You're right in your assessment. My "what's the deal" was more asking "how did such a small unknown-to-me company do this with similar or better results to the worlds largest hardware/software companies (Apple/Google) in 2015/2016?" It sounds like they did it with even more specific and low level hardware and software, which makes it even more impressive.
Like I said, my bip did GPS, bluetooth notifications, hardrate tracking and most of the other things an iWatch did, but it had 20x the battery life and cost 1/5 of the price. I find this an unbelievable achievement that I don't understand, and it's rarely talked about.
Fair point, I elaborated a bit here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44854032
You're right in your assessment. My "what's the deal" was more asking "how did such a small unknown-to-me company do this with similar or better results to the worlds largest hardware/software companies (Apple/Google) in 2015/2016?" It sounds like they did it with even more specific and low level hardware and software, which makes it even more impressive.
Like I said, my bip did GPS, bluetooth notifications, hardrate tracking and most of the other things an iWatch did, but it had 20x the battery life and cost 1/5 of the price. I find this an unbelievable achievement that I don't understand, and it's rarely talked about.