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We're bringing Pebble back

repebble.com

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Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#491

Post by Y-bar »

Cadwhisker wrote: post #222
insane_dreamer wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Withings ScanWatch was the right fit for me. Unfortunately the HR sensor stopped working recently and the water resistant seal broke, and it's out of warranty, so it's in a drawer. But IMO that was the right idea: analog time, discrete notifications, ppg/ekg sensors, 2-week battery life.

I prefer technology that hides from view, so the Withings watches suit me as well. The biggest downside is that the battery does not seem to be user-replaceable, so the 1 month of run-time I used to get slowly fades down to about a week or two after a couple of years of use. I can't go away for more than a week now without bringing the charger.

I agree (a ScanWatch 2 owner here) that batteries should be user-replaceable. And that the fact that it is missing from my watch is a negative thing.

However, it is a very minor thing when the battery lasts as long as it does. If it holds 80% capacity like most other batteries today at 300, or more, cycles it would take over 10 years for the battery to degrade significantly considering each cycle is up to 30 days.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#492

Post by jaapz »

donjoe0 wrote: post #329
jaapz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed, the bezel was too big! I had a time steel as well, but it had a huge bezel too. I'm partial to the round designs anyway and let's hope the technology has improved so much that the bezel can be removed completely

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#493

Post by eps »

taneq wrote: post #203
brian-armstrong wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to invest some of that money in anger management classes

If a smartwatch requires anger management classes in order to use successfully, that might indicate something about the watch. :P

... or expectations.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#494

Post by eps »

seanhunter wrote: post #405
ctkhn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta be honest I feel like Garmin is the perfect balance of pebble vs apple watch

Garmin is the perfect solution if you want a smart watch with a gps that takes 5mins to possibly sync 50% of the time and a touchscreen-only interface that doesn’t work if it gets wet or say sweaty. Ie during most of the activities it’s supposedly designed for. When I got a garmin smartwatch I was astounded by how poor the basic ux is in almost every single way. If I’m swimming, how do I stop my work out? The touchsc…

> And the GPS sync thing amazes me.

If the watch was recently synced with the app to get current GPS ephemrides, it gets the lock within seconds. Otherwise, it may take much longer just like any other GPS device with outdated ephemerides.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#495

Post by tomaskafka »

jakecopp wrote: post #350
tomaskafka wrote: post #194

Awesome! The first Pebble absolutely fascinated me by having a hackable, C-running watch on my wrist. I vividly remember spending days fine tuning the heuristics of a simple step detection algorithm in the first watchface where I thought “seeing your daily step count next to time sure is awesome”. And later, tens of thousands of people thought so as well - this was one of the signs what the health-tracking wrist devi…

> Weathergraph was then ported to Garmin (as Pebble shut down), and then to Apple Watch widget I don't think I was a particularly early user of Weathergraph - but when I finally had to retire my Pebble Time I only considered platforms that had your watchface. Thanks very much for the attention to detail!

Thank you!

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#496

Post by tomaskafka »

angristan wrote: post #469
tomaskafka wrote: post #194

Awesome! The first Pebble absolutely fascinated me by having a hackable, C-running watch on my wrist. I vividly remember spending days fine tuning the heuristics of a simple step detection algorithm in the first watchface where I thought “seeing your daily step count next to time sure is awesome”. And later, tens of thousands of people thought so as well - this was one of the signs what the health-tracking wrist devi…

Weathergraph is the best weather app I've ever used, thank you so much for it!

Thank you! I hope to keep it that way :).

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#497

Post by tomaskafka »

KatharineBerry wrote: post #340
tomaskafka wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, my memory is hazy here, but if I remember right, at the beginning Apple didn’t let them download executable code (companion js) to the app, so they just took a javascript code from every app in the pebble store , bundled it into Pebble iOS app, and updated it every few days with a fresh code. Can anyone confirm?

That is exactly what we did. Bonus fact: we didn’t actually read the bundled code - we downloaded it from the internet and ran it as usual. But a server-side check ensured you could only get the JavaScript we’d bundled. Or at least it did until we eventually quietly turned off the check, when Apple stopped paying attention.

Oooh, clever :). Just dash quickly when the Sauron's eye looks in another direction :)).

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#498

Post by [deleted] »

mrinterweb wrote: post #26

I noticed my mouth had been hanging agape for a while while reading this. This is huge news. I feel like Pebble is the smartwatch that got it right the first time. So many smartwatches try to replace the phone instead of being an extension of the phone. Pebble seemed to better understand what is important than most smartwatches by being the extension of the phone, a focus on battery life and always on displays.

[deleted]

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#499

Post by hnbad »

I'm very glad to hear that the goal this time isn't growth and not to try to expand/pivot into other avenues at any cost. As a triple backer it was gutwrenching to see a company producing such a great device desperately chase investor money by trying to move into oversaturated mass markets instead of sticking to its strengths. I still have a Pebble Time (actually I inherited my uncle's after he learned that I had lost mine because it had fallen apart after I took it for a swim) and although it's been degrading visibly over the years (and the limitations like poor integration with Outlook for Android and other non-stock apps for e-mail, calendars, etc), I still find myself refusing to get a different smartwatch because none of them serve this exact niche.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#500

Post by nym3r0s »

The primary use for a smartwatch for myself (and many of my family, friends) is fitness and health tracking. Card payments, notifications, WatchFaces etc. are all secondary.

Basically what Whoop is doing with their strap - but minus the subscription model. I know a ton of people who tried the whoop but felt it was extremely pricey and didn't have the accuracy of an apple watch.

I would be happy to pay ~$400-500 up front for hardware that integrates with Apple Health and provides solid, reliable health tracking without a need for a subscription.

And by health/fitness - features expected would be sleep tracking, activity (gps), heart rate, Sp02, skin temperature sensors, fall detection. Then secondarily - additional things like ECG/EKG, apnea, AFib detection

The in-accuracy of some of the devices in the market is why I still choose to remain with my Apple Watch.

This youtube channel may help understand a consumer's perspective on health accuracy - https://www.youtube.com/@TheQuantifiedScientist

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