I'm using a Garmin watch with GadgetBridge. I've never had the watch connected to any Garmin app.
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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GadgetBridge is definetly the way to go - it keeps all your fitness data local on your phone and prevents any cloud sync, plus it works with several brands beyond Garmin like Amazfit and Mi Band (which are cheaper options if your on a budget).
By the way one more thing why you want to switch to Gadgetbridge is to stop firmware update, because at one point, the enshittification update will come. Sadly, too late for me, my gps went from locking within seconds to locking within the next 30 minutes :(
Okay I just wrote basically the same post ๐
I use a garmin watch with Garmins services. Not idea and might look into gadget bridge but I chose it precisely because they're the most privacy friendly.
Not European, but you can use Garmin watches without any app. Setup all works without an account and you can pull *.fit files with recorded trainings from the watch via USB to use as you wish.
Look into Withings, a French company. Not sure what cloud infra they use though.
Best to just not have a fitness tracker.
Seriously, this. The things are genuinely useless. They canโt even measure your heart rate correctly (seriously look it up. They use algorithms to โestimateโ your heart rate. Different brands give different results. People wear elaborate chest strap setups to try and get an accurate value and even then itโs subject to a huge margin of error).
Get a $10 dumbwatch with a stopwatch function. Run or cycle a familiar route once in a while to track your progress. Find different ways to challenge yourself. Do some runs all out. Hill sprints. Do some longer runs a bit slower than you would think, so that even if your breathing is a little heavier you could still hold a conversation with someone while maintaining that pace.
Ignore all the senselessly overcomplicated 5 stage heartrate zone V02max aerobic astrology bull that these companies advertise to you as a big benefit of their product. Having a 3d map of your route is not going to make you a better runner. Having a virtual leaderboard where 99% of people you compete against are using a wonky cellphone gps that teleports them 1000ft off course isnโt going to make you a better runner
And once I considered making a real tracker. Free market told me to screw myself, becausr
- it'll be more expensive obviously
- nobody cared for real data, very few users understand this point
- regular users want something really simple, nonsense apps work just because all people need is motivation
- professionals do not care for they do not really know what to do with this data, they want a slice of contract paid by investors
- doesn't matter what the product is, it's how it is marketed
Bottom line: nobody really needs good trackers, and also it's all in your head. Just authentically enjoy your workout and if you need a technology for motivation - take some free app from f-droid and keep it local!
I don't get it. Isn't the main function of a fitness tracker the gps? How else can I know if I'm running 5, 10, 12 km, or whatever my goal for that day is?
Sure, all that health data is useless, but knowing the distance I'm running is pretty valuable for training.
I do trail running primarily these days so my actual distance Iโll just pull from the trail map.
If you do roads you can actually just drive the route in a car once, and use the trip function. You can also plan a route with a map or map app.
But the other, easiest thing to do would be to actually switch training paradigms from distance to time. Right so instead of running a 12k, or hitting 50km per week, you could say โOn this training day I want to run at a tough but manageable pace for an hour, and I want to train 6 hours a week in generalโ
From there you just mix in some track days (or days you run any familiar route with a known distance) to get an idea of how far you might be running in those intervals of time, if you feel like you really need to.
You have to remember portable gps tech is an extremely recent thing compared to how long runners have been training. Iโm not against progress for progressโs sake mind you but I just genuinely donโt believe the introduction of these apps and trackers, with their many flaws, has improved the quality of peopleโs training. The old ways also cost nothing and have no privacy or security risks which is a bonus for many people
I have "looked it up" and I have designed medical PPG devices professionally also. They absolutely do not "estimate" your heart rate any more than holding your finger to your wrist and counting your heart beats in a minute. That is also "estimation" just like literally all physical measurements that are measured for less than t=infinity are.
Of course, there are manufacturers and models that do it badly, especially during weightlifting or heavy flexion/high wrist impact activities.
1 lead ECG can also very very reliably measure your heart rate even during and that is what chest straps like the Polar H10 do in a variety of exercises.
Here is a good overview of fitness watch PPG testing in a variety of scenarios and how it correlates to 1 lead ECG. This guy does tons and tons of extended tests. I just chose a recent one that has recent devices. Even sleep cycle recognition in modern smart watches is getting better and better correlation to EEG, which this guy also tests sometimes.
Stress, recovery times, VO2max, etc.. All of the "1 degree removed" statistics are generally a loose educated guess and generally crap.
Heart rate, HRV, skin temperature, speed with GPS + IMUs, and to a certain extent relative activity intensity can be directly measured and are not a guess if the device is designed and tested well (which admittedly, only like 10% of devices are)
Blood pressure measurements using the principle of delay between electrical signals and pressure wave elasticity is also being FDA certified right now as accurate to a certain percentage of medical pressure cuffs.
if the device is designed and tested well (which admittedly, only like 10% of devices are)
Pretty condescending post only for you to โadmitโ that the overwhelming supermajority of products on the market are badly designed. And then to agree with me that the information they extrapolate is โcrapโ, too.
Did you know that virtually all runners are using tech from that 90% crap category? Thatโs also who my post aimed at. You know, the people currently being scammed by these marketing companies, not people with the specific medical grade equipment you personally designed.
Thank you, nonetheless, for the interesting info and further reading. Hopefully it will help steer people towards good equipment if they do decide they want to track these metrics as accurately as possible
Suunto ... sends your data to ~~finland~~ china.
Annoying as I bought it to keep my data in Europe (better of multiple evils) but it's china now anyway. sigh
I really want more F/OSS hardware to become a thing.
The best two I've found are PineTime and Bangle.JS
It's basic. It's open source, it doesn't need GPlay, and it works.
Between this and a GPX track recorder you most of the data these things use except heart rate, and heart rate trackers are really bad at what they do.
I can also recommend MediLog for manual recording of real data from external tools.
This would be tough unless you plan to self-host or use something like "Gadgetbridge" to keep the data local.
Nearly every service I know of will use some kind of American backend, or sells/"shares" their data with Americans.
I use fitotrack, as it keeps everything offline. I use trale to track my weight. Both are on fdroid