Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch • Hacker News Board

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#281

Post by odiroot » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:25 PM UTC

esel2k wrote: post #272

odiroot wrote: post #32

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.

How or what do you integrate with google maps? I only see notifications and it stops after a while.

I bought (ages ago) the _Nav Me_ companion app. It parses Google Maps notifications and shows you directions on the watch. Also vibrates and turns the light on for every step.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#282

Post by dirtyid » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

Cpoll wrote: post #205

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.

Basically, except for media controls for winter where gloves+swipe don't work. I ended up using a bluetooth media remote for cars. But a simple fitness band with a few buttons and a silence slider would be great.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#283

Post by odiroot » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

hobo_mark wrote: post #74

odiroot wrote: post #32

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.

I have Pebble Time. The compass app is a factory one, I believe.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#284

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #53

dcormier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I picked up an older Fossil Hybrid HR a few months ago for $100. I've been rocking it every day and it's been great - battery lasts a couple weeks.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#285

Post by thepasswordis » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #202

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.

Dang that's really cool. I remember having a palm and loving it in high school. There was a utility that would crawl a website and then package it up to a certain link depth, and put that on your palm pilot for offline viewing.

I used to crawl fark.com so I could read the stories and comments later.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#286

Post by AshamedCaptain » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

imiller wrote: post #171

razemio wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked the Garmin Fenix 7 and now I want to add one missing point to your list: - affordable

You can get a similar experience to the Fenix (but without the higher end sports features) with other Garmin sports watches. The Forerunner 255 is well reviewed and very similar to the Fenix for about half the price.

Or buying older, second-hand Garmins. There is really no point to having the latest and greatest and the price of last year's model is basically half.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#287

Post by WanderPanda » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

dont__panic wrote: post #265

rchaud wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As long as you have a phone that's reasonably well designed, it's usually not too much trouble to replace the internal battery every 2-3 years. I think our culture is really wasteful with batteries. I can't believe that my iphone doesn't have a built-in setting to cap charging at 80%. Studies show that you can decrease battery wear to negligible levels by doing this. Yet my Android e-ink tablet, my iphone, my smartwa…

Al Dente didn‘t really work for me. I used it constantly for 1.5-2 years (capped at 60-80) and my battery still went to 88% of design capacity. My iPhone‘s battery on the other hand has been tortured for three years (always charging 100%, fast charging, getting very hot in the sun) and is still at 85%.

I feel like the batteries nowadays are just made to last 2-3 years to get to 85-80% capacity no matter how you treat them

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#288

Post by gnramires » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

jackmott42 wrote: post #274

dont__panic wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you have a phone that's reasonably well designed, it's usually not too much trouble to replace the internal battery every 2-3 years. I think our culture is really wasteful with batteries. I can't believe that my iphone doesn't have a built-in setting to cap charging at 80%. Studies show that you can decrease battery wear to negligible levels by doing this. Yet my Android e-ink tablet, my iphone, my smartwa…

I believe the research would suggest 80% doesn't really make an especially good target. Its mostly a linear relationship between state of charge and speed of battery aging, other than a step change around 50-70% depending on the chemistry. source (one of many): https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/2.0411609jes/pdf I keep my EV charged to just 50% most days for this reason, get below that step change.

Interesting, just a note to someone reading that paper: I'm not sure what methodology they used (did they keep the cell SoC in storage?), but storing depleted cells can severely degrade them due to self-discharge (that's why the recommended storage SoC is usually 40%).

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#289

Post by jhatemyjob » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

GloriousKoji wrote: post #267

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #202

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 miss the old Palm Pilot and even Windows CE devices. Despite the massive amounts of computational power and an endless library of software I find modern smart phones PDA inferior.

Yea, all the iPhone did was make PDAs palatable by the masses. I wonder how much further we would be as a species if it was never released.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#290

Post by Pfhortune » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 7:48 PM UTC

Folks ITT will talk about watches that are similar in hardware, but what was magic about Pebble was the software and ecosystem. The OS was just a delight to use, fast, wonderfully animated, and let you sideload whatever you want.

I've tried a couple of Garmin watches (Vivoactive 3 and Forerunner 55) and the Amazfit Bip, and this is where they all fall completely flat. The UX is just horrible by comparison. It's like these companies have no regard for designing the OS UX and are just trying to cram features in.

And the fact that companies want to make touchscreen watches is just with few/no buttons is baffling to me. Tapping tiny buttons on a tiny screen is a horrible experience. And there's tons of moving targets because of the tiny amount of real-estate.

Pebble _just got it_ with the 2.0 OS and beyond. They were a joy to use.

I begrudgingly have gone back to using an Apple Watch, because despite being subpar, the UX is somewhat together these days, just enough to be tolerable. When I move away from iOS again, I'll probably either pull out an old Pebble that still has some battery life, or a Casio GBD200, which isn't really a smartwatch but ticks some major boxes for me (always-on-display, silent vibration alarm, and timers, chief among them). The GBD200 runs on a coin cell too, so I never have to worry about charging or a replacement being difficult to find!