was about the size of a Fortune 300 company. That's a business the size of eBay or Netflix! I should think many companies would be hungry for even a small piece of that.
That said I still don't see the need for a smart watch. I own an iPhone but have no plans to get a Watch, and while I work out a lot I haven't ever really desired a fitness band. I don't care what my exact heart rate is. If I can feel it pounding and I'm breathing hard I know I'm getting a good workout regardless of what the numbers might be.
I actually do own and use a smart watch - a pebble, but I was aware of what little it really would do for me before I bought it. It works for me. I'm also a geek. makes me a very small sub-set of smart phone user base. For most people out there, smart watches offer nothing, so there's no point to them. Note I consider fitness watches to be a side branch with an actual market, but that group is still small.
Where Apple have managed to get it to work is by playing on their 'luxury brand' image. The Apple Watch has now replaced the Rolex among the younger generations as a sign of 'I have made it', along side the Montblanc fountain pen and the Porsche car. Sure there's plenty of people who get good use out of an apple watch (probably a lot on here) but it's still small fry numbers.
I don't wear a watch anymore since nothing is available these days of a modest and small size. EVERYTHING on the market even for normal "dumb" watches is "statement" sized and feels like strapping a smegging brick to my wrist. Even ladies watches are massive.How about something under 5 mm thick and 50mm diameter for a change. It was possible in the past, why not now?
For around 25000 you can get one of these
https://int.piaget.com/watches/rose-gold-ultra-thin-automatic-watch-g0a43120
Wow, that is close to what I would be looking for (preferably in an understated brushed stainless finish though instead of that garish rose gold) but that price has at least 2 zeroes too many.
@David Nash,
Unfortunately I also haven't found anything in the second hand market in my sort of price range. I'm an engineer, I don't WANT to be wearing anything over 50 euros on a daily basis in my job.
"I don't wear a watch anymore since nothing is available these days of a modest and small size. EVERYTHING on the market even for normal "dumb" watches is "statement" sized and feels like strapping a smegging brick to my wrist. Even ladies watches are massive.How about something under 5 mm thick and 50mm diameter for a change. It was possible in the past, why not now?"
That's because of the technology gap. Nobody has figured out how to make electronic circuts as small and reliable as all those wheels and cogs and springs and things. It is probably impossible.
Er ...
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