Despite the hardware limitations, it would be amazing to watch the community continue to add new features and fix bugs past the 7 years mark.
The project has 141 contributors, 50 patches and 2800 stars on github and 1393 members in the matrix channel.
I’m really impressed that the watch gets 2-3 updates a year with the screenshots showing an advanced operating system despite the low spec sheet.
It would really be a bad look for Apple when the original Pinetime (Nordic Semiconductor nRF52832 64MHz 32-bit CPU, 240x240 LCD IPS, 512KB + 4MB STORAGE, 64KB RAM, 170-180 mAh BATTERY, 5.0/LE BLUETOOTH, Accelerometer, Heart rate sensor SENSORS) outlasts the Series 4 longevity-wise (Apple S4 Dual-core 64-bit CPU, PowerVR GPU, 448x368 pixels OLED, 16GB STORAGE, 1GB RAM 292 mAh, 5.0/LE BLUETOOTH, Accelerometer, Gyro, Heart Rate, Barometer SENSORS)
Whats the point of having all that beefy hardware if Apple doesn’t fully utilize it and locks the new features/watch faces behind the new models to get you to spend more. Meanwhile the Pinetime has a unlocked bootloader with multiple operating systems to choose from.
Before I heard the project, I was planning to get the Apple Watch Ultra 4 in 2026 with blood glucose tracking but I now know the Pinetime is a much better choice in the end since the watch is much cheaper and the open source nature greatly hastens the innovation and takes full advantage of the hardware.
To be clear, with the default OS, you don’t get true 24/7 heart rate tracking. You can simulate it though by turning the heart rate monitor “app” on and backing out of it without stopping it, and then make sure you have the wake on movement options enabled.
The pinetime is a very basic smart watch. It is not fancy in any stretch of the imagination. It shows the text of notifications only, does very basic heart rate monitoring, and you have to manually go into a different “app” to do multimedia controls. You’ll notice I’m saying app in quotes. They’re more like built-in function menus, you can’t install new apps.
But despite all that, I have never had a watch this refreshingly good to use. I have had 2 WearOS watches and work gave me a demo Apple Watch to show customers. All of them were nice, but all of them had that enshittification ooze leaking out of them.
Pinetime is simple. It works. It simply works. And for that, I love it.
Oh and the week-long battery is nice too.