Privacy friendly fitness tracker?

Hardware Other Hardware
1

I’m looking for a fitness tracker that doesn’t suck.

I’m perfectly willing to assemble a kit, take an existing device and flash an off-label firmware, or buy a bespoke product from an Etsy vendor if it meets my needs. I just want it to not suck.

My definition of suck includes:

  • Requires proprietary software to interact with

I’m willing to accept a device that has proprietary firmware, but I’m not willing to run a proprietary app just to get meaningful data from it. If I can connect it via USB or something and export a CSV file, that’s fine.

  • No uploads, ever

I’m not willing to share my data with third parties. Ideally, it would never know who I am, and I wouldn’t have to create an account on anything in order to use or maintain it. The device should be functionally airgapped.

Known options, please correct me if I’m wrong:

  • Okinesio - Seems dead, but promising
  • Fitbit - Subset of data exposed via API, direct export requires proprietary app.
  • Misfit - Data exposed via API, no direct device export.
  • Jawbone - Subset of data exposed via API, direct export requires proprietary app.
  • Withings - Data provided by API with activation but service is dead.

Anybody have any suggestions, or info that should make me reconsider one of the above options?

2

Gadgetbridge (Use your Pebble/Bip/Miband/Hplus/[more] and keep your data private!) - https://f-droid.org/app/nodomain.freeyourgadget.gadgetbridge

I am running that with Mi fit band 3. Seems okay.

You can export the db

Screenshot_20190410-083358_Gadgetbridge
Screenshot_20190410-083358_Gadgetbridge.jpg1080×1920 326 KB

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Hell yeah! It’s stupid cheap, too! Thanks, gonna grab one now.

Already have a Xiaomi phone, and the Gadegetbridge developers described my concerns in the description of their app.

Can’t really ask for much more than that. :slight_smile:

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4

With this app i have had some issues tho, be advised:

  • The band doesn’t automatically turn on the screen on wrist movement.
  • The app only seems to record steps, not distance

Not sure what it does with other exercises.

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5

Unless it’s a hardware issue, that can usually be fixed in software.

I’m really not going to use it as a smartwatch, only as a fitness tracker… though, I am a little excited about some of the features they list, since it integrates with apps I already use.

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Also, $36.

My expectations are set appropriately. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Some features are device specific. And mi band 3 seems bit bare bones.

8

I needed this, why am I just hearing about this now

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9

Coz yall didn’t read my ungoogle thread

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Lies, slander, muck raking fibbers you are spouting good sir

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11

Updates:

This morning, I started getting notices that my battery was dying.

I charged it once the day I got it, and today is the first time I’m charging it since. It still has 14%, but I tend to charge when my devices nag me.

29 day battery life. I’m happy with that. :slight_smile:

Gadgetbridge is working beautifully, particularly with the sleep tracking.

Thanks for the suggestions, @redgek.

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Would probably charge at least every week (lithium batteries like to be topped off)

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does everything work fine for you? after I switched to a different ROM and paired it again, it stopped showing me the distance I walked, only steps :frowning:

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I’ve never had distance. Only steps.

15

Nice, though depending on the android device, ROM, and apps installed it might defeat the purpose :thinking:

tinfoil hat

16

Thanks @redgek and @imhigh.today for suggesting and checking out gadgetbridge. I got an Amazfit Bip about a week ago and it’s been great. Gadgetbridge works fantastic, and the sleep tracking is amazing.

Only issue I’ve had is getting weather to work. I followed the instructions and installed the Weather notification app, but all I get is a “Problem communicating with the API” error. Has anyone been able to get weather notifications working?

Oh, and the Bip does display distance, but I’m not sure how. I have GPS disabled on my phone, so it either calculates it based off steps (stride length or something), or the Bip has a GPS built in.

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sorry no idea about the weather

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The weather features of Gadgetbridge are poorly documented.

The docs imply it’s a native feature of Gadgetbridge - it’s not. Gadgetbridge is only capable of displaying weather notifications from other apps. It’s made all the more confusing because GB itself has an input box for weather locations…

From GitHub issues, I was able to figure out the problem and get weather notifications to work.

You need to install the “Weather Notification” app from F-Droid.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ru.gelin.android.weather.notification/

It pulls data from OpenWeatherMaps, which is why that app is listed as having anti-features. No API key or registration is required, but since it’s location-aware, it might have privacy implications.

There might be other apps capable of providing the notifications, but I’m not aware of any at this time.

19

And that’s what I installed. That’s where I’m getting the API error message. I also installed it from the regular Play Store, and checked that it had all permissions it needed. Don’t work.

Screenshot_20190529-142152_1
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Not a huge deal in any case. I don’t need weather on my watch. Just would be cool.

I’m going to play around with editing watch faces maybe tonight.

20

Just tested with the app from the Play Store. It worked fine for me using both “manual” update, and “using cellular and wifi”.

The only two things I can think of:

You’re having network issues hitting the OpenWeatherMaps API. If you’re running something like Pi Hole, make sure api.openweathermap.org is permitted.

The app also asks for permission to access your location. If you denied that, I could see problems as well.