As I think a lot of us have learned, using smart watches with /e/ can be a bit of a minefield. I have a Moto 360 Gen 3 that’s starting to have battery issues, and I’m hoping to crowdsource some suggestions for a new smart watch to replace it.
I managed to get the Moto 360 paired to /e/ on my Fairphone 5 using a version of the Chinese Wear OS pairing trick with older versions of the apps from APKMirror, but unfortunately no variation of that trick seems to be working with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7.
My understanding is that the fundamental problem with Wear OS watches and /e/ is the implementation of Google Play Services in MicroG. There’s been a MicroG issue open for literally a decade requesting wearable support, so it seems like this isn’t going to get resolved any time soon. Since WearOS seems to be off the table, I’m looking at things like Gadgetbridge and AsteroidOS to see what alternatives might work for me.
So, what are your suggestions for smartwatches that play nice with /e/ ? What are you using as your daily driver, and how did you get it working? What does it do well, and what do you wish it did better?
Another vote for Garmin devices. I have owned a few (Fenix 6s Solar, Vivoactive 3, Vivoactive HR), and the Connect App works fine on LineageOS for microG, and other ROMS based on it such as /e/OS, IodéOS.
I don’t use Garmin Pay, because I prefer to pay by card or cash
Appreciate the suggestion! One of my concerns about switching to a non-Wear OS device is losing its ability to echo phone notifications, not just for calls and music playback, but for things like my battery monitor app and call recorder. Do Garmin devices fully mirror Android notifications?
