Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pebble Round 2

repebble.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 303 posts

Re: Pebble Round 2

#61

Post by lawn »

nicolaslem wrote: post #60
com2kid wrote: post #50

I have no idea how the 2 major smart watches (android wear, apple watch) have such horrible battery life. Microsoft Band had a 3 day battery life that would've been 5 days if we weren't forced to use a trash accelerometer that drained our battery by a crazy amount. That aside, Android wear being a complete OS is a waste of power. There aren't any useful apps for it that take advantage of the watch running a full OS.…

For what it does, the battery life of the Apple Watch 11 is not that bad. It typically lasts more than 48h for me and charges very quickly. Putting it to charge when taking a shower is enough to not have to think about battery life.

48h is still pretty bad honestly.

Re: Pebble Round 2

#62

Post by ramses0 »

apparent wrote: post #58
walletdrainer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the (fancy, mechanical) watches I had within reach seem to actually have the crystal slightly protruding out of the case.

I don't have any fancy watches in reach, but was just talking about watches in general. I think it makes sense to compare $200 Pebbles to similarly-priced watches (smart and otherwise) in this regard. I can imagine that diamond-encrusted or otherwise dearly-priced watches differ in terms of use case and design tradeoffs.

I'm very minorly into watches and $200 is very "mid/base" for watches.

My most expensive watch is a Fenix7 (used) @ $300. Then ~$150 for a "Svalbard" single hand automatic (winding) watch, and a smattering of "$50-80, used off eBay" watches.

I had two (used) pebble watches back in the day, pre-ordered the PT2 before they went bankrupt, and have preordered the "new" PT2 (at ~$200 price range).

Freaking Timex Expedition is costing $60-80 on sale nowadays. No smart stuff, just "chunky Casio vibes" and it's $80. Timex "Transcend" is a fun one in the $100 price range.

Apple Watch SE is $250, and all the re-pebbles are $200 price range? Color me impressed!

I hate to say that Pebble Round 2 is "almost an impulse buy" (prior to Time2 shipping), but there are occasions (eg: last night) where my Garmin was out of battery, I went to a friends house, so I pulled out my slightly fancier round-dial analog watch.

The fact that pebble is hitting $200 price points is actually an incredible (and hopefully sustainable!) value for what they offer!

Re: Pebble Round 2

#63

Post by apparent »

nicolaslem wrote: post #60
com2kid wrote: post #50

I have no idea how the 2 major smart watches (android wear, apple watch) have such horrible battery life. Microsoft Band had a 3 day battery life that would've been 5 days if we weren't forced to use a trash accelerometer that drained our battery by a crazy amount. That aside, Android wear being a complete OS is a waste of power. There aren't any useful apps for it that take advantage of the watch running a full OS.…

For what it does, the battery life of the Apple Watch 11 is not that bad. It typically lasts more than 48h for me and charges very quickly. Putting it to charge when taking a shower is enough to not have to think about battery life.

Fair, but that means you have to bring a special purpose charger with you anytime you go somewhere for more than ~36 hours. For me, that's the bigger issue. If I could charge inductively on the back of my iPhone, for example, I wouldn't mind as much.

Re: Pebble Round 2

#64

Post by apparent »

ramses0 wrote: post #62
apparent wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any fancy watches in reach, but was just talking about watches in general. I think it makes sense to compare $200 Pebbles to similarly-priced watches (smart and otherwise) in this regard. I can imagine that diamond-encrusted or otherwise dearly-priced watches differ in terms of use case and design tradeoffs.

I'm very minorly into watches and $200 is very "mid/base" for watches. My most expensive watch is a Fenix7 (used) @ $300. Then ~$150 for a "Svalbard" single hand automatic (winding) watch, and a smattering of "$50-80, used off eBay" watches. I had two (used) pebble watches back in the day, pre-ordered the PT2 before they went bankrupt, and have preordered the "new" PT2 (at ~$200 price range). Freaking Timex Expeditio…

> Apple Watch SE is $250, and all the re-pebbles are $200 price range? Color me impressed!

I have wondered why Eric didn't price them higher, and I think it comes down to wanting to make sure there is sufficient demand to justify production runs, and staving off competition that could front-run him and use his open source software too.

I am genuinely curious to see what competition emerges, and how long it takes to appear.

Re: Pebble Round 2

#65

Post by liampulles »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #23

> No more bezel Maybe I'm looking at the wrong image, but I see a silver bezel going all around the watch screen. I thought "no bezel" on a screen means the screen goes all the way to the edges of the device. Still want one tho.

Yes, no more bezel cuts off the details. What is meant is that does not have the big bezel of the original Pebble Round.

Re: Pebble Round 2

#66

Post by RestartKernel »

Looks great, but a mere 30 day warranty for manufacturing defects is kind of insane. I'm glad they're planning to fully support notifications on iOS in the EU due to the DMA, but that warranty wouldn't even be legal if they sell directly within the EU.

Re: Pebble Round 2

#67

Post by RestartKernel »

com2kid wrote: post #50

I have no idea how the 2 major smart watches (android wear, apple watch) have such horrible battery life. Microsoft Band had a 3 day battery life that would've been 5 days if we weren't forced to use a trash accelerometer that drained our battery by a crazy amount. That aside, Android wear being a complete OS is a waste of power. There aren't any useful apps for it that take advantage of the watch running a full OS.…

The Nothing CMF Watch has a true (two?) week-long battery life due to its RTOS, but it's kind of mediocre otherwise. More like a souped up Casio.

Re: Pebble Round 2

#68

Post by liampulles »

faldor20 wrote: post #48

I'm a staunch believer that watches should be small enough to never annoy, always show the time, and never have to be charged but I think this finally does all those things well enough that it's a legitimate option. What is that warranty though? 30 days is pretty rough for a new and untested product. It's definitely enough to make me hold off for a year just in case.

If the production is similar to the PT2 watches, then there will be public beta testing before watches are shipped.

Re: Pebble Round 2

#69

Post by nicolaslem »

apparent wrote: post #63
nicolaslem wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it does, the battery life of the Apple Watch 11 is not that bad. It typically lasts more than 48h for me and charges very quickly. Putting it to charge when taking a shower is enough to not have to think about battery life.

Fair, but that means you have to bring a special purpose charger with you anytime you go somewhere for more than ~36 hours. For me, that's the bigger issue. If I could charge inductively on the back of my iPhone, for example, I wouldn't mind as much.

I hear you, personally grabbing the charger for overnight stays hasn't been a problem but there are a few compact/inexpensive third-party dongles that are like the official charging cable but without the cable[0]. They can be stay in a car, laptop bag, etc. and charge the watch from an iPhone or another usb-c power source.

[0] Random example for illustration https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKV9JBR4

Re: Pebble Round 2

#70

Post by apparent »

nicolaslem wrote: post #69
apparent wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, but that means you have to bring a special purpose charger with you anytime you go somewhere for more than ~36 hours. For me, that's the bigger issue. If I could charge inductively on the back of my iPhone, for example, I wouldn't mind as much.

I hear you, personally grabbing the charger for overnight stays hasn't been a problem but there are a few compact/inexpensive third-party dongles that are like the official charging cable but without the cable[0]. They can be stay in a car, laptop bag, etc. and charge the watch from an iPhone or another usb-c power source. [0] Random example for illustration https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKV9JBR4

Huh interesting, I guess that would help somewhat. But for me, I prefer to pretty much never have to worry about charging my watch.

As a kid, I had watches that didn't need new batteries for years. As an adult, I was willing to trade off some battery life (down to a week or so) in order to get notifications my wrist, music controls, and activity tracking.

Although I can see some benefit in being able to see my Uber status in real time, or other app-related functionality, I am not interested in charging a wearable every day or two. I don't want to have to worry about whether I'm "using my watch too much" to be able to make it through a short trip, or until the end of my second day.

I know some people have different preferences on this, but for me a watch should be something that doesn't require any maintenance for weeks at a time.

Post reply on HN