Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by andrewchilds 503 days ago
I didn't even know about the BLE Glucose Profile - thank you!

Valid question about the PineTime! I'd agree that it is an option, although with the dev kit out of stock, flashing a custom firmware would be tricky. I think that's probably what happened, I looked at this page back when I was first starting out on this and was scared off: https://pine64.org/documentation/PineTime/Further_informatio...
2 comments
raminf 503 days ago
I didn't mean to send you down a rabbit-hole since you've already built an awesome-looking platform. Just googling, came across a devkit: https://ameridroid.com/products/pinetime-smart-watch?variant...

The DevKit is mainly there to allow easy access the SWD pins. It can be flashed via a Pi: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineTime_Devkit_Wiring

Aaron Christophel (go-to guy for hacking wearables) has a video on flashing them via an ESP32: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu6RoXRZxOk

For OTA flash, some folks have had good luck with https://gadgetbridge.org

For those interested in going the cheap-o activity tracker route, here's another old thread on Hackaday, featuring Aaron. More good info in the comments: https://hackaday.com/2019/02/20/custom-firmware-for-cheap-fi...

Also, one last tidbit: I know the idea was to stay away from the more expensive devices, but many Apple and Android watches have built-in BLE central capability so they can scan and connect to peripherals without having to go through the phone. In later models, they can even scan in the background and update complications.

Again, not remotely as cool as building one's own device!

link
noname120 503 days ago
It's quite easy to flash a custom firmware actually and I wish I never bought a “devkit” because it's useless (you really really need to mess things up badly to need to open the watch to flash it directly). You could even have simply programmed your app in Python using WASP-OS!

Really an amazing project no matter what! I learned a lot reading your article and I don't think that using a PineTime as a base would have been nearly as cool

link
andrewchilds 503 days ago
Thank you! By flashing I really meant flashing + programming/debugging so I can see serial output. Can you do that OTA? Either way, I'll have to take a closer look.
link