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Gadgetbridge 0.72.0: Lot of new devices and rewritten device discovery

It took unusually long to get this out, but we tried to make it before Christmas, so here it is: Gadgetbridge 0.72.0

And since it is already out on F-Droid, todays blog post will be written by ChatGPT to save time. :O

Q: Can you please write a blog post about a gadgetbridge release? Here is the Changelog...

Gadgetbridge is a free, open-source application that allows users to communicate with and manage their wearable devices. The latest release, version 0.72.0, brings a host of new features and improvements to the application.

Gadgetbridge 0.71.x: Initial support for Amazfit GTR 3 and SuperCars (Shell Racing Cars)

After some delays and fine-tuning of the release, next version of Gadgetbridge is now out with whole lot of changes. Interestingly, it is not 0.71 but already 0.71.3 as of the writing of this blog post.

Initial support for Amazfit GTR 3 and SuperCars (Shell Racing Cars)

Initial support for Amazfit GTR 3 was added, which is very similar to GTS 3, and Mi Band 7 see the wiki page here for more information.

@vanous has added support for an entirely new class of devices - a Bluetooth remote controlled car models! If you own a Shell Racing Car, please give it a try ;)

Gadgetbridge 0.70.0: Initial support for Amazfit GTS 3, for Fossil Hybrid Gen6 and for Flipper Zero

Initial support for Amazfit GTS 3, for Fossil Hybrid Gen6 and for Flipper Zero

Initial support for Amazfit GTS 3 has been provided by Codeberg user sedy89. This is based on the recent addition of support for the Mi Band 7 and thus has similar set of features and limitations, see the wiki page here.

Daniel Dakhnod has provided support for the Fossil Hybrid Gen6 watches, extending the list of supported Fossil Hybrid devices even more. Daniel has also worked on support for the Flipper Zero, an open source multi-tool for pentesters and geeks.

Gadgetbridge 0.69.0: Initial support for Mi Band 7, Binary Sensor Service and for Fossil 38mm

Our small group of Gadgetbridge contributors has been very busy in the past several weeks and the changelog of this new release really shows it. Today, Gadgetbridge is bringing support for some new devices together with features, bug fixes and improvements to existing devices and the app itself.

Initial support for Mi Band 7, for devices that use Binary Sensor Service and for Fossil/Skagen Hybrid HR 38mm watches

Mi Band 7 has been out and José Rebelo has worked hard to bring initial support for this new smart band. The device support is at the moment still somewhat limited but it is getting better over time. See this wiki page for details about currently supported features and also for list of known issues.

Gadgetbridge 0.68.0: Multiple device connections - a huge release!

After almost two months of work since the last version, we finally released one of the biggest releases of all time!

Multiple device connections

Gadgetbridge could traditionally only connect to one device at one moment. That was mostly enough since not many people would need to connect to two smart watches at the same time. But Gadgetbridge has expanded, and there are a lot of non-smartwatch devices supported by now. For example smart headphones with various settings or the Mijia e-paper watch. If you wanted to connect to those devices, you always needed to disconnect your daily driver smart band/watch first. Thanks to Daniel Dakhnod who worked on multiple device connection support for over a month, we finally felt that it was time to merge his branch. We assume there are still some problems and regressions when more than one device is connected at a time - so consider this experimental and please report bugs into our bug tracker.

Gadgetbridge 0.67.0: Initial Support for Sony WF-1000XM3 and Galaxy Buds Pro

After two months of development since the last version, we have yet another very interesting feature rich release to talk about. Development felt a bit slow at the beginning but looking at the changelog, there are many additions, improvements and also some newly supported devices.

New devices

Lets start with new support for another two headphones - Sony WF-1000XM3 and Galaxy Buds Pro. While it may feel like "yet another very similar device(s)", each of them required careful work on dissecting and implementing the communication protocols. Big thanks to José R. for work on the Sony headphones and in the case of the Galaxy Buds Pro, also big thank you to two very helpful users - owners of the headphones - who were able to gather the data and help with providing the necessary low level communication info that was required for implementing support for this device.

Gadgetbridge 0.66.0: Initial support for Casio GBD-H1000 and Hama Fit Track 1900

Support for two new devices has been added - the Casio GBD-H1000 and Hama Fit Track 1900. Both of these additions use existing device implementations and add a new name of the device as chosen by the vendor, allowing more people to use their devices with Gadgetbridge.

Arjan Schrijver worked on a new OpenTracks Controller which allows tight integration between Gadgetbridge and OpenTracks. The main idea is to be able to use OpenTracks as a source of data during workouts (running, walking...). OpenTracks can be started from a device (watch) connected to Gadgetbridge, activity is tracked in OpenTracks and OpenTracks provides information about activity duration, speed and so on to Gadgetbridge, who sends it back to the watch. At the moment, only the Fossil Hybrid HR provides full integration into it's Workout app. Huami devices (Mibands, Amazfit) with a button that allows usage of the Button actions can use this via a new Action: Fitness app tracking start. Current limitations of this OpenTracks Controller are:

Gadgetbridge 0.65.0: Initial support for Amazfit Pop/Pro watch and for Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones

Support for Amazfit Pop/Pro has been added. This watch seems to be almost identical to Amazfit Bip U/Pro but it has different firmware so we have separated the device support to make sure things work correctly in the future. Another new device are the over the ear wireless headphones Sony WH-1000XM4.

The overall Sony Headphones implementation has been worked on a lot and got improvements to initialization, noise canceling and more.

Fossil Hybrid HR support has also received several updates and improvements.

Gadgetbridge 0.64.0: Initial support for VESC NRF/HM10 devices, Bose QC35 and for Sony WF-SP800N

Quite unexpectedly, we have tagged and F-Droid has already published one more update: 0.64.0, making it the 24th release of this year. Besides many "small" additions and improvements, this release also adds support for three new devices: two new earphones, Bose QC35 and Sony WF-SP800N, plus there is now also support for VESC NRF/HM10 devices - Speed Controllers. Adding device support is always a lot of work so we are grateful for every single device support, allowing everyone to use their devices in a libre way.

Gadgetbridge 0.63.0: Initial support for Galaxy Buds Live, Sony WH-1000XM3

This might be the last release for 2021, but it is a big one!

This release adds support for two new earphones, the Sony WH-100XM3 and Galaxy Buds Live and also for two another watches of the Casio family, the GBD-200 and for GBD-100 (support of the GBD-100 is untested at the moment).

Apart from that there are several new features and bug fixes across many different devices.

Most notably for everyone with a device supporting step counting, there is a big visual change in the main activity: The device cards will now show steps, distance and sleep data, which eliminates the need to enter the Charts screen when an overview it enough.