Nice! Please consider a round watchface option too this time.
We're bringing Pebble back
691–700 of 758 posts
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#692Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Apple Watch Ultra has worked wonders for me in terms of battery life and “always on display”. My only wish is for an easily serviceable battery.
> The Apple Watch Ultra has worked wonders for me in terms of battery life It's not really playing in the same ballpark, though, is it? 48 hours of battery life is indeed very good for an Apple Watch, but I used to charge my Pebble maybe once a week, and my Withings Scanwatch about once every 3 weeks...
They don’t have to be the same to allow for the same freedom. Personally a 36 hour battery is just not a problem for me - I charge my watch when I shower and occasionally for 15-30m before bed. I’d be taking a real watch off during those times anyway.
I’d much much much rather have a device with a 2-3 day battery life that’s more powerful than one than runs for 2 weeks. 2 weeks gets into the “will I have to charge my watch randomly today” category of use, which is exactly the same problem a lot of people have with EV’s
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#693Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you use "modern banking" to pay contact-less for a coffee using an iPhone, and can you use the same method to send a friend $5?
NFC payments with cards. Payments based on proximity. Payment requests over chat etc etc. Please. By all means, get out there. And look around and be amazed by how inventive people are. How cultural differences form technological preferences. How people in one country send eachother billions a year via Tikkie, in another country pay at all shops via their chat app. How unbanked in many places pay with SMS credit. Or…
But this is exactly my point. Those apps exist, and are popular. But they can't use NFC because of Apple's limitations on hardware APIs. So, QR payments are popular.
All those apps would use NFC for many of those use cases if they could. Which brings us back to the start of this discussion: which use case has QR payment, but not NFC (and thus requiring a camera in addition to a NFC chip in a smart watch)? Answer: the huge (international) market of non-NFC payment/ticketing apps.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#694Earlier quoted context omitted.
NFC payments with cards. Payments based on proximity. Payment requests over chat etc etc. Please. By all means, get out there. And look around and be amazed by how inventive people are. How cultural differences form technological preferences. How people in one country send eachother billions a year via Tikkie, in another country pay at all shops via their chat app. How unbanked in many places pay with SMS credit. Or…
But this is exactly my point. Those apps exist, and are popular. But they can't use NFC because of Apple's limitations on hardware APIs. So, QR payments are popular. All those apps would use NFC for many of those use cases if they could. Which brings us back to the start of this discussion: which use case has QR payment, but not NFC (and thus requiring a camera in addition to a NFC chip in a smart watch)? Answer: the…
A trust box, for example. Or a simple donation option. The ticket (pay what you want) at my favorite punk gig in town. Etc.
In e.g. the Netherlands, the majority of payments go via a payment system iDeal¹. Its easy to start an ideal payment with a QR code. It's, by my knowledge, impossible to do so via NFC - other than via Apple Pay or Google Wallet.
Then, there are vast fleets of phones out there that don't even have NFC. I wouldn't be suprised if a majority of phones in use today don't have nfc chips on board.
And, a large section of the population won't switch on NFC even. For battery. For privacy, for fear etc. If not for scanning my glucose meter, I would've switched off NFC by default. I'm no tinfoil hat, but 30+ years of software development and hackery has kept me weary of such stuff.
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL, which, as former developer in dutch fintech, is far from what the name suggests ;).
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#695I wanted the original pebble so much when it came out but couldn't afford it. Now, I can and still want it. I don't remember, can it vibrate (for timer/alarm) ?
Yes, it can, and pretty well. In fact, it's my favorite feature and the reason I still wear my Pebble 24 hours a day - reliable alarms and notifications.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#696Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've received a basic Garmin watch for my 5 years anniversary with the company I work for and I don't use as: -The app has dark patterns like: you need to put a weight and height before you proceed with the setup, even though you can remove those later. -Step counter quite simply doesn't work, as it grossly overestimates the count. -5 day battery life. Not terrible, but also not practical. -Notifications. All. The. T…
> The app has dark patterns like: you need to put a weight and height before you proceed with the setup, even though you can remove those later. That's not a dark pattern. A fitness watch has to know your weight and height for basically all of its fitness related functions...
What if I'm not interested in those and just want the text notifications and maybe my pulse?
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#697Makes sense, it's too strong of a trademark to just disappear.
Also, for me it signifies the golden age of hardware startups. There was a time when all the cool kids started hardware companies, especially wearables were really hot for a short time. Weird to think that was almost 15 years ago now.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#698The 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.
I have the Forerunner 945 and it's the only thing that has ever filled the void left by Pebble. Garmin is so good.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#699Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you have to pay by scanning QR codes I've never encountered that, but that sounds like a venue that doesn't want my money anyway.
It happens a lot in societies where people know and trust each other. Often you can even buy drinks by scanning a QR code, paying, and then grabbing a drink from the fridge. With nobody else involved.
While not disagreeing with what you said, such "grab a drink from the fridge" things are always in a monitored environment. There are no unlocked public fridges even hyper-high trust societies like Japan or Dubai.
Re: We're bringing Pebble back
#700Earlier 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.
In my home country of Smugistan, greatest country in world, banks unnecessary. Check-outs take money directly from brain waves using technology invented by Smugistanian super computers. Money is crypto backed generated from farts released by citizens of Smugistan. Also, farts smell like roses.