The PineTime is an inexpensive smartwatch designed to run free and open source software. And when I say inexpensive, I mean it sells for $25, or roughly one eighth the price of the cheapest Apple Watch.

First announced in 2019, the Pine64 began shipping the PineTime to early adopters in 2020, but at the time it was basically a piece of hackabale hardware without any real software – Pine64 was hoping that the user/developer community would create the software that would make the watch useable.

And that’s exactly what happened. One of the leading PineWatch software projects is called InfiniTime, and eventually it was chosen as the default firmware for the watch. Now InfiniTime 1.0.0 is available, marking the first stable release of the default PineWatch operating system.

InfiniTime (via Pine64)

InfiniTime includes everything you need for basic smartwatch operating including support for the PineTime’s LCD toucshscreen display and buttons, Bluetooth Low Energy wireless communication, and sensors for heart rate monitoring, step counting, and more.

It also includes digital and analog watch faces, a handful of apps including music controls, a stopwatch, activity trackers, and a navigation app that’s designed to work with a companion app running on a smartphone. There are even a couple of games including a 2048 clone and a Pong clone.

You can pair a PineTime running InfiniTime with Android or Linux phones using companion apps including Gadgetbridge (for Android) or Siglo or Amazfish (for Linux) in order to view notifications or use your watch as a remote control for music playback, among other things.

And version 1.0.0 of InfiniTime brings a new user interface that includes:

  • Quick action menu with brightness, do not disturb, and flash light
  • Settings menu with display timeout, wake display, time format, and default watch face options
  • New navigation that lets you swipe down for notifications, swipe up for applications, or swipe right for quick actions

Other changes include settings that are stored in memory so they’ll be restored after a reboot, and support for the motion sensor, which not only enables step counting but also an option to have the display wake up when you rotate your wrist to look at your watch.

The PineTime has some decent features for a $25 watch, including Bluetooth 5, motion and heart rate sensors, and a vibration motor. And running InfiniTime, the watch should get three to five days of battery life.

But it’s very much an entry-level device with

  • 1.3 inch, 240 x 240 pixel IPS LCD RGB display with 65K colors
  • Nordic Semiconductor nRF52832 chip with a 64 MHz ARM Cortex-M4F processor
  • Internal memory: 512KB Flash, 64KB RAM
  • Additional: SPI NOR 4 MB Flash
  • 170 to 180 mAh LiPo battery

You can find more details in Pine64’s blog post about the InfiniTime 1.0.0 release, check out the software’s GitHub page, or visit the Pine Store to purchase a PineTime smartwatch.

 

via Pine64

 

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