Gadgetbridge compatible Smartwatch with good sleep and health tracking?

[Davian]

@Davian

Thanks to everyone replying to this thread

I think I will to buy a Garmin watch, and I think I will go with the Garmin Venu 3 for the following reasons:

@moderators Please unflag my post.

It is not an AI generated post.
The first half of the post is entirely writen by me and links to Gadget Bridge as a source.When I quoted AI, I made it clear that it was an AI quote.

[Davian]

@kissu

That’s precisely the issue, the amount of reviews.

@kissu

But besides this, having 10 people saying the metrics are good is not a big enough amount of people.

10 reviews with 5 stars total score has quite less value than 3000 reviews with 4.5 stars total IMO.

Does the Venu 3 has so much less review then the Instict , the vivoactive 6 or something different matching my requirements?

[kissu]

I don’t personally know, have made any research on Garmin myself.
But a quick search could probably help you narrow that one down.

[Libre_Software_Enjoyer]

@Davian

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

I am the only person who wants a button to view flagged posts to see what was inside?

[Davian]

How do I update the firmware of a Garmin watch?

I tried these things:

Gadgetbridge file loader

Gadgetbridge offers the option to flash firmware from file, but doesn’t provide any way to obtain this files.

I tried to find a firmware file for my watch on the internet, but didn’t succeed.

On watch Menu

Deep in the watch setting there is an option to trigger an update with the watch:
Hold Lower button > Settings > System > Software Update

Then there are two options:
Add Network
Use Bluetooh

I don’t want to add a network because this would allow the watch to have a direct network connection and therefore exchange data in an uncontrolled way.

So I tried to use Bluetooth, but despite my watch being connected to my phone over Bluetooth and the Garmin connect app being open, it jsut searched and then failed.

Garmin Connect App

I tried to find an update option inside the official Garmin connect app, but it seems like there is no such option.
But I am not sure because the app is very confusing and lacks a search function

[Davian]

Garmin Express

To update the firmware off the watch I needed to start a windows pc, cause the Garmin Express .exe doesn’t run with Bottles.
After I installed Garmin express on Windows and connected the watch it first stated that it was up to date, I repeatedly searched for updates and after approximately 10 minutes the watch was suddenly installing an update, which was only visible on the watch screen and not in Garmin Express.
.

I really don’t get why the update process is so stupid and buggy for Garmin watches and why Gadgetbridge can’t provide links to obtain firmware files to just flash them with GB.

[SunDevil311]

I’m actually looking into this as well. From what I’ve read, and based on the GadgetBridge website, I’d recommend an AmazFit device. Personally, I plan on trying the Band 7.

The vast majority of Zepp OS devices appear to have good support, but it varies model-by-model. Here’s the reference for AmazFit:

Amazfit - Gadgetbridge

There seems to be some confusion about obtaining the auth key. My understanding is that the newer AmazFit devices–based on Zepp OS–can simply pull the auth key from either a third party app called Notify (link below) or the official Zepp app with huafetcher.

play.google.com

Notify for Amazfit & Zepp

Heart and activities tracker, notifications, maps, button actions and more tool...

Free

The difference is that you can supposedly firewall Notify, generate the auth key, then uninstall. With the Zepp app you’ll have to create an account and use either hua-fetcher or huami-token utility to extract the key, though this should be avoidable by using Notify. Neither root nor ADB should be necessary if you go the Notify route.

Again, this is my understanding of how the newer Zepp OS-based devices work, based on my own research. I haven’t actually set it up yet, though I do plan on purchasing a Band 7 shortly for this purpose.

I’d love to hear from any AmazFit owners who have actually gone through this process with GadgetBridge, in order to confirm I’m not mistaken.

[Davian]

I want to share some of my experience since I have the Garmin Venu 3 for about 2 weeks now.

Health Data Tracking

The Garmin Venu 3 tracks my sleep and also share’s this data with the Gadgetbridge app, but there are some major issues:

Incoherent Data between watch and app

Every time when I checked it, there was a data difference of sometimes even more then 2 hours between the sleep time data in the Gadgegtbridge app the data on the Garmin watch display.

Example:
Sleep time on watch: 7h 51m
Sleep time in Gadgetbridge: 5h 45m

Other data like the sleep score is syncing without issues.

Interruption of Sleep

If I’m getting up at night to go to the toilet and its takes a little bit longer, then Garmin registers this as having risen up and restart’s the sleep tracking when I’m going back into bed.
If I am waken up for toilet 3 hours before my normal wake up time, it says that I have only sleept 3 hours when I finally wake up.
This leads extreme bad sleep ratings.