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Comment by wanderingmind | Hacker News Reader

I have not personally used, but looks like banglejs[0], a fully hackable watch with GPS and a good battery life (4 weeks claim) is proabably the best successor for Pebble

[0] https://banglejs.com/

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I have both versions of the Bangle. I absolutely love the software ecosystem and the apps are a lot of fun to program. On the down side, battery life is not great (4 days if you're lucky) and the step counter and heart rate detection algorithms in the open source firmware are not very accurate, which makes it a bit pointless for what I need. On the plus side, if you're up for the challenge, you can try to improve those algorithms yourself!

Please note that the current firmware switched to closed source hrm [1].

I charge weekly, after one week the battery is usually at ~50% with my usual usage. Obviously with GPS on the battery empties much faster, without any notifications etc the battery can hold multiple weeks.

[1] https://forum.espruino.com/conversations/385922/

This is great to know, thanks for the update. I will definitely look at the newest firmware then.

Third enthusiastic Bangle JS supporter. The hardware is fine, but the ecosystem that comes with it is the best part. The excellent documentation makes it easy to make your own watchface or application.

I have worn a Bangle.js daily for 2 years (I have both the original and the version 2). I really like the watch, it is easy and fun to program.

But I'm not sure it's what OP is after. The requirements are:

> Phone notifications (so I don’t miss calls/ texts)

> Step counting

> A long battery life

Bangle.js doesn't connect to your phone at all, so you won't get any phone notifications. I don't personally use step counting, but when I have tried it I found it didn't work very well. Maybe that's just me.

The battery life depends a lot on what you're doing. In particular, clock faces that show seconds (i.e. have to wake up the CPU every second) drain the battery faster than clock faces that only go down to minutes. It still easily lasts longer than a day, which is good enough for me. I just charge mine overnight.

Another enthusiastic Bangle.js user here: I had the original and used it, programmed it until the strap (integrated into the body) broke.

Apparently you can actually connect it to phone notifications using gadgetbridge[0] but I didn't have much success when I tried it. The BLE was a little flaky at the best of times (pairing to a PC for programming failed more often than I'd like).

[0] https://www.espruino.com/Gadgetbridge

Banglejs2 user here, Gadgetbridge works perfectly fine for my basic usage.

idk if Bangle1 strap is different but (don't remember exact measurement) you can put any standard watch strap with a normal strap pin on it. I replaced the broken stock strap with a nylon one off the net and it's great.

Sorry there is an FDroid Gadgetbridge App specifically for Banglejs [0], so I just assumed it must connect to the phone.

[0] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.espruino.gadgetbridge.ba...

Interesting, this is the first time I've heard about the Bangle.js. Seeing as it's an open project and it's based around Nordic's nRF52840 I wonder if an enterprising developer could expand the wireless interfaces to include the 802.15.4 radio for 6lowpan, Zigbee, and/or Thread support.

The Bangle most definitely connects to the phone and receives notifications. I used extensively at my last job and modified exactly this portion of the messaging code.

It definitely does connect to the phone. I receive notifications on mine all the time.

I love my Bangle.js 2, and have written my own watch face for it.

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