The double edged sword of slow Internet

What is there to celebrate about a slow internet connection? Nothing at all really - we all want things as fast as possible. However, when reading an article, or trying to write this post, the speed of my connection is irrelevant.

The good old days were horrible : turn the computer on, make coffee, hope it had finally booted up, fire up the modem(internal or external), and hear the musicality of the connection tone to link up with your gateway over dial-up. The connection was slow, but you could cut out the images, the web pages were ugly, but they loaded. Video was limited to animated GIFs, and the rare webcam felt like the future was now.

Move on 25 years later, dial-up feels like an injustice and that nothing can be done without the Internet. This might as be an entry in my diary. As much as it is great to have access to large amounts of data at a high rate, there is something to be said about the benefits of a slow connection :
- more writing
- more reading
- less scrolling aimlessly
- less time in front of the screen

(So much for buying the boxed version of the game...8 hours instead of 80)

Amazfit Bip - Not Just Another Smartwatch - A-GPS makes all the difference

Last summer I was convinced that a smartwatch is a waste of time. I wanted something to replace my phone while running so I could get an audio coach with GPS tracking. Unfortunately, the MTK6580 smartwatch was not suitable for anything more than 2 hours and the Bluetooth connection wasn't reliable as my bicycle handlebars were causing too much obstruction causing the audio to drop out.

Taking up running again, I looked at my options in 2018. The Amazfit and TomTom line has quite a bit to offer, I was also considering the Jelly 2.45" screen phone. However, not needing to drag a phone around would best, so I opted for a watch.  When it comes to electronics, I usually reach for the bottom. If it's affordable, it's obsolete. If I am only buying it for image, I certainly don't need it.
I wavered between the Amazfit Pace and the TomTom with a built in Bluetooth audio players, reaching over 200$, but just couldn't justify it when I learnt about the Amazfit Bip : ~$75CAD which has the longest battery life.

With just over a month of using the Bip, I like it. Love it? No. I want to be able to modify it to make it my own - from interface, to applications to menu settings. For the time being, all development is closed, but I think Huami will get with the times and open it to community of consumers. It's expected that the latter will be many: affordable, normal size body and reliable. The Bip boasts a 190mAh battery - I can get at least 2 weeks between charges when running over 50km a week - the discharge rate is about 5% per hour using GPS ( and heart rate - which I don't care about ). Apparently it will last about 45 days, in standard monitoring mode - no GPS, just pedometer and sleepometer!

How I use it
If I am running that evening, I wear the watch. Otherwise, it stays on my night table. Now that I'll be cycling in to work ( about 38km ) I may wear or just rely on my bicycle computer. No matter where you are, an analog watch is much more elegant than digital one. Furthermore, clock hands are easier to read than a boxy font.

Summary

GOOD

• Long battery life
• Lightweight (31g)
• Easy to design and change - customization of the watch face
• Colour screen (reflective)

Disco dancing watch face

BAD

• Plastic isn't fantastic
• Slow GPS fix - about 20 seconds
• A single button / Touch screen - tactile controls still reign supreme
• Simple, too simple stopwatch, chronometer - no logging, naming of timing sessions.
• GPS navigation - it only give you your current location LAT LONG and compass is in degrees not MILS - I would like it to be suitable for hiking, not getting lost etc... If using MAPS, it should be in MGRS
• A-GPS requires a frequent connection to the phone ( once a week ) 
  

The watch needs a mile/km/repeat program for running.
If you pause the run, it just shows the screen above, with no idea
how many seconds you've paused, last km pace or what's next.

Useless features

• Notifications - just take your phone out of your pocket if you need to
• Sleep monitoring - really?! does anybody wear their watch to sleep?
• Weather  - sort of neat, but not really that useful, just look at the sky
• Pedometer - the gyro, as well as CPU cycles wastes power. GPS is enough for sports
• Treadmill tracking - I'm surprised to find out that treadmills are still being manufactured
• Heart rate monitor - for someone who's healthy, you know when to stop

Improvements - possible with existing hardware
Running programs - speed, 400m repeats, 5k 10k, hills etc. - better pause, distance restart system
Stopwatch to operate in the background
Ability to disable features like gyro/accelerometers/pedometer, sleep monitoring / heart rate
Compass with navigation path return to tools - storage is required for converting LAT LONG to a MGRS grid region