bangle.js 2 doesn't report activity accurately to bangle gadget bridge

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2023-03-09 by Plum-Rose

other than battery percentage, I've found that gadget bridge doesn't hold an accurate step count, and the HRM data is often inaccurate and there doesn't seem to be a pattern with the recording interval.

the watch holds all this data just fine, but it isn't being reported well to gadget bridge that I can see.

is there something I'm missing?
is this expected behaviour?
is this a known bug?
is it something completely different?

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2023-03-24 by user138822

Did you get an answer to this?

---

Posted at 2023-03-24 by Plum-Rose

I have not, no

---

Posted at 2023-03-27 by @gfwilliams

Hi, sorry for the lack of reply, I'm not sure how I missed this at the time.

Right now, Gadgetbridge should log any health data it gets when it's connected to the watch, but it doesn't 'sync up' with the data Bangle.js would have stored when it wasn't connected. There's an issue for that at espruino/BangleApps#718

So the issue could be that your phone is trying to power-save by killing Gadgetbridge when the app isn't in the foreground (and Gadgetbridge may also not be set up to auto-reconnect). Please can you try the steps mentioned at http://www.espruino.com/Gadgetbridge#extra-setup ?

HRM data is often inaccurate ... the watch holds all this data just fine

Does the watch seem to hold accurate HRM data, but it's not accurate in Gadgetbridge? Or is it inaccurate on the watch too?

Right now the code for the HRM is using an Open source algorithm instead of the proprietary binary blob from the manufacturer, so it's not so good at handling HRM when you're moving around. Even so, when the HRM reports a high confidence level in its result it's usually correct - it's just sometimes it takes a while before it actually reports that higher confidence level.

---

Posted at 2023-03-27 by Plum-Rose

no worries Gordon,

issue 718 seems to cover the issue of gadget bridge not having up to date data, there are many gaps in heart rate and activity and steps.

the watch appears to have accurate HRM data, whenever I use the live monitor it gets accurate data pretty much immediately
gadget bridge however records a number of large drops down to about 37 BPM (my personal resting is 55-65)
one of these for example was yesterday while I was doing some sewing, active work which should keep my heart rate up, but nothing extreme that should give inaccurate data because of jostling etc.

assuming my bangle would display that Bluetooth is disconnected when gadgetbridge might be stopped to save battery, I can't say I've seen it disconnect unreasonably yet.
though I will try the extra set up to see if that improves it.

I will also run heart recorder for a few hours and see if that shows the drops in heart rate that gadget bridge claims.
unfortunately the health app only has hourly averages, so I can't see individual data points to see if it's just averaging them away

---

Posted at 2023-03-27 by @gfwilliams

Ok, thanks - that's very strange indeed. The gaps could well be due to what I mentioned above about Gadgetbridge getting stopped from running in the background of your phone though.

In the Health app -> Settings, do you have 'HRM Interval' set to 'off'? If so, please could you change it to 10 Min. Without this you probably wouldn't see reliable heart rate data.

There are two 'modes' for heart rate reporting in Gadgetbridge... In the normal mode (if you're just connected via Gadgetbridge) the health data is sent every 10 minutes based on the latest and most 'confident' heart rate reading in the last 10 minutes - this is the data that is stored in the Health app, but if the heart rate monitor hasn't been enabled in the Health app then you won't see the heart rate data (unless some other app is using the heart rate).

But in the other mode (where you enable realtime data from Gadgetbridge momentarily by going to the 'Activity and Sleep' page and scrolling to 'Live Activity') the heart rate monitor turns on all the time and the absolute latest HRM data is reported to Gadgetbridge every few seconds even if the watch isn't confident that it is correct.

So if you'd gone to 'Live Activity' from Gadgetbridge on your phone then you might well have seen some inaccurate HRM data (and Gadgetbridge would then store that data I believe), but that seems a bit unlikely.