Blog¶

Managing a Public End to End Room on Matrix: Lessons Learned

As you can imagine, the team behind Gadgetbridge is motivated to use and spread the use of Free Software even in areas that are only tangential to the main scope of the project. Just to name a few examples, we are using Liberapay to collect donations (to all our donors: Thank you!), and the project's initiator even created the probably most widely known publicly available free software Git (and more!) hosting in Europe run by a collective.

It is in this spirit that we share our experience in managing and running a large public end-to-end encrypted (e2ee) room on matrix.org. Please be aware that this post is primarily intended for a technical audience and not for Gadgetbridge users.

Gadgetbridge 0.85.0: Offline maps, new devices and lots of fixes

We're excited to roll out version 0.85.0 with fresh device support, new features, feature improvements and bug fixes. Of special note are the addition of offline maps in workout GPX tracks, and the support for generic unsupported headphones.

Gadgetbridge 0.84.0: Big Updates & New Device Support!

Hey Gadgetbridge users!

We’re excited to announce Gadgetbridge 0.84.0, packed with new features, bug fixes, and expanded device support! Whether you’re using smartwatches, headphones, fitness trackers, or even smart glasses, this update brings more compatibility and better functionality to your favorite gadgets.

Gadgetbridge 0.83.0: Merry Christmas! Here is your present!

Merry Christmas! Gadgetbridge 0.83.0 has been released and should hit F-Droid soon. Even if you do not celebrate Christmas, let's celebrate this release together!😊

We have some new features, device improvements, a lot of new devices supported and of course some bugfixes.

This release adds a first start onboarding screen, to help new users to get started with our App and grant necessary permissions easily. We also added a calories charts and widgets. Additionally 0.83.0 marks the first release that supports a whole new device category, a solar battery: The Marstek B2500.

Gadgetbridge 0.81.0: Introducing the dashboard view

Gadgetbridge 0.81.0 has been released and is available on F-Droid already. This release took more than 3 month, but the wait is finally over!

The highlight of this release is the newly introduced dashboard view, which will work for all devices that somehow measure steps and/or sleep. The dashboard view will give you a nice daily overview about, steps, distance, active time, sleep, activity and exercises. Please check it out :)

0.81.0 adds support for the following devices:

• Amazfit Bip 5 Unity (experimental)
• Redmi Watch 4 (experimental
• Cycling sensor
• More Garmin watches
• for Hama Fit6900
• Huawei Watch Fit 2, Watch Fit 3, Watch 4 Pro
• Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro

Gadgetbridge 0.79.0/0.79.1/0.80.0

Gadgetbridge 0.80.0 has been tagged (waiting for F-Droid to build).

After about a month after the 0.79.0/0.79.1 releases we are happy to announce the release of 0.80.0.

There is currently a steady stream of contributions, that it seems to make sense to aim for monthly releases while still having a lot to announce. Unfortunately, we did not find time to do a proper 0.79.0/0.79.1 announcement, so this blog post will mainly about 0.80.0, but still list the full changelog of 0.79.0/0.79.1.

0.80.0 adds support for the following devices:

Gadgetbridge 0.78.0: Huawei/Honor device support!

Gadgetbridge 0.78.0 has been tagged (waiting for F-Droid to build).

This time we only had one month in between releases, but it is still a big one, since support for Huawei/Honor devices finally got merged. Many thanks to Damien Gaignon and Martin.JM for their amazing work!

This currently covers the following Huawei/Honor devices:

• Honor Band 3,4,5,6
• Honor Band 7 (experimental)
• Huawei Band 4, 4 Pro, 6, 7, 3e, 4e
• Huawei Talk Band B6
• Huawei Watch GT, GT 2

Gadgetbridge 0.78.0 also adds support for two new Xiaomi devices (in addition to the many devices that were already supported since the last release:

gadgetbridge.org website relaunch

We are very excited to announce our completely revamped website!

For a long time gadgetbridge.org was just generated from the README.md in our main Gadgetbridge repository. That was all.

Real documentation was only found in our wiki, which was not exactly easy to navigate or pretty. In addition it was tedious for outside contributors to change the contents of the wiki because it was just not editable for everyone.

This all changed now, thanks to Yusuf Cihan, please check it out!

Gadgetbridge 0.77.0: Biggest. Release. Ever. Merry Christmas

Gadgetbridge 0.77.0 has been tagged (waiting for F-Droid to build), it marks the biggest release ever, in terms of changes and new device support.

Okay, that sounds great, but, honestly part of the reason is that we never had such a long time between releases. :)

First the list of new devices supported:

• Amazfit: Balance, Active, Active edge (experimental)
• FitPro: ColaCao 2021, ColaCao 2023
• Sony Wena 3 (A watch band with an integrated smartwatch)
• Femometer Vinca II (fertility thermometer)
• Mijia LYWSD02MMC variant (epaper clock/thermometer/hygrometer)
• Sony WF-1000XM5 (headphone, experimental)
• Divoom Pixoo (LED Matrix, experimental)
• Xiaomi Devices (experimental, see next paragraph)

Gadgetbridge 0.76.0/0.76.1: Material 3, and a lot of new devices supported

Almost two month between major releases, but the wait is over, and Gadgetbridge 0.76.0 (and 0.76.1 which mostly fixes regression) has been released!

This time we did not only add support for new Amazfit devices (Bip 3 Pro, Bip 5, Cheetah, Cheetah Pro, Bip 5, Falcon, GTR Mini, T-Rex Ultra) and a new Casio watch (GW-B5600), but also multiple completely new devices from previously unsupported manufacturers:

• Bohemic Smart Bracelet
• Garmin Vivomove HR
• Withings Steel HR

You might also notice that we switched the UI to Material 3, which also adds support for dynamic color themes. We hope you like the new fresh look of Gadgetbridge.