Very smart watch

Our life is full of adventures, but not everyone can notice them, considering them as annoying incidents. If a

treat life this way, then littlecan throw a person out of balance. And yet, the Amazfit Verge smartwatch succeeded. Here is how it was. A friend of mine bought such a used watch (condition 5+) from the wife of our mutual friend for 500 rubles. During the purchase, the lady untied the watch from her Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone, and then problems began. But first, let's remember what, in fact, we are talking about.

This is a nice watch in a plastic case in style"Unisex" with a 1.30-inch display, AMOLED screen with a resolution of 360 × 360 pixels, Corning Gorilla 3 glass with an oleophobic coating. They are quite nimble thanks to the installed dual-core processor running at a frequency of 1.2 GHz, 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of internal storage (1.9 GB available to the user). Connection with the owner's smartphone takes place via Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz 802.11b. The review can be found on our website, from myself I will say that in the end I liked them.

So, after unbinding Amazfit Verge from the oldsmartphone with which they were constantly paired for almost three years, the watch did not want to connect to either the new Poco M4 Pro smartphone or the old smartphone of the hostess. At the same time, it was impossible to use them, since instead of a dial, a non-removable barcode hung on the screen, designed to be paired with Zepp's proprietary application. The no longer happy buyer remembered my existence and decided to “give the device into the hands of the master” (in his opinion). I don’t know if all this is due to the fact that the first owner paired the watch with a smartphone through the old Amazfit Watch application, and the new owner tried to connect it to the latest version of Zepp, but maybe this is the case. Further text can be considered as a kind of instruction, because in the end everything worked out. So, when the clock was brought, the following was done:

1) To your Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime phone withAOSP Android 10 firmware installed the Zepp app, turned on Bluetooth, and attempted to connect on the fly. Phone smart watch did not see. Now tip number 1 - any smart watch (even simple models without the ability to connect to a computer via USB) is enough to simply turn it off for 3-5 minutes, and after turning it on, it will be in a state that can be compared with the Hard Reset analogue of a smartphone or tablet. If the watch menu is not available, then just hold down the power button for about 10 seconds, they will turn off themselves. In most cases, this solves the connection problem, but not this time.

2) In this case it did not help, so II went to the smartphone settings - "Connected devices" and began to look for Amazfit Verge there to set up manual pairing. Yes, this is a non-standard scenario for Amazfit Verge, but this way you can check whether the watch is active in the BT band in principle or not. And, lo and behold, they were found. But you can’t connect them in this way, it’s still not a primitive bracelet, but a full-fledged small computer. After trying to go through the standard connection to the smartphone a few more times (unsuccessfully), I decided to reflash this watch. But only after pairing attempts failed on the already announced Poco M4 Pro, Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime, and the backup Hisense V30.

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3) The process of flashing (software replacement) Amazfit Verge resembles the firmware of any Android smartphone. You always need to do the following things:

• Find the firmware (make sure that it exists in principle) and download it;
• Unlock watch bootloader;
• Find a flash driver (it won’t work through ADB, I checked it) or the manufacturer’s proprietary instructions with its utility;
• Flash.

In order not to load you with potentially dangerous (for watches) information, I will only say that if I succeeded, then you will succeed. The firmware process itself on the monitor looks like this:

In the end, the clock was flashed (the process tookabout 3 minutes, and another 3 minutes were spent on the first inclusion). And, it would seem, now they can be safely connected. But no matter how, this time Zepp's branded application decided to show absolute nihilism, which hung at the stage of filling out the owner's card (height, weight and other anthropometric data). It is still not clear what caused this, problems on the Chinese server side or a new watch firmware, but the solution was found after only 20 minutes. It turned out that it was enough to exit the application on the smartphone desktop and restart Zepp through the shortcut. After that, Amazfit Verge easily connected to the smartphone and began to work properly.

Problems with BT Devices

The situation described above is quite typical forlovers of smart bracelets, watches, headphones and other BT-property. In most cases, the problem is caused by the firmware of the device, for example, as in the case of OnePlus smartwatches, which, like the Amazfit Verge, after passing the first connection stage, write “Preparing” (preparation), and then nothing happens. In the case of car radios, the situation is similar:

Cunning Vikings sat down the king again?The Vikings are here for only one reason - Bluetooth technology is named after the King of Denmark Harald Bluetooth, who managed to unite the warring Viking tribes and build a good state. The social structure of the Bluetooth kingdom resembles the structure of Bluetooth connections, there is always a certain “master” (king or smartphone) and “slave” (feudal lords or radio clocks), which can be up to 7 at the same time in the quick switching mode (master between slaves), but at the same time only two devices can exchange information (the king-smartphone and the feudal watch). Yes, you ask: what about wireless keyboards and mice that are simultaneously actively working when connected, for example, to a PC? The mouse has a keyboard connection profile from the factory, and if your keyboard is not connected to the PC via Bluetooth, then the mouse most likely will not work if they were included. A Bluetooth connection is not analogous to a Wi-Fi network, it is not universal. For example, you will not be able to connect headphones and a speaker at the same time; only one communication channel is provided for such a connection profile. The same applies, for example, to the impossibility of connecting two smart watches or bracelets, as an option, a bunch of “smart watches + smart kettle”, if he considers himself a smart watch. And it is impossible to write an application that would itself appoint who is who, because then each smartphone would have to be equipped with additional BT modules.

Technology is such a mess, so sloppysoftware is being written and production is organized that it seems that viking devices cannot decide which of them is the most important, and reset pairing without notifying the user of the reason for this behavior. The user also does not have access to the archive of devices once connected to the smartphone, and overwriting the old one with the new one may also not work. As well as resetting the smartphone to factory settings.

Conclusion

As absurd as it sounds, communication technologyBluetooth is hopelessly outdated. Mankind needs a new communication standard for connecting peripherals, like Wi-Fi. If it is not difficult for a manufacturer that builds its so-called "ecosystem" to produce watches, headphones, electric kettles, radio tape recorders, speakers and door locks that are fully compatible with its smartphones, then a manufacturer without an "ecosystem" has huge problems, its wireless devices can " fight" with others. And therefore, the last piece of advice - before buying, be sure to check the compatibility of the wireless gadget with the device from which you are going to control it.

Friends, have you had similar problems? Perhaps, by joint efforts, they will be able to solve them.