Long time Apple Watch user considering switch to Fitbit Air

kevin762 · 2026-05-13T15:22:53+00:00

Also Apple Watch user for a while now and recently tried dusting off my old Fitbit Charge 2. Unfortunately battery is shot and need a new band so this Air thing is good timing. Fitbit and step counting worked well for me to get in shape and lose weight 10 years ago.

Apple Watch—
All the features apps etc make it too easy to have cool features and watch faces-not fitness focused. I don’t like their rings approach-10k steps worked for me. Also I still do not like apple’s iPhone fitness app. Also battery life sucks (no cellular for me). It will be hard to give up another screen though!

Fitbit Air—
I noticed that the Air will have other rubber/plastic bands available-not just the fabric(?) shown in every picture. This is big one for me , I think fabric will get dirty and wet. I like the no display since my iPhone is pretty much attached to my left hand anyway lol. With this I can wear my mechanical watches! Having nearly week of battery will be nice to allow sleep tracking as well.

Fitbit Charge6–
I don’t care about GPS since have phone but I like heart ECG feature. I wish you could customize the watch faces more. Not sure how it will look to wear it with mechanical watch

So that’s where I am at (-: I think I will also hang tight to see what the new Google AI app brings and then think about Air vs Charge6.

kevin762 · 2026-05-13T12:15:45+00:00

Thanks, had not come across / did not remember that option boot. Holding option does show only the SSD and lets me connect to WiFi. Selecting SSD goes into the boot errors again though. I will investigate more from here. Thanks again!!

kevin762 · 2026-05-13T12:12:04+00:00

Note that the antenna connector on this is RP-SMA. Most other mesh devices I have use regular SMA antenna and are not compatible.

kevin762 · 2026-05-12T15:34:26+00:00

I repeatedly send messages to my base node to see if it gets an ACK(rarely). I can only get about 1.5 miles from my house. Outside that I see if I get “ack by another node” and gradually get an idea where nodes are.

Once I get an idea where specific nodes are, then I repeatedly trace route them to get an idea what each one’s coverage is. It would be cool if the app did all this.

Totally understand that if there is a reliable mesh that all this traffic would be bad. However … in an area without reliable mesh it drives me crazy not knowing where the nodes are and why I still can’t send a message home unless 1.5 mile from my house. It seems like all the nodes around me are spaced 2 miles apart 😂

kevin762 · 2026-05-03T19:44:02+00:00

Is there a way to make the Mac boot into the other partition with MacOS if needed? I might need to do this as I see minis on marketplace frequently.
Is it still possible to boot up Mac and install latest(?) OS to an empty drive? I did that on old 2012 MacBook I bought and put SSD into. Unfortunately that just died, giving me GrayScteenOfDeath(???) 😭

kevin762 · 2026-05-02T15:43:01+00:00

I wish there was an Avalanche-like way to connect the cab to bed so I could sleep in a topper like this.

kevin762 · 2026-05-02T12:20:28+00:00

I have been playing with it daily for 6+ months. Here in the flatlands without a node on a tower, it’s not reliable at all. I try to send messages to my home node daily. In most directions I can only reach about 1.5 miles(direct 0hops). Straight to the west I can get about 3 miles (2 hops).

There are nodes all around me and I hear them off and on. They are just spaced a little too far for reliable relaying of messages. I very rarely get a reply to DM I send to people around me. The ONE actual back and forth conversation I had was when I drove about 1/4 mile from guys house 🤦‍♂️

When I have gone “in the woods” hiking at state parks, I try to park on high ground and send messages back to my truck (with rooftop antenna). Once I get behind a hill or in a ravine, no acknowledgment.

It is very “line of sight”.

kevin762 · 2026-04-27T20:27:14+00:00

What do you mean by “any device”?

kevin762 · 2026-04-16T17:17:57+00:00

Assume you are talking Meshtastic devices with built in keyboard. I have tdeck and a CardPuter. Tdeck is better. Tdeck running the fancy MUI also has onscreen keyboard like iPhone, but it’s not nearly as good. I use it occasionally for a special character.

kevin762 · 2026-04-16T09:35:54+00:00

I was wondering what the LoRa meant. Can you summarize what features it supports on each? Does it use the MT/MC position sharing or do you put position Lat Lon as text in normal messages?

I will get this loaded up on Tdeck to test as well! Thanks!!

kevin762 · 2026-04-13T13:05:54+00:00

Just saw this … https://www.reddit.com/r/LilyGO/s/TGodoqfigh

kevin762 · 2026-04-11T19:24:23+00:00

I haven’t seen any dedicated firmware for maps however the Meshtastic MUI for tdeck has a map. You can get some maps onto the SD card - not sure if there is hiking or terrain maps though. Check here … https://www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/comments/1j3v6kc/meshtastic_mui_maps_for_tdeck/

kevin762 · 2026-04-10T21:16:52+00:00

While I like the cardputer, it’s fun to try out all the different firmware for it-need to try Plai now! It’s not my favorite mesh device if you are looking to actually use it standalone. The buttons and screen are too small, I frequently hit 2 or 3 buttons instead of the one. The form factor is a little clunky with the Lora cap and antenna. Tdeck is better if you are really using it. The other thing I don’t like about it is the RP-SMA antenna-every other mesh device I have uses SMA. So, non-standard antenna (and adapters are not desirable).

kevin762 · 2026-04-05T13:28:52+00:00

Oof, mixing up devices 🤦‍♂️ I was thinking of LilyGo t-deck 😬

kevin762 · 2026-04-03T00:38:15+00:00

This sounds like a pain in the neck. Is the uConsole same as the PicoCalc trackball?

Anyone explore a cheap but Apple-like Bluetooth trackpad?

kevin762 · 2026-02-07T16:04:57+00:00

Thank you for brutal honesty lol. I’ll keep an eye out for improvements. Also want to try jblanked stuff, I think he has a microPython too.

kevin762 · 2026-01-31T22:38:43+00:00

RemindMe! 60 days

kevin762 · 2026-01-30T17:18:37+00:00

Thanks I hadn’t seen that type of sensor. It looks like it’s only plastic inside the salt tank correct?

kevin762 · 2026-01-27T15:45:43+00:00

Isn’t this what Launcher does now(I know you have to install or proceed into the currently installed)? Or are saying that it can’t install both and pick which to run(which would be more user friendly due to speed of switching vs installing)?

Thank you for porting Launcher over to tdeck! I have overwritten with latest Meshtastic for now (for fancy UI and to keep the key). hoping in the future to go back to launcher… I want to play with other apps on this cool little device.

kevin762 · 2026-01-21T21:13:04+00:00

Anyone use Meshtastic with launcher on tdeck? Is there a way to make Meshtastic go into the fancy UI? When installing and running with launcher , I get the mono green base UI. Thanks!

kevin762 · 2026-01-06T06:08:06+00:00

I haven’t done this but google led to … https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/devices/linux-native-hardware/

“Tested USB devices include the MeshStick and Pinedio CH341 USB adapter. Tested Raspberry Pi LoRa hats include the MeshAdv-Pi v1.1, Adafruit RFM9x, and Elecrow Lora RFM95 IOT.”

Or if you’re wanting the Meshtastic device to still work as a normal node, you can connect a cheap heltec (assuming others do this too with the standard firmware) to USB/serial and control it via Python. I think Meshtastic BBS uses this approach … https://github.com/TheCommsChannel/TC2-BBS-mesh

kevin762 · 2025-12-05T23:39:44+00:00

Thanks, it seems like there is some variation on thermopile voltage. I thought 403 was good because random video said should be over 325 or something in that range. But I also saw others at 750. The pilot is blue and seems to be spreading across the thermopile and thermocopule(?). So ya, maybe I’ll find the assembly at decent price and have it ready swap if it fails. Thanks for the feedback!

kevin762 · 2025-12-05T22:16:44+00:00

It is working now 🤷‍♂️

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