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We're bringing Pebble back

repebble.com

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Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#331

Post by nejsjsjsbsb »

Vampiero wrote: post #232
mrinterweb wrote: post #26

I 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.

I literally just bought a LTE watch because I hate phones, I never use mine, and I keep forgetting it anyway. I'd rather have a watch with an eSIM

Would you wear a Pebble too?

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#332

Post by dang »

nickthegreek wrote: post #15
dang wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually a blog post from rebble.io. I added a link to the open-source repo to the top text there. Is there an actual announcement from Google?

google announcement: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/01/see-code-that-powe... pebbleOS repo: https://github.com/google/pebble

Belated thanks! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42845337

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#333

Post by Avamander »

surajrmal wrote: post #323
modeless wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except reasonably priced :)

But not financially solvent either. Maybe at higher volumes their pricing model would have worked but that wasn't the reality of the market.

They weren't that far off though. They basically just didn't have any funds to use in case of (strategic) emergencies, couldn't outmaneuver a few mistakes they made.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#334

Post by bean-weevil »

jrockway wrote: post #272
askvictor wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example: I would like to program a (dumb/ID-only) RFID card into it to unlock a door. I can't as the NFC off limits to apps.

Apparently there is some transit system in China that uses this format for payments. So you can get one of those cards, add it to your watch, and program the RFID system to accept the ID of the card you got. There was an HN article about it this weekend.

My Garmin watch will only allow me to add emv cards.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#335

Post by bean-weevil »

Findecanor wrote: post #154
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 got a tiny bit offended by the assumption that I'd rather have an Apple Watch. I'd think the ideal for me would instead be something in-between a Pebble and a Sensor Watch. Something hackable with more battery life, that is a watch first (and a smartphone notification screen never ). I wonder how far I could go towards that goal with the upcoming Pebble hardware and rewriting the OS kernel to sleep more.

I interpreted it as an intentional insult :)

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#336

Post by Avamander »

jsheard wrote: post #96
bitdivision wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, pebble was definitely e-ink. And I think the most recent ones had colour epaper. Edit: Sorry, looking further down I see that they say epaper, which is not the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42845508 It looks like they're memory in pixel (MIP) displays, which are basically reflective LCDs I think.

> It looks like they're memory in pixel (MIP) displays, which are basically reflective LCDs I think. Reflective LCDs with embedded memory, hence the name. Normal LCDs need to be refreshed continuously, but MIP LCDs remember the last frame and efficiently refresh themselves, so the CPU is free to go into deep sleep as long as the display is static.

I'm pretty sure they were transreflective LCDs with an FPGA to handle the low-power refresh.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#337

Post by causality0 »

A modern Pebble would be very interesting. An e-paper display smartwatch that runs whatever I want it to would be great, with the benefits of modern batteries and e-paper. Maybe use those advancements to build it cheaper so I could have a smartwatch that does the things I need (text message display, media control) which being cheap enough I don't have to be constantly scared of breaking it while doing manual labor.

If enough people are interested, we'll build it

I'd remove that line from the website. That's a line from a bad Kickstarter.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#338

Post by suddenclarity »

MostlyStable wrote: post #244
zem wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

third party apps (particularly stuff like messaging, banking and government services) only supporting the main two operating systems is a big barrier to a new one getting any traction.

On android at least, it's entirely possible to have weird, niche, hardware options. Why do no android phones have IR blasters anymore? Or FM Radio support? Why has the headphone jack almost entirely disappeared? (as far as I can tell, Sony is the only manufacturer with phones that will work on American networks). These are options that the mainstream consumer has decided they don't want, but I don't buy that there ar…

> Why do no android phones have IR blasters anymore?

Both Xiaomi and OnePlus have it on their phones. Personally I never used mine and didn't see the point. It was quicker and more effortless to just click the button on the physical remote next to me than having to navigate through the apps on my phone.

> Or FM Radio support?

You can listen to almost any radio station online nowadays and plenty of countries (EU) have roaming agreements so the benefit of having FM radio must be extremely niche. I know you mentioned it being niche, but I'm talking niche niche.

I assume you have some kind of use case that goes beyond regular consumers.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#339

Post by nradov »

abraxas wrote: post #279
grogenaut wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My vivoactive 5 swimming is top right button short press (activities) scroll tap swim. Top right to start. Screen shows only interval time and distance or laps (configurable). Bottom goes to interval rest. Lots more data and a rest timer. Bottom starts swimming again. Top stops the activity. Long press top to save, bottom to discard. All operations are buttons because the touch doesn't work well with water on basical…

> scroll tap swim this watch has no touch interface. any scrolling and selecting has to be done via the five buttons which I ALWAYS somehow get wrong. Who on this beautiful earth thought it was sane to make the bottom right button be the "Back" button in a L2R (English) locale?

I really can't understand what you're complaining about. There's nothing about the English locale which implies an optimal placement for the Back button. The same devices are also sold in other locales.

These devices have to work in all conditions with some complex functionality available through only five buttons so some level of overlap is unavoidable. Do you also complain that your computer keyboard lacks separate buttons for "4" and "$"?

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#340

Post by KatharineBerry »

tomaskafka wrote: post #260
wvenable wrote: post #246

Developing the for the Pebble was a lot of fun. There was a Pebble hack-a-thon recently (recent being 2 years ago) and I finally got around to finishing a project that I started a decade earlier: https://github.com/codaris/pebble-cpp It might even become relevant again! Pebble had an ingenious design for its watch apps. Despite the watch having a limited processor and even more limited RAM, it could accommodate sever…

Oh, my memory is hazy here, but if I remember right, at the beginning Apple didn’t let them download executable code (companion js) to the app, so they just took a javascript code from every app in the pebble store , bundled it into Pebble iOS app, and updated it every few days with a fresh code. Can anyone confirm?

That is exactly what we did.

Bonus fact: we didn’t actually read the bundled code - we downloaded it from the internet and ran it as usual. But a server-side check ensured you could only get the JavaScript we’d bundled.

Or at least it did until we eventually quietly turned off the check, when Apple stopped paying attention.

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