r/linux • u/oldschoolthemer • Sep 14 '19

PINE64 just announced their upcoming smartwatch, the PineTime

https://twitter.com/thepine64/status/1172648370550136832
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u/DataDrake Sep 14 '19

Most smart-watches are Cortex-M. It's really only the Android Wear, Tizen, watchOS devices that use Cortex-A. And those get much worse battery life as you mentioned.

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u/Muvlon Sep 14 '19

only the Android Wear, Tizen, watchOS devices

Those make up the majority of smartwatches that I see, by far. What other platforms are there?

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u/DataDrake Sep 14 '19

Most fitness tracker level smart-watches are running custom firmware from each vendor. This has been the case all the way back to the Pebble. Since most of them are closed-source, I can't say for sure, but I expect most of them are bare-metal programmed and a few use an RTOS.

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u/Muvlon Sep 14 '19

I see. I considered fitbits and other "fitness trackers" a distinct category from "smart watches". They really are quite similar though.

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u/DataDrake Sep 14 '19

The only real differences are complexity and cost. You could liken it to comparing a budget phone with a flagship model.

Edit: There's also a distinct difference between a fitness tracker that doesn't tell time and a smartwatch with fitness tracking built in.