[HN Gopher] On Liberating My Smartwatch from Cloud Services
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       On Liberating My Smartwatch from Cloud Services
        
       Author : zdw
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2020-07-24 22:03 UTC (56 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bunniestudios.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bunniestudios.com)
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | Yes. The screenshots of the dark pattern dialogs from the "anal
       | probe as a service" site are great.
        
       | andrewstuart wrote:
       | Aaron Christophel has a YouTube channel in which he shows how to
       | replace the firmware of P8 smartwatches with custom firmware,
       | over the air.
       | 
       | If you like his work .... you could support him by subscribing to
       | his channel perhaps.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/user/12002230
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbPz3WWBuJ8
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgjKaSETY8Y
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aFDjymXjOw
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGFwQUxhCxc
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRqulnz1nJM
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUVEz-pxhgg
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9KMUe6GVLw
        
       | ocdtrekkie wrote:
       | I took my Fitbit off when Google announced the acquisition. Kinda
       | hoping PineTime will be a good alternative when a more polished
       | version becomes available.
       | 
       | I still have my Fitbit data and even my old Google location
       | history backed up. I wish more projects focused on importing from
       | takeouts of proprietary services.
        
       | OnACoffeeBreak wrote:
       | For a list of various utilities that work with fitness trackers:
       | https://www.dcrainmaker.com/tools
        
       | hdasika wrote:
       | "Since Garmin at least made money on the hardware, collecting my
       | health data is just icing on the cake; for Strava, my health data
       | is the cake."
       | 
       | I dont see a difference between what Garmin and Strava do to your
       | data. Ultimately, Strava is trying to provide you some more
       | insights using your health data. It ultimately depends whether
       | you want it or not. Isn't this the same with all the services
       | these days?
        
         | skummetmaelk wrote:
         | That's like saying Google collects user data _only_ to improve
         | search. We all know it goes much deeper than that.
        
       | j88439h84 wrote:
       | Does this take data from the Garmin web API or directly from the
       | watch hardware, without uploading it to Garmin?
        
         | jordan801 wrote:
         | It takes it directly from the .fit file on the watch, uses some
         | software to parse the file. You can get the .fit file on a
         | windows machine by plugging the watch into it and accessing it
         | like a USB.
         | 
         | Not sure about linux, but I've heard Mac requires some third
         | party software.
        
         | OnACoffeeBreak wrote:
         | I see a bunch of .fit files in
         | <watch_name>/Primary/GARMIN/Activity/ when I plug my watch into
         | a USB port on my PC. So, you can definitely get them off your
         | device without connecting to Strava or Garmin Connect.
        
       | huhtenberg wrote:
       | Hold on. So how does one go about _retrieving_ the data from a
       | Garmin watch?
       | 
       | Garmin app's insistence on always needing a connection to their
       | servers has always been bothersome, but now that the servers are
       | fubared, it turns out that I can't even get the data off the
       | tracker and onto an iPhone, because that too somehow needs a
       | server connection. Finding an alternative had suddenly became a
       | high priority task.
        
         | asimilator wrote:
         | My Fenix 5 shows up as a mass storage device when I plug in the
         | usb cable to my computer. You can pull .fit files off that,
         | which contain everything the watch records.
        
       | dTal wrote:
       | >It's exactly the data I need, in the format that I want; no
       | more, and no less. Plus, the output is a single html file that I
       | can share directly with nothing more than a simple link. No
       | analytics, no cookies. Just the data I've chosen to share with
       | you.
       | 
       | I click the link and am presented with the familiar blank page of
       | needs-javascript. Oh dear. What has uBlock stopped this time?
       | 
       | * maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com
       | 
       | * cdnjs.cloudflare.com
       | 
       | * rawcdn.githack.com (also a cookie from here)
       | 
       | * code.jquery.com
       | 
       | * cdn.jsdelivr.net
       | 
       | Not quite the "single html file, no analytics, no cookies" that
       | was promised.
        
         | jordan801 wrote:
         | They were referring to the output file their code produces...
         | Not the .fit parser.
        
       | j88439h84 wrote:
       | Is it possible to get data off a Fitbit without uploading it to
       | cloud?
        
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       (page generated 2020-07-24 23:00 UTC)