iOS Native Companion App

[RKBoss6]

As mentioned before in some discussions, I'm actively starting to develop an open-sourced iOS native app called BlueWatch for a seamless integration for bangle.js. Hopefully it will eliminate the old iOS integration app, in favor for phone finding, weather and location pushed, etc. Currently, features I'm trying to implement are:

• Pushing health data to Apple Health
• Pushing weather data to the watch (this is dependent on how many users the app gets, as there's a call limit per month)
• Pushing location data to the watch to avoid using power-heavy GPS
• Find phone
• App loader integration via custom web bluetooth channel
• Possibly views for health and sleep data, but currently we can get this in the app loader...

That being said, this isn't supposed to be a gadgetbridge alternative for iPhone, but since it's open sourced, anyone with Swift knowledge can contribute their own devices/features later on. I do not currently have an estimated time of release yet, as it's subject to iOS app store approvals, and my own time I can contribute to this project. As of right now, the features implemented are:

• Auto-connect
• Find phone (Somewhat reliable, subject to system volume at the moment)
• Health data sending and pushing to Apple Health

Unfortunately, Apple restricts messaging, so replying to a message from Bangle is impossible to achieve :(
The main reason for starting this discussion is for anyone who wants to see a feature to be able to ask for it, and put it on my radar. Hopefully together we can achieve a native bangle.js app for iOS! If anyone's interested in seeing what I have so far, check it out here

Any feature requests/questions can be posted here, and I'll get back to them.

[thyttan]

Unfortunately, Apple restricts messaging, so replying to a message from Bangle is impossible to achieve :(

Eric Migicovsky of Pebble says it will be possible:

• https://bsky.app/profile/ericmigi.com/post/3ma3bukxnhk23
• https://bsky.app/profile/ericmigi.com/post/3ma7tjm5vjs2r

[RKBoss6]

Ah - the notification forwarding feature he talks about is only available in the EU. Since I'm not in the EU, it would be quite difficult for me to implement and test that out on my own :(

[gfwilliams]

This sounds great! As @thyttan says, Apple may open up more functionality

I think the Pebble app is at https://github.com/coredevices/mobileapp which might make a good reference. Of course if there were a way to add Bangle.js support to that and then benefit from all Pebble's work then that might be preferable though - but I imagine Pebble may not want to do that.

I'd say definitely build this with the possibility of using other watches in mind - the more users the app has, the more contributions/testing/bugfixing you're likely to get.