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Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

repebble.com

271–280 of 615 posts

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My notification volume is relatively low, but there is one kind of notification, involving a certain significant other (we have high-needs kids) that requires action. So if the phone rings or there is a text message, for example, seeing at a glance (no button presses) what number it is from definitely allows stop/continue decision. I wish I did have a life where I can leave the electronic leash at home, or at least on mute.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#273
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…

Or better yet. Use your cellphone wich most of us carry 90% of the time?

...and face the seductive allure of all those delicious notifications trying to get me to task switch to a bunch of other things?

No, sir. I'm pretty much on board with anything that reduces the number of times I need to light up that phone screen.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#274

I don’t dislike the forever battery and the value proposition, however voice memos never appealed to me? The obvious voice commands that work only half of the time, can’t voice memo in bed with your parters, in the office, or in public. That leaves very limited opportunities for this to be useful.

At only ~12 hours of recording per device, this wouldn't replace other forms of notetaking where you can afford the necessary interaction cost (e.g. taking out your phone). It reduces the number of times that you're unable to take notes (due to ergonomics/physical factors or otherwise).

It increases the surface area of your day where "I am able to take a note right now (because I don't have anything stopping me)" is a true statement.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#275
Could this record like a morse code(ish) like clicks instead of speaking? I can find a number of use cases for it:

1. Distress/Emergency makes you Unable to speak.

2. While doing vipassana meditation to record how strong the feeling attached to a thought was.

3. Repeat previous action.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the description, this doesn't seem plausible. If the button is as clicky as it sounds, it would hurt your head/hand/both to do the thing you describe.

It doesn't matter if it's plausible or not. It's the fact that it's non-rechargeable device with 12 hours of recording...

I wouldn't think about the total recording time so much as the actual usage you'll get out of it. If based on typical usage, you could get even eighteen months out of it, then you're looking at around $5/month for a device to serve this purpose for you.

Is that worth it to you? Perhaps not. But plenty of us pay similar amounts of money for software subscriptions related to productivity, so it's not especially outlandish compared to paying for Standard Notes, Todoist, etc.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#277
Wow, uh, it’s kind of astounding how poorly Eric is reading the room there.

A weird disposable(!) voice recorder ring seems to go against pretty much all of the “open and repairable” image that the Pebble brand has been cultivating.

This product should probably have been “Core” branded and kept on a different website entirely. Its very existence seems kind of toxic to the Pebble brand, IMO.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#278
post #123

I'm sold enough on this form factor to take a flyer on a pre-order. I've been hunting for ways to minimize friction when quickly capturing random thoughts and this is a novel idea that seems to go further than anything else I've tried. The lack of battery charging/replacement is a bummer, but slimness is far more critical for a ring than just about any other device so I understand the tradeoff. I've also seen stories…

I don't understand why people who are probably OK with ordering Doordash once in a while are up in arms about a disposable device that weighs a couple of grams, lasts for years, and is recycled. You can easily spend more on a single Doordash meal for two people and I guarantee a few Doordash meals have more impact on the environment than this minuscule device ever could.

[deleted]

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cellphone that’s buried in my handbag? I think you missed the expressed use case (admittedly, a few paragraphs into TFA): ”Before, I would take my phone out of my pocket to jot these down, but I couldn’t always do that (eg, while bicycling). I also wanted to start using my phone less, especially in front of my kids. ”

as I wondered in another comment, the button may not always be facing your thumb. so then you'd need to keep fiddling with it anyway.

It's still easier to turn around a ring than to fiddle with a a phone. And more legal as well, no laws against rotating a ring while rinding your bike. That's fully haptic, no is drawn from traffic for that.

Re: Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain

#280
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn’t you make it just a button which activates the watch? It’d be an addon to pebble watch. It couldn’t be used standalone, but you could make it rechargeable and it would solve your issue (actions with only one hand)

It can work exactly like that, if you have a Pebble. But it works standalone as well.

Do you mean that this is technically possible, or that this is a feature that will be supported? I've preordered the Time 2, so having the ability to configure it that way to significantly extend the battery life of the ring could be interesting. On the other hand, using it standalone might be fine for me. I wouldn't really know how fast I might go through the battery without using it for a while.
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