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Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

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Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#131

Post by Knork-and-Fife »

apparent wrote: post #127
lukeify wrote: post #26

> Is there a warranty? > Yes, we warrant against manufacturing defects for 30 days after you receive your order. Is this the shortest warranty on a consumer electronics device ever? What on earth are they thinking.

Honestly not sure how this is legal given that the software is not fully baked when the devices ship. That is, people were getting PT2s when there was no way to test the touchscreen because the OS didn't support it yet. Same for speaker. My guess is that if you got a bad unit and discovered it later when the software was updated, they'd probably swap the unit for you. That seems like more of a no-brainer than the scr…

That is what they say in the article:

> most frequent are problems with the touch panel. At first, we thought this could be a hardware problem and replaced around 70 watches. After reviewing the units with our factory, we now believe this could be a software bug. We’re working to fix these issues with a software update - if we can’t, we’ll replace the affected watches (regardless of your warranty eligibility).

Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#132

Post by bArray »

Aurornis wrote: post #112
bArray wrote: post #53

Was just checking out the Index 01 [1]: > Why can't it be recharged? > We considered this but decided not to for several reasons: > You'd probably lose the charger before the battery runs out! > Adding charge circuitry and including a charger would make the product larger and more expensive. > You send it back to us to recycle. I don't think this is true. The charging circuit could have been in the charger itself. To…

Exposed terminals would need a lot more than a single transistor. It would need ESD protection and it would change the outer case from being a complete sealed over mold into something that had to seal against two exposed terminals. That’s a big change. They would also need to ship a separate charger device to go with it, which approaches the complexity of the simple ring product. These are solvable problems, but it w…

> Exposed terminals would need a lot more than a single transistor. It would need ESD protection and it would change the outer case from being a complete sealed over mold into something that had to seal against two exposed terminals. That’s a big change.

This is a solved problem though. Wireless earbuds can do it. We're probably just talking about a TVS diode.

> For a niche, low volume product with an unknown market demand I think making the simplest possible version of the product is a good idea to start, but at $99 it’s getting into the range where buyers don’t want to think of it as a disposable item.

> The bigger problem is that the 2 year battery life depends on the device being used for only short notes like “Add milk to the grocery list”. The people who expect to use this for taking notes or thinking out loud could exhaust the battery in a couple months.

$75 for a use once device that could last as little as a few months under normal usage, or $100 for something that could operate for 5+ years. Knowing whether there is a market is always difficult, but if you do crack a market you typically only get one chance to get people onboard.

Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#133

Post by duxup »

jcoder wrote: post #104

The ring sizing has been such a debacle, first with needing to buy (!) their special ring sizing kit because standard sizing wouldn’t be accurate they said, and now they say that the ring sizing kits weren’t true to size and suggest this: > When in doubt, order a larger size. You can always adjust a larger Index 01 to feel smaller with a foam adhesive or clip but you can’t make it larger! Size up and shim it with foa…

Was this a manufacturing issue or something?

How do you manufacture a ring and not know what size it is / sell it to people?

Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#134

Post by apparent »

haritha-j wrote: post #109

The index is a ludicrous product. The battery life, they claim, is 2 years. This is one heck of a misrepresentation. It is actually 12-15 hours. They get the 2 years because its meant to be used around 10-20 times a day, in *3-6 second* recordings. The device is being marketed as external memory for your brain. I'm hardly a philosopher, but I don't have many useful thoughts that are 3-6 seconds in length. heck, when…

Given their track record hitting the battery life projections for the P2D and PT2 (almost), I would give them the benefit of the doubt on the Index01.

Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#135

Post by skinfaxi »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #122
skinfaxi wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interdiction at the ports. Seizure of persons related to the enterprise crossing into the jurisdiction.

Because the warranty is too short? I'll go with 'no chance' on that one.

Oh yeah, as a practical matter I totally agree though lack of enforcement invites more participation by other actors.

Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#136

Post by bArray »

Tade0 wrote: post #94
svl7 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A piezo button would be neat, might be able to generate enough electricity for each use without having to rely on a battery at all. Not sure about the form factor here though.

Or even a thin-film amorphous silicon solar panel + capacitor. Assuming most of the weight of that ring is the battery, it appears to be storing around 0.5Wh, so two years of operation should amount to approximately 30uW of power. It should be possible to squeeze this much from a 0.5mm2 amorphous cell in direct sunlight. Considering the ring is 6.6mm wide at the widest point, they could get orders of magnitude more p…

I was thinking also about some kind of coil. Being a ring it should be possible to induce a current, with the chassis as a ground.

Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#137

Post by nosrepa »

chias wrote: post #45

The watch I really want is the Pebble Time 2 with a black-and-white screen. The Pebble Time 2 is a huge step up from the Pebble 2 Duo in almost every conceivable way, but the contrast ratio on the latter is so much better that I still wear the P2D instead of the PT2, and just resign myself to deal with the lower resolution screen and inferior build quality.

Just don't use a color watch face?

Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#138

Post by wartijn_ »

mbirth wrote: post #130
Aurornis wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exposed terminals would need a lot more than a single transistor. It would need ESD protection and it would change the outer case from being a complete sealed over mold into something that had to seal against two exposed terminals. That’s a big change. They would also need to ship a separate charger device to go with it, which approaches the complexity of the simple ring product. These are solvable problems, but it w…

Also ask any serious Garmin watch user about their charging/data contacts. They start to rot away after 1-2 years of being exposed to sweat.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about that, and I know a good amount of people who use Garmin watches. My own forerunner is still going strong after 5 (I think) years of use, with multiple runs a week for most of that time.

Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#139

Post by Uvix »

skinfaxi wrote: post #103
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the mechanism for stopping them?

Interdiction at the ports. Seizure of persons related to the enterprise crossing into the jurisdiction.

Interdiction at the ports is the buyer's problem, not the seller's. Kidnapping people because of their employer sounds like a great way to lose tourism permanently.

Re: Pebble Mega Update – July 2026

#140

Post by chias »

nosrepa wrote: post #137
chias wrote: post #45

The watch I really want is the Pebble Time 2 with a black-and-white screen. The Pebble Time 2 is a huge step up from the Pebble 2 Duo in almost every conceivable way, but the contrast ratio on the latter is so much better that I still wear the P2D instead of the PT2, and just resign myself to deal with the lower resolution screen and inferior build quality.

Just don't use a color watch face?

the contrast ratio of a black-and-white e-ink screen is significantly better than the contrast ratio of a color e-eink screen when displaying black and white. It's a very noticeable difference between black-and-white vs dark-grey-on-light-grey. The P2D is much more comfortable to read indoors with the backlight off.

https://i.imgur.com/Z2Yrkl1.jpeg

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