KW99 Firmware on ZGPAX S99C - is it possible

Zeblaze and others (Wiiwear pcba) I2, KW88, LEM3, Blitz General Chat
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Does anybody knows if installing a kw99 or kw88 firmware on ZGPAX S99C (512Mb/4Gb) would result in success or bricking the watch? The watches look almost identical from specification point of view.

Long story short; love the watch and love the Watch Droid app. Unfortunately those two keep disconnecting all the time (connection lasts for about 30-50 sec). I blame it to BT calling (S99C original firmware supporting it) because the same disconnections were present with kw99 with BT calling enabled. Since I downgraded kw99 with original firmware (no BT calls), I have a rock solid connection again. So, I would like to achieve the same on my S99C since I really do not use BT calls on the watch.

Thanks in advance for any info on the topic.

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Mar 21, 2018 17:17:15 GMT 1 igor007 said:
Does anybody knows if installing a kw99 or kw88 firmware on ZGPAX S99C (512Mb/4Gb) would result in success or bricking the watch? The watches look almost identical from specification point of view.

Long story short; love the watch and love the Watch Droid app. Unfortunately those two keep disconnecting all the time (connection lasts for about 30-50 sec). I blame it to BT calling (S99C original firmware supporting it) because the same disconnections were present with kw99 with BT calling enabled. Since I downgraded kw99 with original firmware (no BT calls), I have a rock solid connection again. So, I would like to achieve the same on my S99C since I really do not use BT calls on the watch.

Thanks in advance for any info on the topic.


no, you can't you'll only brick the watch, these are different models with different hardware and the firmware of the kw99\kw88 wo'nt suit the zgpax s99c or any of the s99 zgpax. sadly i've been there and it is just a crapy watch with no support, i had the s99a.
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So, no joy. Thank you for your swift reply.

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Mar 21, 2018 19:54:08 GMT 1 igor007 said:
So, no joy. Thank you for your swift reply.

sorry, that is why i did'nt use the s99a for long, crapy watch with crapy battery life even without 3g, sorry:)
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I see . Well I don’t have bad experience with this watch, I decided to buy it just because of the look (design) and fact that really has edge to edge display. Since I’m not an expert (far from that) it serves my needs (well, I have to solve connection issue some other way) and the battery life isn’t much different than kw99. Unfortunately, as I see now, it is obviously meant to be used as “buy and use” principle and….don’t mess with it. Especially from makers point of view ;(

Thanks again.

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UPDATE: Let’s start with disclaimer: Since my restless soul didn’t allow me to dismiss my watch issue, I decided to take a chance with my watch (without sufficient knowledge and suggestion from experienced member not to do it! I made a choice to gamble with my investment :blush:)

Thanks to this great community (the ones with questions and others with answers – in my case both very helpful) I found out, that Zgpax S99c watch is not so easy to brick😊. After a few try-and-error attempts, my watch today runs on KW88 firmware with TWRP and root access. Tried 6, 7 different firmware (kw88 different versions, kw99 different versions, Blitz…) but kw88 fits perfectly. The biggest challenge was root access, since all firmware I tried were operational (except Blitz – black screen but watch was operational) BUT with upside-down display and touch points on the screen on the right spots, not inverted. To fix that, access to build.prop setting “ro.sf.hwrotation” was mandatory. I finally made it with TWRP recovery for AllCall W1 from Ciro Danise - thanks a lot! (TWRP for kw88 kept rebooting to stock recovery and I didn’t find patched boot.img for it).

There is a small glitch when screen is about to turn off, a split second before that, screen is bright white and then turns off. If anybody have idea how to solve this, please let me/us know😉.

So after 2 days I can confirm ZGPAX S99c is running:

Firmware: KW88_CS1_B_GSM_PHT_20170518 (found on this forums, older because I needed one without BT calling)

TWRP and root: /thread/1765/twrp-recovery-allcall-w1

Battery life: maybe even slightly better than before

Pedometer: working

Heartrate sensor: working

3G: can’t tell since I’m not using sim

Watch Droid: perfect and rock solid! Not a single disconnection in 2 days

Other: everything I tried worked so far (ES Explorer, Setting Search,…) and of course

Eric’s Universal Launcher: without a glitch :blush: (thank you Eric for all your work).

Hope this can be of any help.

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Mar 27, 2018 14:15:34 GMT 1 igor007 said:

thanks for sharing for other zgpax users:)) do you have the bt calls app on the watch? did you use it?
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No, I don’t have BT Call app installed. I deliberately used older firmware without BT call since it proved to be the reason for constant disconnections from Watch Droid app. I like to have my watch connected to the phone to get selected notifications.

I had the app with stock firmware and it was working fine.

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I have the same watch - with the same problems

I have managed to install TWRP and have backed up the original firmware (just in case) but I cannot find the KW88 firmware that igor007 has said works? also, which version of superSU do I need?

thanks in advance

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If you have a stock firmware please share it

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zgpax s99c stock firmware

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Jan 4, 2019 17:18:04 GMT 1 vell said:
zgpax s99c stock firmware

just coming back to this now - what a very good find, thank you very much. Has anybody tested it yet?

also, does anybody know why the BT calling causes the constant disconnection problems on this watch? it would be good to know the reason why

13

OK - downloaded the firmware from the link provided by vell - thank you again

Flashed it to my S99C using SP_Flash_Tool_v5.1628

Flash took about 4 minutes ended OK without any errors

Watch booted up after about 5 minutes with a different logo, zgpax instead of android

watch software showing date of december 2018, and when I try to update OTA it tells me the current software is up to date. This is an improvement on the software that my watch was shipped with as it would only return errors when I tried to update, not even connecting to a server

I have installed watch droid phone 9.1 on both my phone and my watch. They paired OK on the first attempt

I will now test the watch tonight and tomorrow for the constant disconnection errors as before and report back here

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UPDATE

watch as bad as ever with updated firmware downloaded from link provided by vell

4 versions of watchdroidphone tested on 3 different smartphones - all suffer from same constant disconnections

when phone is connected - albeit for short while - sms notifications do not come through but dialler will work

when watchdroidphone is uninstalled/not used stock application works fine for bt calls and sms but still suffers from disconnection errors though there is no notification of this like in watchdroidphone

bluetooth connection range is VERY poor - watch will disconnect from smartphone if it is more than 3 feet away. My ticwatch e (wear os) stays connected from all over my house

I will have to try a KW88 firmware the same as igor, unfortunately KW88_CS1_B_GSM_PHT_20170518 cannot be found on this forum as he claims? I am also unable to determine which supersu to use for root as I will probably have to fix the rotation in buildprop

I am not willing to give up on this watch just yet as I much prefer it over my ticwatch e - I only hope I can make it work as igor did but he does not answer emails or messages so I am struggling

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UPDATE -

I wanted to try a KW88 firmware on my S99C. Because I cannot find the firmware that igor says he used I tried to download a different one from here - /thread/18/kw88-firmware%EF%BB%BF - but the link is dead and does not work.

I tried another KW88 firmware that I downloaded from a different website. It flashed onto the watch OK but the watch refused to switch on, completely dead - nothing. Thinking I had bricked my watch I reflashed the S99C firmware downloaded from the link provided by vell and it came back to life. Bluetooth still unstable

It seems there is little or no interest for this watch on this forum as I can find no information about it other than what is written here. This is a great shame as I really like the style, shape and build quality and that it uses android instead of wear os. Seeing as how I cannot make this watch behave as I want it to, and cannot return it to the vendor for a refund as it is faulty due to the constant bluetooth disconnection, I am done with it. It is now an expensive paperweight and I have been put off buying any other full android watches. I will have to stick to using my ticwatch-e with wear os, at least it’s stable and it works

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if you flash someone else’s firmware - never flash the preloader

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Jan 7, 2019 15:02:17 GMT 1 vell said:
if you flash someone else's firmware - never flash the preloader

yes I already know this. I have flashed 5 KW88 firmwares onto this watch

2 of them booted into android but the touchscreen did not work properly, all touch points were inverted

like I said, it is now just an expensive paperweight as none of the KW88 firmwares on this forum cannot be accessed for me to try

if you go this link - /thread/18/kw88-firmware%EF%BB%BF

this is what happens - goo.gl/KV3jL7