Please make a model with mechanical dials over the Pebble screen!
We're bringing Pebble back
221–230 of 758 posts
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#222I noticed my mouth had been hanging agape for a while while reading this. This is huge news. I feel like Pebble is the smartwatch that got it right the first time. So many smartwatches try to replace the phone instead of being an extension of the phone. Pebble seemed to better understand what is important than most smartwatches by being the extension of the phone, a focus on battery life and always on displays.
The Withings ScanWatch was the right fit for me. Unfortunately the HR sensor stopped working recently and the water resistant seal broke, and it's out of warranty, so it's in a drawer. But IMO that was the right idea: analog time, discrete notifications, ppg/ekg sensors, 2-week battery life.
I prefer technology that hides from view, so the Withings watches suit me as well.
The biggest downside is that the battery does not seem to be user-replaceable, so the 1 month of run-time I used to get slowly fades down to about a week or two after a couple of years of use. I can't go away for more than a week now without bringing the charger.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#223I haven't used a Pebble, but I wanted to mention something I have seen praised a lot on HN and elsewhere. Apparently, the Bluetooth stack on a Pebble is absolutely legendary: reliable, dependable, robust, you name it. It still works reliably today seemingly thanks to their very diligent software design.
I hope that element of it will continue to exist as-is on these new ones? I mention this because Bluetooth is still generally speaking very meh.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#224I still remember how sad I was when my third Pebble died. It's great to hear that Pebble is back again but the market has certainly changed. There was nothing like Pebble last time. Now, while not as good as Pebble, there are still alternatives. I'm using Amaze Bip, for example.
I hope the new Pebble will open up more hacking opportunities. Zigbee devices have been getting really tiny nowadays, so having a watch that can send a Zigbee signal when tapped on an NFC tag will be so much more convenient than pulling out my phone. LTE presence detection is another.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#225This guy is now behind two of the products that I wish the most: the Small Android Phone and the Pebble watch. I hope they succeed! :)
Which phone is this? I recently got a Unihertz Jelly Star 2 as it was the only decent "small Android" option I found while researching.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#226I am extremely excited for this. It would be amazing if it had wireless charging so it was completely sealed. The battery life on my Pebble was amazing, the customization was great, and I really hope this new iteration works well with iOS to deliver notifications. NFC for unlocking things would be a bonus too of course. But no matter what, I am very excited especially since the OS will be open source.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#227Ooof, no hardware schematics? Also missing datasheets? This projects seems like a very tall task to me without these fundamental missing pieces. Will Google release them soon or am I looking the the wrong place?
This project is started by a pebble founder, doesn’t seem like too tall of a task to me
I didn't say too tall, I just said tall.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#228This is great news. In the last few years, I have upgraded my apple watch couple of times hoping to accept even marginal improvements to battery life and hackability but every time I stop using it seeing how it's still not what I am looking for.
I tried keeping my pebble alive for so long even after it's demise, I bought 2 Pebble Time when a few were still available on ebay.
I remember writing my first integration from scratch to control room lamp using my Pebble watch. I hacked it together by getting a wifi socket and programming a web-server hosted on my raspberry-pi.
Here is the DEMO video I made 8 years ago: https://vikashbajaj.com/pebble.mp4
My pebble watch would call an app on my phone, in turn the app would make a request to the webserver and the webserver would then make a query to the wifi socket to toggle it.
It lagged a bit but it got the job done. I could connect anything to these wifi sockets and control any appliance with my Pebble time. This was before hackable smart hubs were a thing.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#229Ooof, no hardware schematics? Also missing datasheets? This projects seems like a very tall task to me without these fundamental missing pieces. Will Google release them soon or am I looking the the wrong place?
IIUC, the plan is to manufacture something completely new that runs Pebble OS. It seems likely that at least one chip they used in the original pebble is no longer available in large quantities.
Interesting. It would be great if they could open source that too. I would love me some fully hackable smartwatch hardware!
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
I went through two Garmins. Both failed in under 2 years (random freezes, random reboots, eventually leading to bricking). Fitness tracking and GPS would activate by themselves at random times for no visible reason. Buttons sometimes wouldn't register. The proprietary charging cable was terribly designed - after a couple months, the springs inevitably fail and it starts losing contact with the watch, needing fiddling…
Their software is pretty bad but the hardware has been pretty bulletproof for me and I've certainly never had one randomly freeze or reboot in the decade+ I've been using them. These are forerunners though. I haven't used their "fancier" watches.
I had the Instinct Solar. Not sure if it counts as "fancy", but it certainly was not reliable!