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Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

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Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#221

Post by _flux »

dwa3592 wrote: post #102
rarisma wrote: post #31

No charging: The battery lasts for up to years of average use. After the end of its life, send your ring back to us for recycling. Apple hire this man.

they should still have made it rechargeable tbh.

How much rechargeability really requires from hardware point of view?

I suppose the problem is that there are no standard for tiny magnetic chargers/cables. Every watch comes with their own, and they need be custom designed. For a device this large as much of the charging electronics should be outside the ring.

And another (small?) problem is that you'd need to electrically protect those external pins.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#222

Post by apparent »

kennyadam wrote: post #184
apparent wrote: post #172

> When your phone is in range, the recording is streamed to the Pebble app. It’s converted to text on-device, then processed by an on-device large language model (LLM) which selects an action to take (create note, add to reminders, etc). So does this mean that my lists have to be managed within the Pebble app? Or can the Pebble app interact with my Notes and Reminders apps? If I'm limited to the Pebble app's features…

Actions: [...] you can also ask it to do things like ’Send a Beeper message to my wife - running late’ or answer simple questions that could be answered by searching the web. You can configure button clicks to control your music [...] play/pause or skip tracks [...] where to save your notes and reminders (I have it set to add to Notion) [...] Add your own voice actions via MCP. Or route the audio recordings directly…

Yeah I saw that, but didn't know if it was Android-only (the Beeper reference made me wonder). Can anyone weigh in on what it can do, or how it does it?

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#223

Post by alternatex »

eloisant wrote: post #195
alternatex wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pixel watch is an order of magnitude more powerful and expensive than a Pebble though. Raise to wake is not as simple as it may seem considering most big brand smart watches didn't have a decently working implementation of it until only recently. It seems like the author wanted to keep it within the Pebble realm.

Add $75 (the price of this ring) to the Pebble time and you're almost at the price of a Pixel Watch 4. And you can get a PW3 for cheaper.

Economics don't work like that though. Google has the benefits of economies of scale and stable manufacturing partnerships, not to mention probably a lot more of the watch parts are designed in-house. I'd be surprised if Pebble could achieve anything close to the Pixel hardware for even twice the price.

It seems like Pebble is focusing on a niche market and this new product seems completely in line with that. There are plenty of other companies targeting the common folk who have no desire to optimize their life like this.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#224

Post by skeledrew »

lopis wrote: post #96

Instead of a stand-alone piece of e-waste, how about this: a device with the same format (a ring and an button) but the only thing it does is trigger the pebble watch to start recording a message. This way the microphone isn't needed, just the radio (and much weaker radio at that), and the battery will last exponentially longer. Then just expose the charging terminals so that we can at least hack the device with cust…

Might as well bundle the ring with the watch at that point, and increase the price accordingly, as it's then become an accessory particular to the pebble watch. And including a charging circuit means more complexity and bulk, also leading to an increase in price. And cost is a factor they're optimizing for.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#225

Post by dwa3592 »

dwa3592 wrote: post #102
rarisma wrote: post #31

No charging: The battery lasts for up to years of average use. After the end of its life, send your ring back to us for recycling. Apple hire this man.

they should still have made it rechargeable tbh.

They can still make another version which is slightly larger and is rechargeable; and let people decide what they prefer more.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#226

Post by skeledrew »

adammarples wrote: post #183
lopis wrote: post #96

Instead of a stand-alone piece of e-waste, how about this: a device with the same format (a ring and an button) but the only thing it does is trigger the pebble watch to start recording a message. This way the microphone isn't needed, just the radio (and much weaker radio at that), and the battery will last exponentially longer. Then just expose the charging terminals so that we can at least hack the device with cust…

Then just put the button on the watch? In fact, why isn't this just a button on the watch?

Because you need to use your other hand to press that button, instead of the adjacent finger.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#227

Post by noveltyaccount »

_flux wrote: post #221
dwa3592 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they should still have made it rechargeable tbh.

How much rechargeability really requires from hardware point of view? I suppose the problem is that there are no standard for tiny magnetic chargers/cables. Every watch comes with their own, and they need be custom designed. For a device this large as much of the charging electronics should be outside the ring. And another (small?) problem is that you'd need to electrically protect those external pins.

I'm with you, a little pogo-pin connector with all the charging circuitry in the external dongle would add, I don't know, ten dollars to the BOM. Very cool product but I won't buy a gadget I know I'd dispose in two years.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#228

Post by apparent »

For me, I'd rather use my Pebble to do this.

> Initially, we experimented by building this as an app on Pebble, since it has a mic and I’m always wearing one. But, I realized quickly that this was suboptimal - it required me to use my other hand to press the button to start recording (lift-to-wake gestures and wake-words are too unreliable). This was tough to use while bicycling or carrying stuff.

I guess I don't bicycle or carry stuff enough for this to matter. And often when my hands are full, I have my AirPods in and can just ask Siri (and cross my fingers that she'll understand).

This seems neat, but I try to keep my life as simple as possible, which means not having a ring when I can use my watch/earbuds to do the same thing about 99% of the time.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#229

Post by behringer »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #218
dwa3592 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they should still have made it rechargeable tbh.

Yeah, this would have been a neat tool for "middle-of-the-night" thoughts, but I don't want a disposable electronic device. I get why it is that way; not having any charging hardware probably makes the device much smaller. But I'd rather it be a bit bigger and rechargeable.

I dont believe it would be even more circuitry. 2 exposed pins and maybe a diode if you really want some protection. They did this to sell more rings.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#230

Post by wrxd »

rarisma wrote: post #31

No charging: The battery lasts for up to years of average use. After the end of its life, send your ring back to us for recycling. Apple hire this man.

I am not sure about the use case but I was happy to see they advertise a long battery life. Still, as soon as I learnt that it is disposable I lost any interest in the product.

I very likely wouldn't have bought it anyway but I am surely not going to buy disposable tech.

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