651–660 of 758 posts
I’ve never earned a pebble only an Xiaomi band many years ago so I maybe missing something.
(It's impressive quality company swag.)
@erohead, when you're at the stage of needing a kick-ass RePebble SDK developed & supported again[1], you know where to find me. :)
lol @ the FAQ: "Aren’t you the guy who screwed this up last time?"
Also, while looking through the repo, I'd totally forgotten the alphabetically ordered fast-food themed release code names which included the "Kiwiburger" (a global chain's local product that contains neither the bird nor the fruit) that I now wonder how many people it confused. :)
The "Kiwiburger" code name release also happened to coincide with the inclusion of "Simplicity" (a watch face I designed & implemented) as one of the standard faces shipped with each Pebble watch by default.
I was particularly proud of the inclusion of "Simplicity"--especially when Engadget subsequently said it was "...sure to make minimalists happy" which was what I was aiming for. (I seem to recall it also gave me the opportunity to say "Hey, I designed that watch face!" when I saw a Pebble watch on display at an airport duty free store once. :D )
Anyway, I should probably get this memoir off to the publishers[3]. :)
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[0] Oh, sorry, apparently it's cranberry. :)
[1] I helped develop & support the very well-received initial SDK that enabled "Hacker Backers" and others to create their first Pebble watch faces & watch apps.
It was quite an experience to be working on the SDK remotely from New Zealand[1a] and then have the initial public SDK release immediately covered by the likes of TechCrunch[1b], The Verge[1c] and Engadget. (An SDK! :D )
There was a lot of pent-up interest/demand for the SDK so it was really great to see how excited people were when they successfully implemented their first watch face or (later) watch app. In many/most cases this was the person's first experience of anything approaching "embedded" programming--there was a lot of effort put into removing as many barriers from the development experience as possible, so it was really rewarding to see people succeed.
(Initially the process still required a locally installed embedded development environment, so even with all the effort invested to reduce barriers it still wasn't a simple process but turns out people were really motivated. :) It also turned out that I was really motivated to script/automate & simplify the process simply to avoid having to write documentation covering a more manual process. :D )
It was also super cool to see people then develop other (particularly web-based) tools to enable people with even less technical experience/skill to still create e.g. a custom watch face with their favourite sports team logo or the family dog featured on it.
I mention all this in part to reminisce and in part to convey some of what the mood around Pebble was at the time for those who may not have been around *cough* nearly fifteen years ago and were wondering what (part of) the "big deal" was...
An early version of the SDK documentation is archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20130415083512/http://developer....
[1a] via this HN Jobs post IIRC: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4132957
[1b] https://techcrunch.com/2013/04/12/pebble-watchface-sdk-now-a...
[1c] https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/15/4228700/pebble-tetris-clo...
[2] https://github.com/google/pebble/blob/3b927684809fba173ee540...
[3] Okay, one last note: interesting to observe it was suddenly a lot more difficult to find Pebble/SDK related links from ~2012/2013 due to the amount of coverage the PebbleOS/RePebble announcements seem to have received. Read into that what you wish. :)
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Outside the US, third party payment apps are popular, since they often don't require a credit card. But since Apple refuses third parties access to the NFT hardware, those apps almost universally have to use QR payments. It works OK, because most payment terminals have a display with sufficient resolution for a QR code anyway.
Outside the US, modern banking is available, and credit cards are unnecessary.
I haven't used a Pebble, but I wanted to mention something I have seen praised a lot on HN and elsewhere. Apparently, the Bluetooth stack on a Pebble is absolutely legendary: reliable, dependable, robust, you name it. It still works reliably today seemingly thanks to their very diligent software design. I hope that element of it will continue to exist as-is on these new ones? I mention this because Bluetooth is still…
I am convinced that there must be Pebble fans on the Android team that keep a Pebble in CI and ensure it keeps working with each new release. Otherwise its continued extended working lifespan is inexplicable given the amount of churn in Android in general and the Bluetooth stack in particular.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/pebble-a-2013-smartw...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Outside the US, third party payment apps are popular, since they often don't require a credit card. But since Apple refuses third parties access to the NFT hardware, those apps almost universally have to use QR payments. It works OK, because most payment terminals have a display with sufficient resolution for a QR code anyway.
Outside the US, modern banking is available, and credit cards are unnecessary.
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…
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 fr…
I have a Garmin Forerunner 255 (which does everything you requested and much much more). I used to be a Fitbit guy, and the sleep tracking and data is 10x better than Fitbit, with no subscription. The battery life is about 20 days. The Forerunner 255 can be found on Amazon right now for $250. Mind you, I also used to own an Apple Watch. Garmin is the best, and second place isn't close.
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A few years ago my mom looked at her smart watch (fitbit in her case) and it said she did 4 hours of aerobic exercise that day and her heart was elevated. She worked a retail job, so while on her feet all day, it was not aerobic. She immediately went to the doctor despite no other symptoms and they found cancer (which was then treated and so she is alive today). It isn't clear how much longer it would have been befor…
Is this in the US? Because i can’t fathom just being able to casually drop in to visit a doctor like this. Any time I need to talk to a doctor, I have phone tag with their understaffed receptionist for a few days, then we set up an appointment 4-6 months in the future.