How were users left when pebble got sold? It's a little disappointing to read that the OS wasn't already open source. Did they provide any information that could allow other teams recreate services or update the firmware or were people left to fend for themselves?
We're bringing Pebble back
321–330 of 758 posts
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bought a watch in 2003 or so and it cost about £120. I have never worried about powering it - the face is a solar power trickle charger. I can barely generate enough vitamin D for myself but my watch can power itself from the sun here! My watch's time is accurate to within my perception. I run a little fleet of stratum 1 NTP devices and I set my watch roughly bi-annually, whether it needs it or not! The day of week…
For me the #1 feature of a smartwatch is it allows me to take out my phone a lot less and keep it entirely silent without missing important calls or texts. I can filter down my notifications to just the essentials and when one comes in I feel the vibration on my wrist and can tell at a glance if it is important or not. My phone never makes a sound, not even vibration. Other things I enjoy are having weather/stock pri…
Counterpoint, but I use the fitness tracking in reverse, as I have CFS and have to be careful about how much energy I spend. When I get a notification that I've reached my "goal", I know I need to rest so I don't overdo it. It's also useful for tracking how much sleep I get, so I can get a sense for how much I can do that day. Not the typical use-case, but it's really helpful for pacing!
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#323Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just gave away a very expensive Garmin to my son. Its feature set is to dream of. Its user interface is hot garbage. When I'm out on a hike or in the pool trying to just measure my fsking laps I need a single click option or something. Their paradigm of "button 1, button 3, button 5, long press button 4, button 1 again to confirm. Now you can push off the wall in 3... 2... 1" is beyond fucking stupid. Does anyone a…
On the positive side, I adore that they sell (sold?) the forerunner series with all physical buttons and no touchscreen. Garbage software, but being able to click through by muscle memory instead of dealing with a touch interface in sunny conditions is essential to me. Fitbits and apple watches have just always been too reliant on the touch method for my liking. The software is pretty crap though, and forerunner in p…
The 265 and 975 both have touch screen on top of the buttons.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#325Reposting the comment I made when Fitbit acquired the hollowed-out shell of Pebble, which still applies today: I liked Pebble as a company because they knew how to make just the right engineering compromises to make their product work. The smartwatch everyone wants has a battery that lasts for weeks, a high contrast always-on color screen visible in daylight and total darkness, no bezel, and a round case only a few m…
I bought a watch in 2003 or so and it cost about £120. I have never worried about powering it - the face is a solar power trickle charger. I can barely generate enough vitamin D for myself but my watch can power itself from the sun here! My watch's time is accurate to within my perception. I run a little fleet of stratum 1 NTP devices and I set my watch roughly bi-annually, whether it needs it or not! The day of week…
is it a g shock or casio variant?
the new ones can read email and take your pulse too
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bought a watch in 2003 or so and it cost about £120. I have never worried about powering it - the face is a solar power trickle charger. I can barely generate enough vitamin D for myself but my watch can power itself from the sun here! My watch's time is accurate to within my perception. I run a little fleet of stratum 1 NTP devices and I set my watch roughly bi-annually, whether it needs it or not! The day of week…
For me the #1 feature of a smartwatch is it allows me to take out my phone a lot less and keep it entirely silent without missing important calls or texts. I can filter down my notifications to just the essentials and when one comes in I feel the vibration on my wrist and can tell at a glance if it is important or not. My phone never makes a sound, not even vibration. Other things I enjoy are having weather/stock pri…
"it allows me to take out my phone a lot less and keep it entirely silent without missing important calls or texts"
Fair enough - there are rather more nerves on your wrist than wherever your phone is situated near to. I suppose that might depend on pocket shape and deployment and a few other factors!
OK so a vibrating watch will trump a vibrating phone in most cases - for notifications. That sounds like a compelling thing but not enough for a device that needs charging and care.
Now, how important are those calls and texts? At least you are old school enough to worry about a phone and SMS. Most kiddies are ... ...
Each social and comms app that you use can notify you but what is actually important and which should be able to shake your wrist? I personally think my physical person is nearly sacrosanct. I'll allow a phone to shudder in a pocket and no more.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#327Reposting the comment I made when Fitbit acquired the hollowed-out shell of Pebble, which still applies today: I liked Pebble as a company because they knew how to make just the right engineering compromises to make their product work. The smartwatch everyone wants has a battery that lasts for weeks, a high contrast always-on color screen visible in daylight and total darkness, no bezel, and a round case only a few m…
I was rocking my Pebble 2 until the iOS app finally rotted out of the app store a few years ago and switched to Casios.
I agree with the above. The limitations are what made Pebble so special. I recommend everyone take a crack at writing an app for Pebble someday; it's a ton of fun to write with such a limited C API.
I can't wait for the comeback. Now that it's open source, I hope we see open competition on the hardware front as well (the way we have retro handhelds and e-readers).
Time to dust off the code for that Time-Round Pong app I started in 2015...
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#328This is awesome. Pebble is still the best so many years later! I also have the Garmin, but Garmin thinks UX design is a waste of money or something, its horrendous. Pebble is the absolute undisputed King here.
Can’t wait to get my hands on a new Pebble!
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#329Will you have nice looking ones? or will they all be "sporty/plastic" types?
Pebble time round was very pretty IMHO, let's hope they go more that way this time
Huge bezel though. Would've got it if not for the bezel, I really wanted to make a custom 24h watchface for a Round. Went for the Time Steel instead. Hope in this new leg of the journey they can get a Round to have bezel coverage more on par with the rectangular models.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#330Still rocking my Time Steel since 2015, still running the same official version of the software on both watch and phone - as far as my Pebble is concerned nothing much has changed in the last decade except the app store mysteriously went offline, and the battery no longer lasts two weeks (shutting it down every time I get home).
Really awesome to hear by the time this little guy gives up the ghost there might already be a legitimate/official successor available to switch to.