XDrip+ and Watches

If any of you work in IT, you know that developers very seldom write documentation for the rest of us.

The xDrip team write some incredible software, that gives my diabetic life a massive leap forward in manageability, sometimes its hard to find up to date info on how parts of the system work (thats up to date at least).

The official info is here and has some great reference info: Nightscout cgm-watchfaces

Its possible using xDrip to get the display and high/low warnings etc on a bluetooth enabled watch, there are several types supported:

• Android Wear OS
• Pebble (all types)
• Amazfit
• Bip
• GTR
• BlueJay
• Lefun band
• MiBand

I initially bought an old Pebble Time (ebay £10) as these are now legacy, but after wearing it while fixing the car (it got covered in brake fluid) it fell to bits and I had to superglue it back together as a temporary fix.

I then started looking at the Android alternatives, as this is mainstream tech and seemed to be the easiest to get running, plus should have support going forward.

The watch I picked was a 2018 Ticwatch Pro - again from eBay (about £110 I think) which has been fine for the last 18 months or so. Then Google started changing the way Apps can be loaded onto a WearOS watch - they look to be forcing developers through the Playstore, which is difficult for an open source app and development team.

So for the moment there is a question on whether we will be able to load xDrip onto Android for updates etc without jumping through (IT) hoops, which lots of us find difficult to do.

I started to look back at the old Pebble watches and see if there was something I could pick up cheaply that would do the job, as Pebble was bought out by Fitbit in 2017 (and then shut down) the watches are getting old, and batteries in them starting to fail.

To get a Pebble to work, you need to load the Pebble app from the Playstore, then patch it using http://rebble.io (google 'pebble rebble' to find them)

Once thats done, you have the Pebble app with the associated store of watch apps/watch faces etc.

Here is what I've learned from looking at the watches themselves:

• Original Pebble Model 301BL (BL is black)
• Old and batteries usually failed by now, unless replaced.
• Essentially 2 types
• original kickstarter one, thats glued together
• the newer one, that has 4 screws on the back (screws are T3 torx)
• Batteries can be replaced (£15 quid on ebay) but its a reasonable bit of work to strip them down and solder the very small connections - not for the faint hearted.
• Monochrome screen
• Pebble Steel Model 401B
• Some working ones about on ebay if you keep looking (£15-£20)
• Lots suffer from Screen Tearing - the connector in the watch goes loose, so you have to take it to bits and jam something (toilet paper works fine) in the back over the connector and screw the back on again (T4 torx screws), lots of Youtubes on how to do this
• Monochome screen
• Strap is a stepped connector on the watch - special for the Pebble steel, so if you need one expect to pay £12 on Amazon or £20 on ebay
• The strap pins are screw in - not sure what the sizes are, but if you buy a working watch without them (I did) its probably easiest to buy a broken one an use the pins for spares
• Battery life 3-4 days using xDip
• Pebble Time Model 501
• Colour Screen (yay!)
• Battery life is usually 'ok' but mine lasts about 1.5-2 days before needing charging as its getting older
• Case is glued together so if you need to get into it - its a 'warm up with a hair dryer' job
• Pebble 2 Model 1002
• Newest (the last of the line) of watches before being shut down
• Heartrate monitor
• Colour screen
• Buttons on the side wear out (you can buy these 3D printed if a replacement is needed)

Pebble sold best in America - so lots more on ebay.com if you can stomach the postage costs to the UK