We're bringing Pebble back • Hacker News Board

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#131

Post by Avamander » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:00 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #118

mazambazz wrote: post #81

Even though I haven't used one in a really long time, the Pebble Time still stands out to me as something I wish I still had. It's an absolutely shame that Pebble was so innovative and functional, but couldn't reach mass market. But, I am extremely excited and happy that the Pebble team can start it again. I don't like Google for many things, but, I am grateful that the open-sourced PebbleOS. What a joyous day!

> It's an absolutely shame that Pebble was so innovative and functional, but couldn't reach mass market. I think trying to reach "mass market" - or specifically, the market of people who are into fitness and sportsball - is largely what killed them. I'd like to believe that they could've catered to existing userbase a bit longer, grew a little more slowly but sustainably by doubling down on an idea of an ergonomic, b…

> Alas, maybe the whole thing was over once Apple, and Samsung got their marketing wheels spinning.

Totally possible, like Nokia vs the iPhone. Difficult to say for sure though, seeing vendors like Fitbit and Garmin still operate in the same space.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#132

Post by wkat4242 » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:00 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #88

vermarish wrote: post #23

I love the animation when you click "No" on "Do you want a new Pebble?". So extra.

Feels a little bit salty to send customers to Google's competitor given the fact that Google provided the exit and also liberated the code. They didn't have to do that. A better "thank you" to Google would be to direct people to Fitbit.

It's just a joke I think. But yeah linking to the pixel watch would have been nicer.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#133

Post by bigstrat2003 » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:01 PM UTC

wilg wrote: post #110

The Apple Watch is just okay but sells like 25x per year Pebble's entire lifetime sales. I guess people love their Pebbles but this seems like a lot of effort for something most people probably don't want.

Who cares? As tonymet said, something doesn't need to be a huge market to be a viable business. Truthfully I would say that many problems in modern American business culture can be traced back to the false belief that one has to turn their business into a huge affair selling to masses of people constantly.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#134

Post by ata_aman » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:01 PM UTC

I lost mine somewhere in SF while visiting years ago but I absolutely loved it. I won it at a hackathon after making a tiny Pebble app where you could keep score during a soccer game as a referee by pressing the side buttons. App development and publishing was extremely easy on their app store.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#135

Post by erohead » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:02 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #88

vermarish wrote: post #23

I love the animation when you click "No" on "Do you want a new Pebble?". So extra.

Feels a little bit salty to send customers to Google's competitor given the fact that Google provided the exit and also liberated the code. They didn't have to do that. A better "thank you" to Google would be to direct people to Fitbit.

Good call, I just changed it to send to pixel watch if opened on Android or Windows!

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#136

Post by thoop » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:03 PM UTC

Love this!

After my Pebble I tried an e-ink "Watchy" from SQFMI (https://watchy.sqfmi.com/) thinking that the battery life would be great but the battery only lasted a few days.

I've been wearing a Bangle 2 (https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2) which feels closest to recreating my Pebble. It has super long battery life and feels a lot like my Pebble did, but doesn't have the polish of the pebble UI and animations.

Can't wait to get a new Pebble!

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#137

Post by alex_young » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:03 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #88

vermarish wrote: post #23

I love the animation when you click "No" on "Do you want a new Pebble?". So extra.

Feels a little bit salty to send customers to Google's competitor given the fact that Google provided the exit and also liberated the code. They didn't have to do that. A better "thank you" to Google would be to direct people to Fitbit.

I think it’s perfect actually.

Google used to (still?) have a page internally where if you clicked on “I don’t care about security” it sent you to the jobs page of a competitor that had suffered a notable breach.

Very on point.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#138

Post by cjonas » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:03 PM UTC

jacobgkau wrote: post #111

soxocx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the iPhone I get redirected to the Apple Store page for the Apple Watch. Nice humor.

I think it's just a static redirect, it sent me to the Apple Watch page in Firefox on Linux. But I also wondered if it would shuffle between a few different brands or something (I guess not).

I got redirected to pixel

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#139

Post by Pfhortune » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:03 PM UTC

So excited for this! No other smartwatch comes close to the UX of pebble OS. Tiny touchscreens are demonstrably a bad idea.

Garmin and Casio have plenty of button-only devices, but they seem to not really understand how to make a UI flow well. They all feel kludgy and arcane to use. Whereas pebble was a very simple layered menu system without any over-complication.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#140

Post by llimllib » Mon, Jan 27, 2025, 10:05 PM UTC

abraxas wrote: post #74

ctkhn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta be honest I feel like Garmin is the perfect balance of pebble vs apple watch

I just gave away a very expensive Garmin to my son. Its feature set is to dream of. Its user interface is hot garbage. When I'm out on a hike or in the pool trying to just measure my fsking laps I need a single click option or something. Their paradigm of "button 1, button 3, button 5, long press button 4, button 1 again to confirm. Now you can push off the wall in 3... 2... 1" is beyond fucking stupid. Does anyone a…

I don't swim, but I have done thousands of runs with my series of garmin watches and I can say that the UX for them is spectacular, everything is in a sensible place for me to do without thinking.

Not sure what problems you've had with it specifically