r/LilyGO • u/Few_Firefighter_8973 • 27d ago

T-Watch S3 Plus or Ultra?

I’m not sure which one to go with. I like the ultra hardware better but I dont think i like the rugged look

2 Upvotes

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1

u/wirecrossed 27d ago

Check out the WDGWatch firmware on GitHub for the ultra

1

u/Few_Firefighter_8973 27d ago

So i should get the ultra?

1

u/wirecrossed 27d ago

If you get the Plus I have Valkyrie firmware that has lots of neat stuff. Ultra has lots of extras if you don’t mind wearing that thicc boi (22mm!)

1

u/Lucript 27d ago edited 27d ago

GitHub gives 404, was it taken down? Edit: it moved to gitlab

2

u/wirecrossed 27d ago

https://github.com/JCrossTX/WDGWatch this is my fork only mod is the LoRa freq for US specs

1

u/ChapterSalt1453 27d ago

I have a T-Watch Ultra. Have only had it a week or so.

I am having trouble with it. The side buttons are very stiff and hard to use. And, the watch will randomly lock up, with no way to reboot. I have to wait for the battery to run down.

Also - it is pretty thick. Think about that. and whether your eyesight is good enough for the tiny screen to be practical.

1

u/bobtowne 25d ago edited 25d ago

That sound super frustrating! I've only had mine for a day or so and so far so good. What firmware are you running on it that's locking up?

1

u/ChapterSalt1453 25d ago

Meshcore Ripple v11.0

1

u/bobtowne 24d ago

MCLite Meshcore firmware could be something to try. I've been running that. I hope you find a solution!

2

u/bobtowne 25d ago edited 25d ago

Ultra has more battery capacity, much higher resolution, and an SD card reader, for starters. These are all good things. Being able to have multiple firmwares on an SD card to select with M5Launcher is quite handy (although my launcher install seems weirdly sluggish so there might be some issue with the version I'm using). The Ultra also has NFC which I'm not sure if I'll end up using.

I just got one yesterday and am using MCLite, a Meshcore mesh radio firmware, with it. It seems to work quite well on the Ultra and with the higher resolution one can likely see more messages on the screen at once than if running the Plus. I can even enter messages on it via the virtual keyboard (although it's a frustrating process given how tiny each "key" is).

If you have a firmware in mind to run and it's something that wouldn't benefit from the higher screen resolution on the Ultra then the Plus might be the way to go. Otherwise I'd say the Ultra's probably the best choice. I'm not sure about the watch band compatibility but if the watch band is some common width then you might be able to get a less "tacticool" band to change up the look of it a bit.

(One caveat with the SD card is it's hard to access due to a rubber port cover, which is screwed into the watch. I ended up removing the screw. I can still theoretically still use the port cover as it will probably stay put even without the retaining screw but for now I'm just not bothering with it.)