Fitness tracker: Unexpected benefits

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End of 2024, I got me a Huawei Band 8 on a lark, seeing that there was a used exemplar at Amazon for € 24. I mainly wanted to try out how well it works with GadgetBridge, and even if it doesn't, a small computer with a screen for € 24 sounded interesting.

Good

  • works with Gadgetbridge. "Deep Sleep" is not recognized/supported, but that's not really important to me.
  • saves me 10 minutes in my morning routine, as I don't reach for my phone anymore when getting up, preventing one cycle of mails and doomscrolling
  • even can install custom watchfaces
  • cheap replacement bands on AliExpress, in various colours

Bad

I didn't find a good way to create custom watchfaces: * Huawei SDK requires registration * Huawei Theme Design Tool is Windows only, but I didn't try it yet * nothing found on Github

GadgetBridge cannot upload my own pictures as backgrounds. I would like this, as I prefer to have pictures that I took myself around me.

Surprises

  • gets too hot in direct sunlight at 25°C , warns about it and then switches off

Discovering KDE Connect

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I recently discovered KDE Connect. It is a mobile app with a desktop companion to connect the machines.

KDE Connect Logo

It's not only for connecting your mobile to your desktop, or laptop PC. It also connects these machines among each other. This means you can use it for convenient file sharing between machines, and not only for sharing between mobile and desktop.

This actually proves more convenient than file sharing via a common SMB share.

It has various other features:

  • automatically pause music playback on your machines when a phone call comes in
  • display incoming text messages on other machines
  • launch custom commands on the desktop from the phone
  • presentation remote

These features sound all convenient but except for the auto-pausing of sound playback, I have not used them.

It's available on Android, Apple, Windows, Linux and many other OSes.

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