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Two new PebbleOS watches

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Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#521

Post by hombre_fatal »

Zetaphor wrote: post #239

As someone who was a huge fan of the original Pebble series, it's hard to get excited about this offering when compared to the alternatives available today with more features and a cheaper price. I'm currently wearing the BangleJS v2 [0] which has the following going for it, all for $90USD: * 1.3 inch 176x176 always-on 3 bit colour LCD display (LPM013M126) with backlight * Full touchscreen (6H hardness glass) * GPS/G…

I looked at a few Banglejs-in-action videos and the limitations look so bad that I'm not sure what you'd even build for it. The app store only seems to confirm this.

Here's someone showing what it's like to use the GPS system and lack of mapping: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtEdM2w1VDM

Pebble only has to be a little better to be 2x more usable. Looking at old videos from 8 years ago, the software was much, much better than anything I'm seeing on Banglejs today.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#522

Post by hombre_fatal »

kstrauser wrote: post #399
mikepurvis wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a one week test drive of Apple Watch a year and a half ago and I could barely get a day out of it. That alone was a deal breaker for me.

I get about 2 days from my Ultra 1.

Sure, but the Ultra is double the price of the normal Apple Watch. ($800)

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#523

Post by hombre_fatal »

ahel wrote: post #428
GlacierFox wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Excessive profit or _any_ profit? Haha. You'd prefer it people made things and just broke even?

I think I would like to be able to answer the following two questions: 1. what percentage of this object price is net profit? 2. is that percentage a "fair" proportion? but atm, I don't have a "scientific" way to respond to those questions so I usually go with my gut, or do whatever other people in my circle do (which is not ideal and I'd like to change)

Maybe reframing it can help you. You want the people to make money who produce the things/content you want to use and consume. It serves you as well as them.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#524

Post by hombre_fatal »

all2 wrote: post #377
zhyder wrote: post #371

I'm super happy about the revival (I backed the first Pebble Kickstarter) and the bullet list of key features you're targeting would make my dream watch, but I hope you take this as constructive criticism that you're way off right now on this one: - Simple and beautiful design It's ugly, and the gap with the industrial design of today's watches is wider. I suggest contracting with a good industrial design firm to red…

I very much disagree. This design gives me old school Casio vibes, and I really, really like it. My father has worn an old model from Casio for decades, and I have a lot of nostalgia around it.

The shape of the Time 2 reminds me of the Casio calculator watch, which I love.

Frankly I'd like it if they leaned even harder into hard edges, like octagons over curved bevels.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#525

Post by hombre_fatal »

promiseofbeans wrote: post #292

I'm curious that the $150 ones has a barometer and compass, while the $225 one doesn't in favour of a heart rate monitor. Given that they're specifically saying you shouldn't use it as a sports watch, what use is an HRM, especially when compared to the utility of a compass and barometer/altimeter?

I think HRM is more useful than compass/barometer since HR is the only thing your phone can't do.

The https://www.whoop.com/, for example, doesn't even have GPS. All of its value comes from its HRM.

Barometer is especially niche and not something very trustworthy outside of devices made for it. To the average person, compass is only useful for showing orientation on a map.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#526

Post by dewcifer »

Am I just out of my mind for feeling like I should wait a few months for a cheaper hardware equivalent to drop without an OS that will run Pebble?

I guess $100 average profit is "normal" in terms of production, marketing, r&d and all of that.. but this is just an old watch that someone is selling again since the OS was open sourced. The profit is just all profit.. I can't imagine a non-US manufacturer won't just start cranking out devices people can flash with a better OS.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#527

Post by hombre_fatal »

just-another-se wrote: post #347

I couldn't agree more on how restricted popular smartwatches are. I'm working on a project to capture the maximum physiological and health data—such as heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), stress levels, and SpO2—from a smartwatch in the shortest possible interval. So far, the best I've achieved is once per minute. Could pebble support obtaining this data (particularly HRV) at even shorter intervals?

Pebble let developers request HR data at a max frequency of 1Hz, so I'm not sure how you could calculate HRV from it (Nyquist theorem).

https://developer.rebble.io/developer.pebble.com/guides/even...

I also tinker with health data from wearables. I've built some Whoop-like UIs for a couple cheapo wrist straps from Aliexpress, but their HR monitors are always so bad that they're useless outside of when you're sleeping.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#528

Post by maxglute »

lproven wrote: post #515
maxglute wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah commodity fitness trackers with a few custom buttons would go a long way to scratch pebble itch. Make Casio F91W fitness tracker a thing.

That's my point -- such things do exist already. Amazfit is an example. They give you the fitness-tracking functionality of a pure-play fitness band, plus they sync to your phone so you get notifications on your wrist -- answer and reject calls, read messages, reply with a thumbs-up or whatever -- and you get the fun stuff like customisable watch faces. And they are well under $100. It's already a product category, b…

I agree, I'm just pointing out Pebble killer feature that later fitness band didn't adopt was just having a few extra buttons. It would be nice to have 5 buttons to do full media controls.

Bring these back on side of watches. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004293400666.html

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#529

Post by ethagknight »

kwanbix wrote: post #175
solarkraft wrote: post #57

Core 2 Duo is a pretty funny name. Are you going to sell replacement parts this time? I was immensely disappointed to see the initial watches being pretty repairable in theory, but no parts being sold. It was marketed as a tinkerer‘s device after all. I’m wearing my Pebble Time Steel right now - and quite like it. Haven’t found anything better. It could use some better activity tracking, but the worst thing about it…

I came to say Core 2 Duo is a terrible name :/

for what its worth, from the website copy:

>>I think you might recognize this one It’s almost exactly a Pebble 2, upgraded with modern chips and new tricks. Duo is short for ‘Do-over’.

Re: Two new PebbleOS watches

#530

Post by beambot »

xmprt wrote: post #358
brianshaler wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely essential to be able to differentiate between gross profit and net profit to establish unit economics, especially as the scale of a newly founded operation may drastically change relative to some amount of fixed capex or SG&A expense.

Of course. But here we're talking about the opportunity cost of the founders and other employees so gross profit isn't as relevant. Context matters and the context here is that the founders and employees would probably have a much higher take home split amongst all of them if they were to work in the wearables division of a large company like Google or Apple.

The difference between gross profit & net profit for companies like this is largely comprised of employee & founder salaries (SG&A and R&D). That delta is literally paying for their opportunity cost. Net profit is most relevant to shareholders.
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