When my latest Fitbit dies, I'll be taking a look at the UNA watch.
USB-C charging and repairable.
The only thing lacking is some Fediverse presence.
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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Oh damn that's unfortunate, wake me up when it's a real product
Man that's a taco ugly in your face logo to always have at the bottom of your watch face. It's not subtle at all.
All kidding aside, support for self-hosted server or just a local program to store and visualize your data would be amazing
No mention if it is waterproof so i bet it isn't. Modular and waterproof are tough to achieve simultaneously.
Edit: see below. It does not yet have a waterproof rating but is not currently submersible.
it is explicitly mentioned : IPX8
Man i looked everywhere for that and didn't see it, sorry.
I still don't see that rating but i found this:
My bad you are right I read too fast. They say this about the connector :
UNA uses a standard USB-C cable, meaning less time searching when you occasionally need to charge your watch. Does this USB-C connector affect the waterproof rating? No, it doesn’t as the USB-C connector on the watch is IPX8 rated, meaning the internals of the watch are completely sealed from the outside of the connector.
But I couldn't find where they define their "waterproof rating".
I have an apple watch… it charges over ether and can teleport me to Mars ocasionally, on a full charge.
Can’t wait to smash it with a hammer, same as my iphone.
I was looking at a garment descent watch for scuba diving. They don't use usbc directly on the watch because of the water rating
At that scale, the connector and the necessary electronics are too large.
Let’s ignore the iPod nano 6th gen, which managed to fit a 30 pin dock connector and a headphone jack into a watch sized body
With vastly lower power requirements compared to a smartwatch
Not really relevant: power requirements would affect battery size much more than charging port size. And USB-C supports much greater power transport than the old dock connector.
Right, my point is that we want to use that space for battery, not bulky connectors.
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Some watches already have USB - C. but I find it interesting to see if you are correct or not.
I would see standardizing wireless charging as a decent alternative...if it didnt take up even more space.
It's also hard to make a port like that water resistant. Using wireless charging is easier to make flat and seal tightly.
If you mean a USB-C port in general, they can be made waterproof. If you mean something specific to putting one in the most compact form factor possible, that might be true.
That kind of waterproofing wears over time (years). It keeps it's resistance, but not a submersible seal. Watches have longer use years than phones on average.
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It's not that it's too large to exist, but it's certainly large enough that it'll make a dent in the battery space, and smartwatches are already battery-starved compared to dumb ones.
Its a terrible idea for a number of reasons, but as everybody else is saying, that doesn't mean you give up on standardization.
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While it would be lovely if watches could support Qi charging, they are just too small to make it work effectively
Ha ha ha.
I can charge my wife's Samsung watch off Qi on my phone. We had to learn how AND do it while on vacation when the Samsung inductive rig for it was left at home.
Worked like fucking gangbusters.
This article is shit.
I have tried to charge my Samsung watch on all kinds of Qi devices. They don't work. The newer Samsung phones can charge them, but only because they have a separate set of coils that support watches.
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I can't imagine how filthy the port would get on mine. Industrial work places and open ports are not~~conductive~~ conducive to the healthy life of electronics.
Btw, using fiddly electronics in a work environment is neither.
Not conductive? Isn’t that a good thing?
I don't know if you looked at the photo in my post - but there's a rubber flap covering the USB-port.
Yeah. That makes it splash resistant, not water and grime proof. I have a pair of bone conduction headphones I wear at work with that flap and I still have to use contact cleaner on that port like at least once every couple of weeks.
From listening to a 1hr presentation by a furry in VR chat. Its likely because USB C is bloated. Its to complicated if all you need is power delivery in a small form factor.
You could use a usb c connector and not comply with the rest of the spec maybe idk shit about electronics.
As I understand it you can do USB-C at a basic 5V level with 2 resistors, and for a watch that would be plenty of power.
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You know what you need?
Mini USB-C! ^/s
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The Verge says:
These devices are too dang small, and the technology isn’t there yet. Most standard connectors, like USB-C, are too large to fit within a smartwatch or on devices that are meant to mold to your body. The smaller the device, the more difficult this becomes.
To which I say:
Bullshit!
Watches are small, but the USB-C connector isn't massive.
The USBC plug may not be "massive" but it still adds more bulk to the watch.
it might be rubbish as both a watch, Android device, and masc-coded jewellery - but it shows that USB-C is viable for devices of this class.
just because cheap ass watches use USBC ports doesn't mean it's a good idea. you need to know how these USBC watches actually hold up in the long run before you make that judgement.
I miss my pebble. It was such a good watch. It would last a week on one charge with eink.
The power connector was the fiddliest thing in the world and proprietary so when it failed and the batter failed soon after...the watch was dead.
yeah a standard charger would be nice, but I'm not sure the answer is USBC.
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A usb-c port would be a large percentage of the volume of your standard wearable. Percentage that could be used for battery
Most wearable chargers are a few flat contacts or a tiny qi charger coil
Because the port and the associated internal hardware would take up a huge amount of space.
It's not much space to a smartphone, but to a device the size of a watch, the USB-C port would end up being the largest internal component.
Wireless charging is the answer for most watches, though it means cases can't be all metal and glass.
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