PineTime @ gmn.clttr.info
Published: 26.12.2024
I've been using a PineTime as my daily driver watch for more then 4 months now. I'd like to share some insights about the good and not so good parts of the device.
The following critics refer to PineTime[1] and InfiniTime[2] release 1.14.1 available in November 2024. I'm using the PineTime paired with an Android device running Gadgetbridge[3] 0.82.1. InfiniTime 1.15.0 released in early December did not address any of my "pain points".
TL;DR
The PineTime is "smart"watch that sports basic watch features (show time&date, stopwatch, timer, alarm) and a step counter. Those are the "useful" features for day to day use - it especially lacks the extensive features of other smart watches for health tracking. There is a heartrate monitor though, more on that later.
It's main selling point is that it runs an open source firmware/os that can be hacked on and does not require you to sell your data to a company.
The PineTime will not be the right gadget for you if you are looking for a polished, streamlined experience.
Hardware
The hardware seems to be well built and solid. There a no loose parts, the alloy case and the rubber strap are making a nice fit. I have no issue wearing it 24/7.
Screen-to-body ratio is for sure not on par with more expensive devices, but the screens resolution and size is ok, it's easily readable even in bright sunshine.
The touch screen is responsive and accurate, giving you a good control about your inputs.
The battery easily lasts for 5 days+ for me with a mediocre use of notifications and a companion app connected almost 24/7.
Software
There has been criticism in the past about Pine64 focusing only on hardware and leaving the software part up to the community. That results in products that don't fully use their potential the critics said. Unfortunately this is still true for PineTime & InfiniTime almost 5 years after its initial release.
The following critics are not intended to blame the maintainer(s) & contributors of InfiniTime - they are doing a great job for years now and sacrifice their spare time for Pine64 and the community. I'd rather call for Pine64 to better support the software efforts, be it by providing resources or contributing software engineering skills. Putting all the burden on a small number of spare-time maintainers does not seem to be a smart move.
general development
At the moment none of the "long term vision" bullet points have been achieved. Following the development for a few months now i don't see any focused work on any of them.
Generally speaking the development of InfiniTime has been steady, but rather slow. There have been most likely 1 or 2 releases a year, providing new or updated features and bugfixes.
Watchfaces
With the stock firmware 6 watchfaces are available. Watchfaces are compiled into the firmware, you can not add or remove watchfaces without recompiling and flashing.
The stock watchfaces spread over a variety of design approaches, you should find one that fits your style.
The support for various features across the watchfaces differ somewhat. Especially rather new features like weather data is not implemented across all watchfaces.
Most watchfaces support the display of stepcounter and heartrate, but none will show if an alarm is set or a timer or stopwatch is running.
Apps
The "apps" available on your watch are compiled into the firmware, the only way to disable apps or include additional apps is to dive into the code, recompile and flash.
The available apps are working fine, but the selection of apps seems weird sometimes and unfortunately most of them have some more or less annoying quirks which limit their usability:
- The "Timer" app has a very weak single(!) buzz when the timer is done and does not show how long the timer has been exceeded. You will often miss when the timer ends. There are multiple PRs[6] open that improve the timer behaviour, but none of it made it into 1.15.
- Daily stepcount is not persistent across reboots. If you restart the watch or it crashes you will lose the stepcount for the day.
- There a "Game" apps like "InfiniDice", "Paddle" and "2048" - while this might be a nice "showcase" of whats possible, those apps are essentially useless given the small display, no "top score" persistence and limited interaction posibilities.
- A "Calendar" app is completely missing - there is no way to check appointments or even add a new appointment with the watch.
- Heartbeat measuring is only possible when the heartbeat app is active[7] and the measurement generally seems pretty inaccurate. Generally speaking you should not get a PineTime if you are interested in health-related data.
- There's a "Navigation" app - but it's only supported by the Amazfish[4] companion app on SailfishOS.
Companion app integration
The integration of InfiniTime with GadgetBridge[3] on Android is quite nice. The pairing is straight forward, Gadgetbridge will sync time/date, stepcounter and heartrate measurement (when activated).
To sync weather data to the watch you'll need another app that integrates with GadgetBridge. I'm using Breezy Weather[5] for that purpose.
Gadgetbridge has it's limitations with firmware management though: You can push a firmware update to the device, but you can not update the ressources which are stored on the external flash.
itd[8] is the promoted Linux companion app for InfiniTime/PineTime. Unfortunately the current release 1.1.0 has a bug that makes it stop working. The bug is fixed, but no release has been published since, so you need to compile from source.
Notifications
To receive notifications you need a companion app paired with the watch. As mentioned above i'm using Gadgetbridge on Android.
Gadgetbridge will forward notifications from your phone to the watch. You can filter by app or apply custom text filters to decide what notification will show up on the watch. Dismissing a notification on the watch does not remove the notification from your phone. Depending on your usage scenario this may be good or bad.
The notification feature has it's own set of shortcomings:
- Only the 5 most recent notifications will be stored in a FIFO manner.
- A buzz signals a new notification - unfortunately it's rather weak & short and you will often miss it.
- In "normal" mode there is no visual indication if new/unread notifications are available. Only "mute" and "sleep" modes will make an "i" icon appear, but these modes disable the buzzer.
- Notifications are limited to 150 characters of text. Longer text will be truncated.
- Notification text can not contain any chars other than standard ASCII and will not show emojis. Gadgetbridge has a feature to convert umlauts, diacritics and such, but you will definitely lose some information.
- Incoming calls will show up as a notification and start an ongoing buzzer. You can react to the call with the watch, but the buzzing will not stop if you use your phone to answer the call. You need to dismiss the call notification on the watch separately, afterwards no further call steering with the watch is possible.
Summary
Ok, so what's up now with PineTime and InfiniTime?
I'd not expect the PineTime to be a competitor to devices like the Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch. A big pro is it does not require a connection to a "cloud service" for working - a point that was essential for me when looking for a smartwatch. Nevertheless i was somewhat disappointed about the current state of InfiniTime, even basic features of a wrist watch seem "unfinished". I ended up building the firmware by myself to fix a few things. Mostly by collecting patches from various PRs that didn't make it into upstream yet.
If you are interested in tinkering with software, especially C++ on resource constrained embedded devices, the PineTime and InfiniTime might be a nice playground for you.
There have been alternative firmware implementations for PineTime, but afaia InfiniTime is the only in active development.