211–220 of 398 posts
I'm one of them. Still love it. The built-in compass and the third-party app that integrates with Google Maps are priceless to me. Using physical buttons as opposed to touchscreen is another great feature. All these years, I haven't found a replacement.
Wait, which versions have a compass? My P2HR does not mention that anywhere.
As a big Pebble fan, I was really sad to see the company go without any similar alternatives in the market (at the time). My watches ended up having various hardware issues over the years, so I switched to something else. The efforts Rebble has put in to keep these devices alive is amazing. If they grow bigger, I'd love to see them do hardware. In the meantime, I'm wearing a Withings ScanWatch [0]. Not as extendable…
Are there any comparable alternatives to Pebble even now? I’ve yet to see one, but I haven’t followed the market very closely since I stopped using one.
I've got a friend who still uses a Palm Pilot (circa 1998) as a daily calendar manager/notepad. Works at Google and delights in telling younger colleagues it's a Pixel 8 prototype.
I'm sad that tech did away with replaceable batteries. I would love to use my 5-inch 16:9 Samsung phone from 2016. It still works fine, but the battery barely lasts an hour. Instead I have to use one of their gigantic replacement phones with a ridiculous 21:9 ratio.
I've always wanted a "watch" (bracelet) that doesn't show the time. Essentially a narrow bracelet with no display and a few buttons on it that I can program, and a vibrating function so I can leave my phone on silent. I already have a watch I like to wear. wearchronos.com seemed to hit my use case, but the reviews aren't great.
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Not in my opinion. The closest I’ve found are hybrid watches which will forward alerts (but generally with no text), but certainly nothing with the screen, battery life, and OSS vibe.
You guys seem to be more informed than me since I didn't use the pebble. Do you know how the pinetime compares?
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I'm sad that tech did away with replaceable batteries. I would love to use my 5-inch 16:9 Samsung phone from 2016. It still works fine, but the battery barely lasts an hour. Instead I have to use one of their gigantic replacement phones with a ridiculous 21:9 ratio.
You can still get those batteries replaced. It's just a lot more work.
I use 5 of them! And I have one more with a wasted battery that I intend to replace. And I'll still buy some more, because I want to have them available for the rest of my life. There are things that only the Pebble does: - button only interface that you can handle in the dark without glasses - a screen that barcode scanners can easily read for authentication into the gym and library - a TOTP app (authentication toke…
> And I have one more with a wasted battery that I intend to replace. I wish Rebble would offer a paid mail-in service to replace the batteries, to have someone trusted & reliable do the work. I'm down to about 2-days battery life on my Time Steel. I do have a replacement Time Steel that I bought on eBay, but I'd love to get this one fixed. I love Rebble, but I wish they did more to round out the service. I'm really…
That being said, a store for refurbed Pebbles might be doable, but it would be a big time and cost overhead.
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Are there any comparable alternatives to Pebble even now? I’ve yet to see one, but I haven’t followed the market very closely since I stopped using one.
Surprised this hasn't been mentioned on this thread yet. Hardware wise the closest is probably the Pine Time from Pine64. Software and services wise this isn't on pebbles level though. https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ As others mention hybrid watches are probably the closest alternative.
With the Pebble I had app shortcuts on the long press of most of the buttons and could pretty much navigate it blind to start a stopwatch ASAP and lap as needed without looking. I had tons of saved timer presets. The alarms could actually wake me up (before the vibration motor broke). PineTime won't let me save timer presets, set timers over an hour or so long, and it's not obvious enough when the timer ends. I think it vibrates once instead of doing it until dismissed. These are basic things, and to me they matter even more than seeing notifications from my phone appear. I even used my Pebble without a phone for months at a time before.
I've always wanted a "watch" (bracelet) that doesn't show the time. Essentially a narrow bracelet with no display and a few buttons on it that I can program, and a vibrating function so I can leave my phone on silent. I already have a watch I like to wear. wearchronos.com seemed to hit my use case, but the reviews aren't great.
I had the first generation of Mi Band, the one with only 3 RGB LEDs, no display. And I loved it, I could easily see I have a new Gmail notification when it gently vibrated and the LEDs flashed red (well more of a breathe animation than a flash), or a Facebook Messenger one when it was blue. The Bluetooth communications it used made it easy to program your own vibrations and LEDs.
It sounds non intuitive but 90% of the time the flashing LEDs made me NOT check the phone. I was like, "oh blue, most likely my brother replied, I'll check it later"
I also fantasized about modding my current analog watch but fitting a tiny battery and a tiny BLE chip and a tiny vibration motor and surfacing tiny LEDs is way outside my possibilities. Chronos sounds good in theory but the end result is not what I want. I don't want to increase the thickness of my watch, or have to recharge it or worry about a magnet not staying in place.
It's the only smartwatch I've owned and I loved it. I'm back to my $5 Casio now.