BangleJS 2

I ordered the BangleJS 2 programmable smart watch. After having issues with my Watchy, and the replacement V3 board suffering from significant clock drift, I decided to just pay out for a different device.

It arrived the next day, much faster than I was expecting. In between ordering it I had a mere 24 hours to doubt my purchase. I began to wonder if it might have been feasible to instead rewrite the existing Watchy firmware to run on 3 buttons instead of 4, by adjusting some functionality and adding a back option to the settings menu. That may indeed be possible, and I may still try that just for fun.

But the BangleJS 2 arrived, and any doubts I had about my choice were quickly replaced with awe over my shiny new toy. You can't build it and change the case like you can a Watchy, but the trade off is a waterproof case. I haven't had a chance to sit down and reprogram it, but on the surface of it, the process looks to be a good one. It seems a little clunky compared to the typical experience of programming micro controllers, but when you consider that it is a small indie project and the challenge of serial connection to a watertight enclosure, you can begin to understand the novel approach to developing on the board.

Even though I haven't had a chance to tinker with it, I have charged it up and have been wearing it for the better half of a week now. The battery seems good, I've used about 25% according to the battery indicator over 3-4 days. That said, I have disabled the heart rate monitor and am only counting my steps. I haven't had a chance to explore the various sensors or applications, but step counting appears to be accurate, and there has been no clock drift at all since I set the time initially.