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Pebble Production: February Update

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Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#51

Post by mikepurvis »

beratbozkurt0 wrote: post #7

I'm curious, what sets it apart from other watches? The design look nice

I never had an original Pebble but was always a curious observer. To me, the attraction is a device that is clearly complementing a modern smartphone rather than trying to be a second phone on my wrist. I know lots of Apple Watches are sold sans-eSIM, and I get the appeal in very specific situations like a water park where I have to leave my phone in the locker but I can still wear a watch... the watch is now my gateway to texts, calls, Find-My, etc.

But nonetheless, that is a rare occurrence, and I don't think for me it's worth paying the battery life and complexity cost of an Apple Watch (or similar full featured wearable) for that 1% use case. I'd rather have a simpler device that just focuses on health tracking and a few notifications, basically what FitBit was if it had a better battery and didn't suck.

That it's hackable and there will likely be lots of community-maintained apps that link into services I use is gravy on top.

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#52

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

open-meteo wrote: post #20
lopis wrote: post #15

> Many old Pebble apps/faces use weather APIs that no longer work (Yahoo, OpenWeather). The Pebble mobile app now catches these network requests and returns data from Open-Meteo - keeping old watchfaces working! That's some sweet quality of life fixes!

And we are very determined to keep the Open-Meteo weather API open-access indefinitely and don’t share the same fate as many closed-source APIs like Yahoo or OpenWeatherMap.

Thank you!!!

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#53

Post by cubefox »

ssl-3 wrote: post #41
cubefox wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn’t e-paper the general category of low power displays? Yes, or more precisely: reflective displays without backlight. There were many such display technologies a while ago (when the Kindle took off and various companies tried to compete with E Ink), but most have since been abandoned. Pretty much all colored e-paper screens have much lower contrast than color printing on paper, since they mix colors by using can…

> Pretty much all colored e-paper screens have much lower contrast than color printing on paper, since they mix colors by using can conventional RGB sub-pixels and darkening them individually, just like regular lit screens, which reduces the amount of reflected light. Isn't that how color images printed paper works, too? We use inks (often in CMYK coloration, but a galaxy of other options exist) to subtract light fro…

> Isn't that how color images printed paper works, too?

No. When you print a piece of paper some color, e.g. red, it will be completely red. But most e-paper screens will only be 33% red (optimistically) and 66% black. This is because physical pixels usually can't change color themselves, only brightness, so you use three of them, and darken the RGB components, to produce a colored pixel.

For displaying white on color e-paper screens you will have three non-dark RGB sub-pixels, but each color component only reflects at most a third of the incoming spectrum, either red, green, or blue wavelengths, while white paper (or monochromatic e-paper screens) will reflect all three wavelengths everywhere.

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#54

Post by Fnoord »

qwertox wrote: post #11
bronlund wrote: post #3

When the first Pebble was released, and I got a couple of those, it was unique and cool as hell. This time around, you can get a programmable smartwatch from China for a fraction of the price looking way cooler. Edit: https://diyusthad.com/2021/04/top-5-open-source-smartwatch.h...

"programmable smartwatch from China" can you share some examples?

There's so many these days. Just have a look at AliExpress. There were various KS/IGG campaigns, too. One thing which kind of stood out was a smartwatch remote with what I will summarize as 'Flipper Zero capabilities'. I think I saw it on Etsy. It looked terrible though. For red teaming, you'd want something which looks professional, and blends in. Ideally with a watchface as, ehh.. 'screensaver'.

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#55

Post by ge96 »

I've never been a watch, necklace, ring guy. But one time when my phone was destroyed, I wished I had a no-screen typing interface somehow so I could call an Uber and get home... alas it was not meant to be, had to figure out how to use the bus.

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#56

Post by drum55 »

cubefox wrote: post #53
ssl-3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretty much all colored e-paper screens have much lower contrast than color printing on paper, since they mix colors by using can conventional RGB sub-pixels and darkening them individually, just like regular lit screens, which reduces the amount of reflected light. Isn't that how color images printed paper works, too? We use inks (often in CMYK coloration, but a galaxy of other options exist) to subtract light fro…

> Isn't that how color images printed paper works, too? No. When you print a piece of paper some color, e.g. red, it will be completely red. But most e-paper screens will only be 33% red (optimistically) and 66% black. This is because physical pixels usually can't change color themselves, only brightness, so you use three of them, and darken the RGB components, to produce a colored pixel. For displaying white on colo…

That’s not really correct, modern color eink displays actually change color, there’s different pigments inside each cell and others are created visually using dithering. Only the older type are monochrome displays with a color filter behaves like you’re describing.

https://www.eink.com/tech/detail/How_it_works

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#57

Post by c22 »

cranberryturkey wrote: post #32
beratbozkurt0 wrote: post #7

I'm curious, what sets it apart from other watches? The design look nice

The e-ink display is the killer feature. Week-long battery life and always-on readable display even in direct sunlight. Every other smartwatch is a tiny phone screen that dies in a day. Pebble chose the opposite trade-off: less flashy but actually useful as a watch. The open SDK and hackable firmware are the other half - you can write watchfaces and apps in C, which attracted a dev community that most wearables never…

My old pebble lasted a week. I got one of the new ones in December and so far I've only had to charge it once!

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#59

Post by jsheard »

billfor wrote: post #58

Can this do NFC/tap to pay? That's all I use my smartwatch for....

It can't, and I wouldn't hold my breath for such a small company being able to navigate compliance for contactless payments. The Pebble does use standard watch straps though, so you could get one of the ones with a programmable payment chip embedded inside.

If that's all you use your smartwatch for, you may as well skip the watch and get a payment bracelet or ring though.

e.g. https://www.curve.com/wearables/

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