this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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Linux Phones

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Community about running GNU/Linux on phones. Projects like Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Mobile, PostmarketOS, Mobian etc. Either on former Android phones or hardware like the PinePhone.

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What happened to the PinePhone? (youtu.be)
submitted 1 month ago by poVoq to c/linuxphones@lemmy.ml
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[–] sunstoned@lemmus.org 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Cool video and channel. Thanks for posting!

TLDW:

[It was a cool attempt that may have spurred mobile Linux devs in an important way. Removable battery + hardware switches for communication subsystems were genuinely innovative and in tune with community interests. Also it was bad. 8 year old CPU, software that was trying to do everything everywhere all at once, cameras that didn't work then technically did. Pine64 still exists and the Pinephone Pro is a thing (that the presenter hadn't tested).]

Presenter was generous when describing the end product. It seems to me like they want to like it but came to the same conclusion as most did -- it's definitely not a daily driver. That said, it doesn't have to be to remain a cool product.

Do give them a watch though if you have a chance. This is from a <1k subscriber channel and was well put together.

[–] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (7 children)

I'm convinced Pine64 has no idea how to make an actual usable product.

I wasted my money on a PineTime watch. And it's basically only useful for telling time, because as soon as you try to use any smartwatch features, the battery life basically disappears. Firmware updates are horrendously slow. The device has like 5kb of storage and 4kb is used by the base firmware, so when I thought I could program my own features for it because it's open source, it was severely mistaken. Not to mention that if I'm not particularly amazing at programming for this device I either destroy the battery life or brick it.

[–] sunstoned@lemmus.org 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

On the watch front I opted for the Bangle.JS 2. The abstraction to everything being JavaScript can be annoying, but takes away some foot guns for tinkerers who don't want to optimize lower level code.

[–] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Yeah. I didn't mind the idea of learning C for the PineTime, but the development process for it was just not functional for someone new to that kind of development.

I use JavaScript every day for my job, so that seems much better for my purposes.

[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This thing looks awesome, thanks for the link

[–] sunstoned@lemmus.org 3 points 1 month ago

Of course! I've loved mine. The community and integration with Gadgetbridge are both awesome. You're in for a treat if you go this route.

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Pinecil is a brilliant product, though, and not just a development tool.

Well, ok, it's a development tool but not just pinecil development. It works as a tool ootb.

[–] thejevans@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

100%

I love my pinecil. I have a ts80p as well and the pinecil is just better.

[–] Orygin@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago

Dang, I see this as I'm waiting for my pinetime to arrive. On paper it seemed okay, and the latest versions seem to have improved the battery life. Will see once I receive it

[–] thejevans@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I've had good luck with the Bangle.js 2. I get 3-4 weeks of battery life using it for time, weather, notifications, alarms, and as a heart rate monitor every once in a while.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago

Ooh interesting, I've been considering what to do when my Pebble eventually packs in, do you think this is a worthy replacement?

[–] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's definitely what I'm considering next. Though, I would like to have sleep tracking.

[–] thejevans@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

It has sleep tracking and it works okay.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It is difficult to have a smart watch though. Think about it: you have a small chip with a wifi stack, bluetooth, even a camera slot, it consumes ~5mA when awake even when down clocked, but can at least save power by consuming ~1microA when asleep but it can never use its sleep states because it's primary function is to display and update the time at all times.

All because of a little boy, who won't let me sleep!

[–] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You're describing a ton of features that a smart watch does not need. It doesn't need wifi or a camera, for example.

The thing is, there's TONS of off-brand smart watches that can do constant heart rate monitoring, notifications, sleep tracking, and those more basic smart features very well. The problem is that they require proprietary apps and a cloud account you have no control over.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You’re describing a ton of features that a smart watch does not need. It doesn’t need wifi or a camera, for example.

I agree, I was just demonstrating that you could have a tiny chip packed full of features as well as optimized sleep states to really save on power, and it still runs out of power on the same scale as a smartphone, due to the sole reason that it's not actually allowed to go to sleep and still function as a watch.

Most get around this by not displaying the time unless you shake the watch awake (which I find hilarious), or running at extremely low clock-rates in which case the latency in user-interaction suffers.

The problem is that they require proprietary apps and a cloud account you have no control over.

Agreed. SQFMI's Watchy powered by the fantastic ESP32 seemed promising, but despite having a full bluetooth/wifi stack is very limited in other features.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

I don't think creating, or even working towards, usable end products is their goal. I'm not actually sure what's up with Pine64, they made the most sense to me when I first heard of them as an also ran to Raspberry Pi. There's lots of those and they all make an equal amount of sense.

[–] Chais@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

Yes updates are slow, but keep in mind that the developers are all volunteers.
Currently the PineTime is a glorified step counter, but with the next update (should be 1.15, I hope) we'll get background heart rate monitoring. The PR is shaping up and will hopefully be merged before the next release.

[–] terusgormand8465@lemmings.world 1 points 1 month ago

Basically they didn't even try to design good hardware.