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We're bringing Pebble back

repebble.com

371–380 of 758 posts

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#371

I LOVE My Pebble and even got Rebble working on it not long ago to revive it. However... If you want to make it TRULY HACKABLE as you claim, you will not encumber it with cloud dependencies like you did last time. Let ME self host my own Pebble server if I choose. Go ahead and default to your servers and sell services and whatever, but let me host my own and switch the base URL to my own domain, preferably with open…

So much this. Learn from Framework: Sell the hardware at a price point that makes your business sustainable without needing a cloud component to push you over into profitability.

Yes, it will lock out people for whom that price is unacceptable, but now more than ever your real customer is serious hackers, and we are collectively more than fed up with the cloud and subscriptions. Framework and Nabu Casa need to be your models here, because your customers are overwhelmingly their customers.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#373
post #74
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…

What are you even talking about? Garmin has an auto start/stop feature for lap swimming. All you need to do is single press top right button once to start the session and press the same button to stop and then another button to save it. It will literally do everything else for you automatically.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am convinced that there must be Pebble fans on the Android team that keep a Pebble in CI and ensure it keeps working with each new release. Otherwise its continued extended working lifespan is inexplicable given the amount of churn in Android in general and the Bluetooth stack in particular.

Actually kinda to the contrary BT is extremely back-supporting. It adds/removes features so slow that it’s too boring. That’s why I left my BT expertise at the start of my career and moved to app development (it was a mistake in the hindsight but that’s another story).

Sure, it's backwards compatible in theory. In practice I haven't had any device that kept working reliably with zero issues through every Android update and every phone upgrade. Including very important ones like Tesla's phone key. Even Pebble wasn't flawless at the very beginning, but it got good fast and hasn't stopped working since the company went under.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#379

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.

You can also use Garmin watches for transit in Japan, if it's a Japanese model.
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