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Two new PebbleOS watches

ericmigi.com

231–240 of 544 posts

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#231

Core 2 Duo is a pretty funny name. Are you going to sell replacement parts this time? I was immensely disappointed to see the initial watches being pretty repairable in theory, but no parts being sold. It was marketed as a tinkerer‘s device after all. I’m wearing my Pebble Time Steel right now - and quite like it. Haven’t found anything better. It could use some better activity tracking, but the worst thing about it…

> it doesn’t really have an iOS app (AltStore is pretty flaky). Any news on that front? I thought the Pebble app still worked, using Rebble. My understanding is that they are building a new app for the new watches, if that's what you were asking about.

The only way to install the old iOS Pebble app is by sideloading via something like AltStore (or doing it manually every week). Maybe you can also still re-install it if you had it installed when it was available in the App Store but I'm not sure if that still works.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#233
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't bought something from outside the EU in a while? They charge us at least VAT (maybe over a certain price, depending on your jurisdiction) :) Large stores can afford to precalculate this and use a service that will handle taxes for you, small stores not so much so you may end paying it personally on receiving the package. But they can afford to precalculate it if the taxes are known in advance (usually starts…

> Haven't bought something from outside the EU in a while? They charge us at least VAT (maybe over a certain price, depending on your jurisdiction) :) Sure, and as you also seem familiar with, you know it's pretty trivial to calculate yourself when you place your order :) So far, I've never bought something internationally, then before shipping the tax laws changed enough that the toll and/or tax payment was differen…

No but there's a certain jurisdiction across an ocean where that's likely to happen and that's what they are aiming at.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in europe letting me know what the real price is only at the cash register and not when I check out the product in the store is as unusual as your problem with import duties :) I think it may even be illegal for consumer prices. What they display or list in the contract is what you pay. But on the other hand I'm used to paying import taxes separately when ordering something from outside the EU.

Yes, Americans don't know the exact price of the products in their cart between the 10min they put the items in their cart and when they check out. They know it will be a little more and they mentally budget for it. But that doesn't have much to do with a price increasing weeks or months after paying for a preorder.

So you can mentally separate the price the vendor charges from taxes imposed by the state when you pick up in the store but not when ordering internationally?

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#236
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an old Suunto from before they went to crap, by far my favourite function was vertical speed, and it relied only on the accelerometer (the watch had GPS, but turning it on killed battery life). I still tried a couple of newer models but they removed that function.

The accelerometer? How can the accelerometer measure speed? It would drift to massive error very quickly.

vertical speed likely relied on the barometer rather than the accelerometer for exactly that reason.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#237
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nordic nRF52840[1] SoC on which these are based support not only Bluetooth 5.4 but also Thread, Zigbee, and 802.15.4. These three standards are becoming commonplace in the home automation space. Has any thought been given to how the new Pebble devices could utilize these protocols? [1] https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/nRF52840

Pretty sure those different radio stacks do not run very well in parallel or if they do, they'd likely start to starve the rest in terms of resources needed. The nRF52840 is not the most performant, I would've really liked if they had chosen a SoC, like the nRF5340, with more RAM or cores for this reason amongst others.

There are similar devices (i.e. SiLabs) that allow multi-protocol use with the radio (I would expect Nordic to have a similar feature set), tho yes, you're right the resource issue would be a major limitation.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will the Android companion app be open source? And/or will the watch APIs be documented such that someone could write an open source companion app?

there's an open-source companion app already, called Cobble. https://github.com/pebble-dev/mobile-app Core Devices will publish an open source fully featured library, that anyone can use to build an open source companion app as well.

Awesome! Thanks!

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#239
As someone who was a huge fan of the original Pebble series, it's hard to get excited about this offering when compared to the alternatives available today with more features and a cheaper price.

I'm currently wearing the BangleJS v2 [0] which has the following going for it, all for $90USD:

* 1.3 inch 176x176 always-on 3 bit colour LCD display (LPM013M126) with backlight

* Full touchscreen (6H hardness glass)

* GPS/Glonass receiver

* Heart rate monitor

* 3 Axis Accelerometer

* 3 Axis Magnetometer

* Air Pressure/Temperature sensor

* 175mAh battery, 4 week standby time

* Full SWD debug port on rear of watch

* The OS and every app are open source, all written in Javascript

In my experience it lasts over 2 weeks with multiple daily notifications and wearing it 24/7 for HR and sleep tracking.

The Pebble was a compelling offer when it came out, but I'll have to pass on this one.

[0] https://shop.espruino.com/banglejs2

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#240
post #3

I'll be hanging out here - happy to answer any questions you have!

No questions but a comment: I rarely get emotionally attached to devices, especially since I have to handle a lot of fancy hardware for work and it gets old quickly. However, there are a few pieces of technology like my Walkman or my Thinkpad X61t that I really liked and was sad to have to let go when their time had come. The Pebble is another one of those devices for me and I'm quite happy that I won't have to it let go for a lot longer that I thought thanks to your new project. Thanks. :-)
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