Nördnytt! 🤓Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway
No usage stats, no tracking, no illusions of mass adoption. The only real signal we get is the occasional person who appears in our Matrix chat going "hey, it booted on my watch from 2014 and now it's usable again" — and that's plenty.
Privacy is non-negotiable: zero telemetry, no cloud, full local control. Longevity is the other half: we refuse to let good hardware become e-waste just because support ended. On the learning side, it's been one of the best playgrounds: instant feedback on your wrist makes QML/Qt, JavaScript watchfaces and embedded Linux feel tangible. The community is small and kind — perfect for people who want to learn open-source dev without gatekeeping.
Technically we're still pragmatic: libhybris + older kernels on most devices since it just works, but we've already mainlined rinato (Samsung Gear 2) and sparrow (ASUS ZenWatch 2) — rinato even boots with a usable UI. That's the direction we're pushing toward.
Repo: https://github.com/AsteroidOS Install images & docs: https://asteroidos.org 2.0 demo video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FiQz0yACc Announcement post: https://asteroidos.org/news/2-0-release/
Questions, port requests, mentoring offers, criticism, weird ideas — all welcome. We do this because shaping a tiny, open wearable UX and infrastructure is oddly satisfying, and because Linux on the wrist still feels like a playground worth playing in.
Cheers, the AsteroidOS Team
- Arifcodes - 2773 sekunder sedanThe 'nobody asked, we shipped anyway' energy is the right spirit for OSS. The wearable OS space is a duopoly with zero interoperability, and having a Linux base means you can actually write what you want without fighting proprietary SDKs.
The QML choice makes sense for the constraints. It gets a bad reputation in desktop contexts, but for small screens with limited input it is genuinely practical. The bigger win here is what happens when a manufacturer abandons your watch: instead of a dead device, you keep getting updates.
Congrats on 2.0. Sustained long-term open source projects are rare, and this one solves a real problem.
- bsimpson - 10763 sekunder sedanWild to see such fragmentation in such a niche space. It's an aftermarket Linux flash for smartwatches, and there are companion apps for SailfishOS and Ubuntu Touch, which are extremely niche flavors of the already very niche mobile Linux.
- MayeulC - 3527 sekunder sedanHey, thanks for the new release. I should definitely fix my wristband and start wearing my AsteroisOS watch again (LG Lenok).
You have probably addressed that somewhere, but would it be possible to run your UI stack somewhere else? (PostmarketOS).
My other wish for AsteroidOS would be for it to leverage Wi-Fi better. Not sure how much more energy it would use, but having a longer range for my notifications would be nice (at least on LAN). Being able to perform a few other actions independently of my phone would be great: weather % time updates, e-mail notifications, home assistant control, etc. I get that it may affect battery life as well.
While I'm at it: tiny bug report, but I adjusted the time while the stopwatch was running, and this affected the stopwatch result.
- zozbot234 - 5686 sekunder sedanThese are all Linux kernel-based WearOS watches (not just smartbands running a barebones microcontroller), so could they be running a mainlined kernel and Linux OS such as pmOS? Of course the UI layer might be specific to the form factor, but everything else could just be standard.
- adithyassekhar - 12122 sekunder sedanThis is seriously impressive! Never knew after market os's were even a thing for watches with their proprietary drivers.
I like that peeking watch face switcher, companies like samsung even after all these years still takes way too long to apply a watch face.
- cfiggers - 3825 sekunder sedanThis is an awesome project. Props to y'all for just making something you want to exist!
I have a Tizen-based Samsung watch (Gear Sport, 2017). It's served me faithfully but I'm starting to notice the battery degrading. I'd be interested in trying AsteroidOS with it, if Tizen support ever lands.
- anitil - 3778 sekunder sedan> wrist-sized Linux
What a charming turn of phrase!
- xrd - 6035 sekunder sedanCan anyone suggest where to find a watch that is supported if you live in the US? I've been scanning eBay but it feels difficult to get ahold of a supported device. Are there sites that ship to the US where a new or used device can be found?
- mapcars - 8382 sekunder sedanThats awesome! Recently I was looking into making apps for my smartwatch that don't exist (like watch display with multiple timezones), and infrastructure to make your own apps is very poor.
One thing I wish for is Rust support, since its running Linux it should be possible, isn't it?
- Pxtl - 1248 sekunder sedanI have a galaxy watch 4 which I'd hoped was old-enough to be supported but I can see that it is not. I get it, hardware is hard.
I'm curious, is the challenge with newer hardware lack of chipset drivers for modern watches, or is there a fundamental difference between the new devices and the old ones that make them completely incompatible with asteroidOS?
- tamimio - 1397 sekunder sedanThanks for sharing this, it looks promising!
I would love if it would support some of the no-brand Chinese watches you get usually for cheap, the hardware is great but the software usually is bad or outdated. I use one now, I don’t even know anything about it other than the Bluetooth name and app name, but it’s good in measuring distance, blood pressure, heart rate, sleep, among others that’s surprisingly it’s very accurate, it also has a builtin strong flashlight, I like it but with a fully fledged linux would definitely be better.
- MagneFire - 12404 sekunder sedanGreat work to everyone involved with the project!
- lovegrenoble - 5958 sekunder sedanwell done!
- lovegrenoble - 5897 sekunder sedanRust support?
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