this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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I bet your phone also has a mic.
Yes and it's a constant issue, and there is tons of security stuff in the phone to deal with the mic's presence. I've elsewhere suggested making phones with no mics, so if you want to make a voice phone call you have to use an external mic. At least the phone has an important application that uses the mic.
The mic in this watch seems to have been added to the hardware just because they could. But as they say, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Smart watches often have mics because they can be used to take calls without having your phone on you (still has to be near you unless it's a cellular smartwatch), or to use the assistants or whatever.
The PineTime (Pro) is the one place where this shouldn't worry you because whatever software you're running on it was installed by you so you've hopefully vetted it for security.
good luck to vet its unique bluetooth stack for vulnerabilities and unknown debug modes
I didn't hear a mention of this watch being usable for phone calls but if that's in the cards, then I guess that's a legitimate application, though I don't see how it would work. You hold your wrist up to your ear? Sounds painful. Is it somehow better than using an earbud? If you don't want to walk around wearing an earbud like a Borg when you're not on a call, maybe they could put an earbud holder onto the watchband. The watch could be shaped to accomodate the earbud and maybe even recharge it, if it's shaped like an Airpod.
With the Apple Watch, there's a fairly loud speaker and fairly decent mic, you can pretty much talk with the thing on your hand. No idea if this can do the same though.
I see, like putting the person on speaker phone. Not nice, but thanks!
Pretty much. It's not for everyone. I don't have a watch myself anyway, but I use the speaker option on my phone sometimes... But only at home when I want my hands free but don't have headphones on when I get a call. I hate everyone who does this in public.