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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.

Gadgetbridge 0.62.0: Bug fix release to fix steps syncing. Plus, initial support for Casio STB-1000 and Galaxy Buds 2019

During this year's summer, in August, a long-standing issue was being dealt with of how time and time-zones are handled in Gadgetbridge for Huami devices. This resulted in a (finally) correct time to be sent to the watches, without time-zone related work around and guessing. Unfortunately, after the switch from daylight saving time (DST) back to normal time, one other place with an issue was discovered, which caused steps being not synchronized. We have fixed this issue and quickly made a release. After you update Gadgetbridge, all previously unsynchronized data will get synchronized automatically. As a result, world clocks and time zone indicators should show correct time, as well as GPS which might get a slightly faster position fix due to having correct initial time to start from. This fix is also fixing time-zone being sent to InfiniTime. Props to Andreas for the fast action on this!

Gadgetbridge 0.61.0: Initial support for true wireless earbuds Nothing Ear(1)

One of the core team members has provided an initial support for true wireless earbuds Nothing Ear(1). This is the first support of this kind of device in our codebase and it is a perfect fit for an app like Gadgetbridge. Many thanks to Daniele!

Special maintenance tender loving care of this release was devoted to Amazfit Bip U/Pro, with fixes targeting firmware and watchface flashing, Unicode emoji support and language settings (this fixed language settings for many Huami devices).

The Bluetooth enabled USB multimeter UM25 now displays more measured data and the editor for Fossil Hybrid HR watchfaces got the possibility to rotate images, making the user interaction simpler.

Gadgetbridge 0.60.0: Initial support for FitPro devices

Gadgetbridge 0.60.0 has been tagged and should hit F-Droid in a few days!

As the biggest feature, this release adds support for FitPro devices, which has been implemented by Petr Vaněk. The implementation was tested using an M6 band, but other devices which also work with the FitPro app could now also work with Gadgetbridge. For more details please have a look at the wiki

Noteworthy bugfixes include a fix for a wrong log directory named GB_LOGFILES_DIR_IS_UNDEFINED which confused developers and users for some years now, a connection fix for Casio GBX-100 devices, and a fix for weather on the new Mi Band 6 firmware, which introduced many breaking protocol changes. Implementing the new protocol started with Gadgetbridge 0.59.2, was completed with 0.59.3, and probably completely fixed with 0.60.0.

Gadgetbridge 0.59.0: Initial support for SMA Q2 (OSS Firmware), Fossil Hybrid HR improvements

Thanks to x29a, Gadgetbridge 0.59.0 now supports the open source custom firmware for the SMA Q2 done by Emeryth over at github.com. The devices features an always on reflective display and four buttons. For those who want a fully open source experience including the the firmware on the watch, this could be an option, along with the bangle.js and PineTime.

For Fossil Hybrid HR users, thanks to Arjan Schrijver (again!!) Gadgetbridge 0.59.0 also has a really cool watchface designer for new firmware versions. Without using the official app, it is now possible to create new watchfaces with a custom background and freely positioned widgets (weather, date, steps, HR implemented so far).