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Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

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Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#51

Post by aliqot »

darau1 wrote: post #38
SentientAtom wrote: post #3

If it works for you, why would you migrate to a different product with features or performance outside of your needs? We are so deep into a disposable society that we eagerly await the NEXT BIG THING (TM) without ever evaluating what our need consists of or whether we have any need for an upgrade to begin with.

I know a guy that bought every new Samsung flagship device as soon as they hit stores. He said he just has to upgrade.

I wonder sometimes how can people reconcile buying a new X every Y and still be concerned about human rights and the environment, etc.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#52

Post by Chris2048 »

solarkraft wrote: post #27

That few? I wasn't a huge fan of Pebble, the company - they didn't sell replacement parts, for instance (the watch for geeks? yeah, sure). For some crazy reason, though, to this day, this watch is still almost the only one that gets such a basic thing right: Telling the damn time. The formula is as simple as it is unreplicated: - Always telling the time - Good battery life - Buttons Why nobody else makes such a watch…

Other than battery life, how does this compare to iwatch?

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#53

Post by falcolas »

dcormier wrote: post #41
keraf wrote: post #26

As a big Pebble fan, I was really sad to see the company go without any similar alternatives in the market (at the time). My watches ended up having various hardware issues over the years, so I switched to something else. The efforts Rebble has put in to keep these devices alive is amazing. If they grow bigger, I'd love to see them do hardware. In the meantime, I'm wearing a Withings ScanWatch [0]. Not as extendable…

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.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#55

Post by reaperducer »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #10

After the disaster that was the Galaxy Watch 4, I've given up completely on Android Wear - it is just too slow, even right out of the box, and the battery life is abysmal. Going flat at 7pm without anything extra installed and with 4G off is unacceptable. So I'm trying to move to a simpler watch with just basic smart features and longer battery life, but one where I can customize the watchface with code. I ended up g…

And it's cool, but it's extremely basic, a bit bulky and ugly, and has all the drawbacks of E-Paper.

Can you elaborate a bit about the e-paper part? I always believed that watches were the perfect place for e-paper. Low power, durable, always-on, wide viewing angle, no need to constant refresh.

I thought the smaller the display, the better suited it was for e-paper.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#56

Post by delecti »

dcormier wrote: post #41
keraf wrote: post #26

As a big Pebble fan, I was really sad to see the company go without any similar alternatives in the market (at the time). My watches ended up having various hardware issues over the years, so I switched to something else. The efforts Rebble has put in to keep these devices alive is amazing. If they grow bigger, I'd love to see them do hardware. In the meantime, I'm wearing a Withings ScanWatch [0]. Not as extendable…

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.

One problem with the smartwatch market is that it's hard to know what "comparable" means to any given person.

I've found an Amazfit Bip to be a totally satisfactory replacement for my Pebble Time, but it doesn't cover every single usecase. It does have a battery life measured in weeks though (usually 3-4 for me, less if I use the GPS to track a bunch of exercise), which is a pretty nice selling point.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#57

Post by benj111 »

aliqot wrote: post #51
darau1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a guy that bought every new Samsung flagship device as soon as they hit stores. He said he just has to upgrade.

I wonder sometimes how can people reconcile buying a new X every Y and still be concerned about human rights and the environment, etc.

Human rights?

That's kind of a tenuous link at best. You could make the case that buying more increases the opportunities for those at the bottom.

I'm not even necessarily making a factual statement here, but personally I don't feel that there's anything to reconcile.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#58

Post by Belphemur »

keraf wrote: post #26

As a big Pebble fan, I was really sad to see the company go without any similar alternatives in the market (at the time). My watches ended up having various hardware issues over the years, so I switched to something else. The efforts Rebble has put in to keep these devices alive is amazing. If they grow bigger, I'd love to see them do hardware. In the meantime, I'm wearing a Withings ScanWatch [0]. Not as extendable…

Withings is great if you're looking for "health" watch but not really good as fitness tracker.

For years, I used my steel HR (got a weird one branded Nokia because they had purchased Withings only to resell Withings to the founder a year later), loved the sleep tracking, health report etc... But the activity tracking wasn't the best, especially running.

However the battery's life is out of this world. I loved the mix between tech and good old watch.

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#59

Post by [deleted] »

Gigachad wrote: post #24
SentientAtom wrote: post #3

If it works for you, why would you migrate to a different product with features or performance outside of your needs? We are so deep into a disposable society that we eagerly await the NEXT BIG THING (TM) without ever evaluating what our need consists of or whether we have any need for an upgrade to begin with.

The pebble was a bit of a gimmick. It was the start of the future but on its own it was kind of worse than a regular watch. It looked ugly, had a terrible screen, didn’t have any of the stuff you mostly do with a smartwatch now. And half the features no longer work.

[deleted]

Re: Over 16k people still use a Pebble smartwatch

#60

Post by reaperducer »

ghaff wrote: post #8
paulcole wrote: post #2

The smart watch market is just huge. If there are 100 million people who wear an Apple Watch, it’s not surprising that less than .02% of that number would like something as niche as the pebble. It’s like the iPod Classic people. Billions of people want music with them wherever they go. 12 of them like it in MP3 form on a little brick that’s not their phone.

It’s interesting to me that when the Apple Watch was coming out (and maybe more broadly when fitness bands etc. were becoming available) there was a pretty widespread sentiment that younger people didn’t want watches because why would they? They always had their phones.

there was a pretty widespread sentiment that younger people didn’t want watches because why would they?

I remember this, too.

But good companies plan for the future, not the past. And all of those young people get older. That's one of the few certainties of life.

So what Apple did (intentionally or unintentionally) is create a market, and then let its customers mature into it.

Financial institutions do this all the time.

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