Overview

Orbit is a Swift + SwiftUI iOS app that connects to Colmi smart rings and syncs health data without the vendor Qring app. It pairs natively via CoreBluetooth, stores data encrypted on-device with Core Data, and exports metrics to HealthKit so users can view everything in Apple Health.

The Bluetooth protocol layer is based on Gadgetbridge’s reverse-engineered Colmi implementation, adapted into a native iOS sync pipeline.

Problem

Most low-cost wearables lock users into proprietary apps that are opaque about what’s collected and where it goes. For Colmi rings, that typically means account-driven flows, limited export, and poor control over data retention.

I built Orbit to provide:

• A native iOS pairing + sync experience
• Local-first, encrypted storage by default
• A clean handoff to Apple Health via HealthKit

Architecture

Orbit is built with:

• SwiftUI for UI
• CoreBluetooth for pairing, writes, and notification streams
• Core Data + encryption for local persistence
• HealthKit for data export into Apple Health

Sync is implemented as a chained pipeline with packet routing and parsers:

• Per-day history requests (Activity, HR, HRV)
• Multi-packet reassembly for “big data” payloads (SpO2, Sleep, Temperature)
• Merge/upsert persistence to deduplicate and survive disconnects

Features

• Native Bluetooth pairing and device control
• Historical sync for Activity, Heart Rate, HRV, Stress, SpO2, Sleep, Temperature
• Big-data V2 packet buffering + reassembly for fragmented BLE notifications
• Incremental persistence (merge/upsert) to avoid duplicates and data loss
• HealthKit integration for Apple Health sharing

Challenges

• Handling fragmented BLE payloads and multi-packet history protocols
• Reconstructing accurate timestamps (local-midnight encoded as UTC) to avoid day/slot drift
• Normalizing inconsistent units across packet types (e.g., calories scaling differences)
• Designing persistence to be resilient to disconnects and iOS background limits

Impact

Orbit turns a cheap wearable into a privacy-respecting data source: sync works without vendor infrastructure, data stays encrypted on-device, and your data sync with your other werables in Apple Health.