The PINE64 open source community unveiled several days ago the release of InfiniTime 1.0, which is the PineTime smartwatch official firmware which states that equipping it with the new firmware version makes the PineTime watch a ready-made product for end users.
The changelog points to a significant redesign of the interface, as well as an improvement to the notification manager and a fix for the TWI driver, which previously caused crashes in games.
The watch PineTime was introduced in October 2019 and has evolved as a PinePhone compatible device. In September 2020, the free InfiniTime firmware, the code of which is distributed under the GPLv3 license, was chosen as the default firmware for PineTime.
The device is based on the MCU NRF52832 (64 MHz) microcontroller and is equipped with 512KB system Flash memory, 4MB Flash for user data, 64KB RAM, 1.3-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 240 × 240 pixels. , accelerometer (used as a pedometer), heart rate sensor and vibration motor. The battery charge (180 mAh) is sufficient for 3-5 days of battery life.
Like any true open source project, PineTime is not based solely on a single community or a single firmware. There are many other projects available that are currently in development and all deserve the attention of the user base. The most advanced firmware on the list is probably Wasp-OS, the Micropython firmware. It provides a lot of functionalities and is really easy to use and program thanks to the Python language.
I'd also like to highlight Pinetime-Lite, a fork of Joaquimorg's InfiniTime. Joaquim added a lot of nice features and enhancements, and has already contributed a lot of his work to InfiniTime.
Firmware InfiniTime uses the FreeRTOS 10 real-time operating system, the LittleVGL 7 graphics library and the Bluetooth NimBLE 1.3.0 stack, while the firmware loader is based on MCUBoot.
The user interface code is written in C ++ and includes functions such as a watch (digital, analog), an activity tracker (heart rate monitor and pedometer), which shows notifications about events on a smartphone, a flashlight, music playback control on a smartphone, showing instructions for a browser, a stopwatch and two simple games (Paddle and 2048).
Through the settings, you can determine the time the screen turns off, the time format, the activation conditions, change the screen brightness, evaluate the battery charge and the firmware version.
Among its main features include:
- 2 watch faces: digital and analog
- Various applications (stopwatch, music control, navigation, heart rate) and games (Paddle and 2048)
- User settings (display timeout, time format, trigger conditions)
- OTA updates with the help of a MCUBoot-based FOSS bootloader
- Heart rate monitoring and step count.
- 3-5 days of battery life
Regarding the firmware update, it is mentioned that this can be updated through OTA updates transmitted from the smartphone through Bluetooth LE.
On the other hand, regarding the relationship of the linking and control of the smart watch in non-Pine devices, it is mentioned that in smartphones and computers it is possible to use the applications Gadgetbridge for Android, Amazfish (for Sailfish and Linux ) and Century (for Linux) to control the clock.
Also, also It is mentioned that there is experimental support for WebBLEWatch, a web application for synchronizing clocks from browsers that support the Bluetooth Web API.
The firmware author recalls that in addition to InfiniTime there are a number of alternatives, for example there are firmware options based on Zephyr, Mynewt OS, MbedOS, TinyGo, WaspOS (based on Micropython) and PinetimeLite (extended modification of InfiniTime firmware).
Finally for those interested in knowing more about it About this new firmware or device, you can check the details In the following link.