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Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

repebble.com

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Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Niche market seems like an exaggeration, because they're competing against literal monopolies.

Pebble serves those people who want to watch or a ring that doesn't require being a slave to a wall wart, who want the watch to last for a long time. Take a look at Garmin, they do that too and they are a successful company. They are much older than Google and they still have a hard time keeping up with Google and it's billions of dollars of of mystery money advertising revenue.

The pixel hardware is a battery draining nightmare, in my personal experience having pixel watches for years and being a long-term pixel phone user. Even today the pixel phone that I have, after having I think five of these things, drains battery probably 20 to 40% faster than .. the competitor that I would next buy if I weren't feeling like I wanted some of the features that Google has bundled in with their phone and home and other like mnvo and messaging products. So, it seems like a mis comparison there, in my opinion. I don't want a smartwatch that lasts 25 hours and then has to be recharged. Or a smartwatch where the screen turns into a UHF channel just going out of tune and there's no tech support on Earth literally that is willing to help me. Volunteers on Google's support forums are lying to themselves that they have any power or sway with Google. It's a waste of time in my experience.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be interested to see a battery-less ring that uses the mechanical energy of the press to power a BLE transmitter to trigger voice input on a watch. I feel like it’s much safer, plus it has no fixed lifespan.

How will a single press provide that much energy?

Piezo

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#265
Oh look it's a Humane AI Pin without the AI, or rechargeable battery, or ...

It's an app. It's an app that will run on somebody else's platform. Putting that in a ring has so marginal benefits (you can't find a phone or computer or notepad or... to record ideas and do it better) and has so many limitations. It's a non-starter.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#266
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different people have different lives. I myself can't imagine the type of life where at any given moment during the day I'm in a position to "immediately pull out my phone" when I want to create a record of something. I'm not a Pebble customer, past or present, and I have owned exactly zero smartwatches. Excluding portrayals of futuristic wrist-mounted computers I saw during childhood that seemed cool just because th…

I'm not a watch person, and the only reason I occasionally wear one is because it's a Garmin and I'm recording an outdoor activity with it. But while cycling, when the phone in my backpack makes a notification noise, it is kind of handy to just be able to look at the watch to see what kind of notification it is - the kind hardly worth looking at or the kind worth stopping and pulling out the phone to reply to. This p…

There is another way to go about it - ignoring the phone completely while enjoying biking or jogging. Or leaving it at home. Unless I am on a call duty, all my notifications can wait.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#267
This sounds kind of cool, but I'm more worried about the e-waste. A device that is cheap, will get "recycled", and sounds cool, will get a tiny amount of use after the initial wow factor wears off or doesn't fit the needs, then gets thrown away or lost. And is this feature in the new repebble watches? I would rather have it there with a bigger battery.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#269
Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2023 concerning batteries and waste batteries

Article 11

Removability and replaceability of portable batteries and LMT batteries

1. Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those batteries are readily removable and replaceable by the end-user at any time during the lifetime of the product. That obligation shall only apply to entire batteries and not to individual cells or other parts included in such batteries.

A portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble the product.

Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those products are accompanied with instructions and safety information on the use, removal and replacement of the batteries. Those instructions and that safety information shall be made available permanently online, on a publicly available website, in an easily understandable way for end-users.

[…]

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

(This is active law; there is however a grace period for products until 2027.)

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#270
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.

Given the silicone rubber covering over the button, I wouldn't expect the hardware to last much longer anyways.
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