I just want a watch that lets me buy stuff, without Google, Apple, or anyone else tracking me. The closest I found is a Pixel watch with WiFi, which I only connect at home, and isn’t connected to my phone most of the time (GrapheneOS). Google still tracks me, but only after the fact, and only when I reconnect to WiFi.
I honestly don’t care about the watch function, I just want something I can wear when I’m on a bike ride so I can leave my phone and wallet at home but still pick up a snack or something.
If the Pebble can do that without phoning home, I’ll get it. But I’m pretty sure that’s impossible since it’s baked into the Wallet app.
I hate to be that guy, but if you’re doing NFC payments, your card issuer is tracking you, AND selling your data. And of course, the merchant you’re using is almost certainly tracking you and profiling you for more ads, too.
There’s no way to do any sort of electronics payment with ‘nobody’ tracking you.
I trust Apple to be slightly less shitty than anyone else in the payment industry, but if you don’t want to be tracked its’ either cash, or you become one of those Monero dudes.
There’s no way to do any sort of electronics payment with ‘nobody’ tracking you.
I fully understand that. My point is that I don’t need Google also getting easy access to my data, along with all the metadata along the way (GPS, heart rate, etc). Right now, I only connect my watch to my phone every other week or so to refresh payment tokens, so the data they’re getting is at least delayed.
I really don’t need any of the smart watch features other than payments. I don’t care about vitals monitoring, seeing my texts, etc. I ride to escape all that. I don’t even need the time, I only need a way to buy a snack or something.
I’d probably use cash if we got rid of pennies, nickels, and dimes, because with sales tax, I always end up with a handful of nonsense ($1.84 -. $2.02 or some BS). I suppose I could just drop it all in a donation cup or something, but that adds up. And some stores don’t even accept cash anymore.
So my solution is a smart watch. It’s not great, but I get extra credit card rewards for using it (3% everywhere), so it’ll pay for itself after a year or so.
Maybe I should just suck it up and just use cash. Idk. Maybe once I’ve finished degoogling everything else (last one Google Sheets), I’ll get rid of my Pixel Watch.
I don’t like stuff in my pockets when I exercise, and I often wear shorts without pockets. Before the watch, I’d put my phone and wallet in my saddle bag, which works, but that’s not a thing when running (and I hate those hip ot arm bands).
And my wallet is tiny (basically this, one slot on each side and one pocket), so it’s not the size.
Ah cool. I kinda wish that card issuers would issue a tiny little NFC disc or something so I can just integrate that into whatever and get the same functionality.
But that’d probably be a thing all of 8 people on earth want, and everyone else would lose it or eat it or something.
Costco has something like that for gas only (e.g. so your teen driver doesn’t need the card).
Just give me the NFC bit and let me set a low limit on it, and I’ll tape it to a Casio watch or something, I just need something I can wear and buy stuff with. Make it water proof so I can take it swimming too.
I mean, this is really janky, but you can probably get a second credit card and just cut it down. The NFC area on a credit card is quite small compared to the card itself. I doubt anyone would question it if you were tapping “something” on your wrist to a terminal as people are now used to smartwatch payments.
No way is any purchasing system going to allow you to walk away without checking that you are won you claim to be, and that you have the funds available to you to make that purchase.
There’s really no technical reason why these contactless payment systems couldn’t be FOSS. When I registered my card with my watch, I needed to call my bank to confirm it was me. The same process could totally happen without Google being involved.
As they rightly should. I would certainly call my bank to set it up just like I did with my OTP app with my brokerage. I’m not trying to hide anything from my bank, I just don’t want to share that info with Google.
Nothing else ever really achieved what the peobble did. I just wanted a cheap second point of interaction with my phone.
After it went under the industry has doubled down on insane cost, pointless features, abysmal battery life.
I don’t get it. Pepple made all the right trade offs and the third party support was incredible.
I hope this works out.
Does it let you buy stuff?
I just want a watch that lets me buy stuff, without Google, Apple, or anyone else tracking me. The closest I found is a Pixel watch with WiFi, which I only connect at home, and isn’t connected to my phone most of the time (GrapheneOS). Google still tracks me, but only after the fact, and only when I reconnect to WiFi.
I honestly don’t care about the watch function, I just want something I can wear when I’m on a bike ride so I can leave my phone and wallet at home but still pick up a snack or something.
If the Pebble can do that without phoning home, I’ll get it. But I’m pretty sure that’s impossible since it’s baked into the Wallet app.
I hate to be that guy, but if you’re doing NFC payments, your card issuer is tracking you, AND selling your data. And of course, the merchant you’re using is almost certainly tracking you and profiling you for more ads, too.
There’s no way to do any sort of electronics payment with ‘nobody’ tracking you.
I trust Apple to be slightly less shitty than anyone else in the payment industry, but if you don’t want to be tracked its’ either cash, or you become one of those Monero dudes.
I fully understand that. My point is that I don’t need Google also getting easy access to my data, along with all the metadata along the way (GPS, heart rate, etc). Right now, I only connect my watch to my phone every other week or so to refresh payment tokens, so the data they’re getting is at least delayed.
I really don’t need any of the smart watch features other than payments. I don’t care about vitals monitoring, seeing my texts, etc. I ride to escape all that. I don’t even need the time, I only need a way to buy a snack or something.
I’d probably use cash if we got rid of pennies, nickels, and dimes, because with sales tax, I always end up with a handful of nonsense ($1.84 -. $2.02 or some BS). I suppose I could just drop it all in a donation cup or something, but that adds up. And some stores don’t even accept cash anymore.
So my solution is a smart watch. It’s not great, but I get extra credit card rewards for using it (3% everywhere), so it’ll pay for itself after a year or so.
Maybe I should just suck it up and just use cash. Idk. Maybe once I’ve finished degoogling everything else (last one Google Sheets), I’ll get rid of my Pixel Watch.
Sorry if i missed it but I have a really stupid question: why not just use the card directly?
Is this just a dont-want-a-wallet thing, or something else?
Yup, pretty much.
I don’t like stuff in my pockets when I exercise, and I often wear shorts without pockets. Before the watch, I’d put my phone and wallet in my saddle bag, which works, but that’s not a thing when running (and I hate those hip ot arm bands).
And my wallet is tiny (basically this, one slot on each side and one pocket), so it’s not the size.
Ah cool. I kinda wish that card issuers would issue a tiny little NFC disc or something so I can just integrate that into whatever and get the same functionality.
But that’d probably be a thing all of 8 people on earth want, and everyone else would lose it or eat it or something.
Costco has something like that for gas only (e.g. so your teen driver doesn’t need the card).
Just give me the NFC bit and let me set a low limit on it, and I’ll tape it to a Casio watch or something, I just need something I can wear and buy stuff with. Make it water proof so I can take it swimming too.
I mean, this is really janky, but you can probably get a second credit card and just cut it down. The NFC area on a credit card is quite small compared to the card itself. I doubt anyone would question it if you were tapping “something” on your wrist to a terminal as people are now used to smartwatch payments.
Cash…. What you’re looking for is called cash.
No way is any purchasing system going to allow you to walk away without checking that you are won you claim to be, and that you have the funds available to you to make that purchase.
I really don’t like dealing with small change.
There’s really no technical reason why these contactless payment systems couldn’t be FOSS. When I registered my card with my watch, I needed to call my bank to confirm it was me. The same process could totally happen without Google being involved.
Yeah I’m pretty sure the banks would shut down anything that clones NFC payment functionality onto a device without them knowing about it.
As they rightly should. I would certainly call my bank to set it up just like I did with my OTP app with my brokerage. I’m not trying to hide anything from my bank, I just don’t want to share that info with Google.