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Pebble Production: February Update

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Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#71

Post by Onavo »

beratbozkurt0 wrote: post #7

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

The attraction is that it's like the early versions of Android, you can do whatever you want with your hardware and there's nobody to tell you no.

The app store is delightfully quirky and adding a watchface is just a matter of drag and drop. There's no Gatekeeper, or hundred of pages of Terms of Services and Privacy Policies and GDPR disclaimers you have to fill out. You don't have to sacrifice your first born child to Big Tech and nor do you have to beg for root permissions on your own hardware. Whatever goes, caveat emptor. If you install malware and brick your device (a very difficult thing to do given that it's a watch), well, that's also entirely on you.

It's similar to why OpenClaw went viral; you can do whatever the fuck you want with it, nothing is wrapped up in carefully sanitized corporatism, with everything locked down to a t and filled with cover-your-ass privacy and permissions declarations that are not worth the pixels they are displayed on.

Nobody's around to nanny you and play authoritarian daddy with what you do with your watch. If you want to share offensive, pirated, or DMCAed watchfaces — go wild. If you want to build a protest app to track government thugs and civil servants — all the power to you! If you want to turn it in to a sex toy controller to use during long boring church services — well, that's between you and your faith, there's no Big Tech between God and your bedroom. It's just like the old days of Android and APKs and jailbroken iPhones. A return back to simpler days of open computing.

Your grandma won't get as much out of this watch versus an Apple Watch, but if you are a real hacker at heart, this is the device for you.

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#73

Post by avh02 »

beratbozkurt0 wrote: post #7

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

I still wish other smart watches behaved like a pebble, the interface was so intuitive you could use it to do the basics without looking at it most of the time.

It's like trying something so good it ruins every other one for you. The UX was just so well thought through i don't know how to explain it.

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#74

Post by ge96 »

raffael_de wrote: post #70
ge96 wrote: post #55

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.

it is possible to call a Uber with a pebble watch?

I don't know, was saying it generally like Apple watch seems to be an extension of the iPhone

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#75

Post by numpad0 »

beratbozkurt0 wrote: post #7

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

Pebble was sort of the first/only smartwatch that are common+open enough && uses simplistic lightweight OS such that it'll last couple weeks per charge. Its competitors either didn't exist, weren't open(Xiaomi), or burned enormous amounts of power that they required daily recharges(Google/Apple).

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#76

Post by bronlund »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #65
bronlund wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have. The main reason though, for me not buying a Pebble, is less about the watch and more about Eric. It seems that his whole modus operandi, is selling out his customers. Pebble hadn't been in this mess in the first place, if it wasn't for him. Going back to him a second time, is just unresponsible in my opinion.

Pebble also wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for him (either time) so I suppose it's a wash

I guess you have a good point there :)

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#77

Post by stavros »

poisonborz wrote: post #72

So the Pebble Duo was a one time thing based on the cache of old parts they found? Why... A lot of people would like a cheap small thin plastic watch. Most fans went after Amazfit Blips after Pebble went out for a reason.

I love my Amazfit Neo, if that's what you want.

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#78

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

rozenmd wrote: post #5
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...

You can't get a hackable watch for a fraction of the price, though. I'd pay more for being able to fumble about in the codebase and add exactly what I want.

https://pine64.org/devices/pinetime/ is $27, which is a small fraction of the cost of a Pebble.

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#79

Post by jamesbelchamber »

jsheard wrote: post #59
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/

I used to use Curve but they became really unreliable, especially when paying for public transport, so I just switched back to a normal card.

Shame because you can get some nice watch straps with curve integration, which would neatly solve the missing payment feature on Pebble watches.

Re: Pebble Production: February Update

#80

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

poisonborz wrote: post #72

So the Pebble Duo was a one time thing based on the cache of old parts they found? Why... A lot of people would like a cheap small thin plastic watch. Most fans went after Amazfit Blips after Pebble went out for a reason.

Yup. I actually strongly prefer the look of the duo and consider the time to be ugly. Was fairly annoyed when I got an email saying that actually they can't deliver the watch I bought and would I like to pay more for the ugly one. (Although, some other folks on HN who did get a duo said it had quality issues, so I guess I dodged a bullet)
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