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We're bringing Pebble back

repebble.com

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Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#711

Post by Gasp0de »

seanhunter wrote: post #405
ctkhn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta be honest I feel like Garmin is the perfect balance of pebble vs apple watch

Garmin is the perfect solution if you want a smart watch with a gps that takes 5mins to possibly sync 50% of the time and a touchscreen-only interface that doesn’t work if it gets wet or say sweaty. Ie during most of the activities it’s supposedly designed for. When I got a garmin smartwatch I was astounded by how poor the basic ux is in almost every single way. If I’m swimming, how do I stop my work out? The touchsc…

You must have gotten a weird Garmin that doesn't suit your needs then. Why did you get a Garmin with a touch screen, when you really wanted buttons and Garmin offers watches with buttons?

And I believe the GPS sync is necessary when you don't have an internet connection on the watch.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#712

Post by blackdisk »

I need more news!!! Give me some info drops

I've wanted this to happen for so long and only gave up on Pebble last year after the latest version of Android made the watch not work for the second time in a row... At the time there was no workaround and it was getting frustrating waiting around for an workaround to use my watch. There also had been a large decline in posts on Rebble,I thought the magic was dying. So glad things were going on behind the scenes!

I ended up getting the one+ watch 2 which was by far the best android watch I've tested and the focus on battery life and always on display were very nice... But still couldn't meet the speed and ease of use of my Pebbles. I've got around 6-7 Pebbles, have done repairs, battery replacements, button replacements, screen replacements just to keep these bad boys working. They've been incredibly reliable overall and I don't know the last time I've purchased a tech product that still works 12 years later and still functions better than the most recent tech in every way I care about.

With this news I took the adb route, started up the Rebble subscription again (even though it hadn't been long enough to actually expire) and started using them again... Blows my mind that it's even better than I remember. There were things I was forced to live with with the one+ that I forgot worked fine on my Pebble.

So excited by this news, but I need more news!!! I've scoured the Internet for anything I can find, no new sources in the last 15 hours I need new info!

Thank you so much for doing this! I can't wait. If it is possible to just get the Pebble Time 2 that I backed on Kickstarter I'd be more than happy. The only watch that had build issues was the Pebble 2, it was an amazing watch, but the rubber sides didn't age well. If you go with that design again, maybe a silicone or something stronger.

Thank you again! Please give any information you can! I need a weekly fireside chat

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#713

Post by blackdisk »

Gasp0de wrote: post #708

My Garmin Forerunner has everything the author claims doesn't exist except the hackability: Long (10 day) battery life, reflective screen (plus background light), physical buttons, all the features (step count, notifications, music control, weather, etc. plus lots of additional sport functions and even a pulse and oxygen sensor. However, I still get the point of having a hackable device.

They are nice, but they are no Pebble. Garmin feel like a gadget you bought and are stuck with what you got.

Pebble started ok, it was the first attempt. The first UI basically scrolled through watch faces which I wasn't a fan of, but it was the first real Smart watch so experiments were required.

Then they put out the new UI that is used today, it's fast, cool playful animations, easy to navigate, had calendar, steps, sleep tracking and heart rate right at your finger tips (still better than today's watches). The navigation buttons blow away any other watch, long press customization is amazing, app store, etc.

Garmin, once you pull it out of the box, you got what you got. Pebble, everything the newest watch got, the old one did too (as long as the required sensor existed) and GAINED performance through the years. Not to mention the 10's of thousands of apps that gave you so much functionality.

I still think the Rebble store gives Google and Apple a run for their money... After 9 years of Pebble being "dead"

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#714

Post by Gasp0de »

blackdisk wrote: post #713
Gasp0de wrote: post #708

My Garmin Forerunner has everything the author claims doesn't exist except the hackability: Long (10 day) battery life, reflective screen (plus background light), physical buttons, all the features (step count, notifications, music control, weather, etc. plus lots of additional sport functions and even a pulse and oxygen sensor. However, I still get the point of having a hackable device.

They are nice, but they are no Pebble. Garmin feel like a gadget you bought and are stuck with what you got. Pebble started ok, it was the first attempt. The first UI basically scrolled through watch faces which I wasn't a fan of, but it was the first real Smart watch so experiments were required. Then they put out the new UI that is used today, it's fast, cool playful animations, easy to navigate, had calendar, step…

My Forerunner 255 is now 3(?) years old and it still gets new updates with new features, so what you say isn't really true.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#715

Post by blackdisk »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #118
mazambazz wrote: post #81

Even though I haven't used one in a really long time, the Pebble Time still stands out to me as something I wish I still had. It's an absolutely shame that Pebble was so innovative and functional, but couldn't reach mass market. But, I am extremely excited and happy that the Pebble team can start it again. I don't like Google for many things, but, I am grateful that the open-sourced PebbleOS. What a joyous day!

> It's an absolutely shame that Pebble was so innovative and functional, but couldn't reach mass market. I think trying to reach "mass market" - or specifically, the market of people who are into fitness and sportsball - is largely what killed them. I'd like to believe that they could've catered to existing userbase a bit longer, grew a little more slowly but sustainably by doubling down on an idea of an ergonomic, b…

I think the ethos if the tech world is "grow as fast as possible or die" but there should be more companies that create good products and make a profit catering to a small demographic. 2 million customers is nothing to sneeze at.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#717

Post by WorldMaker »

mattmaroon wrote: post #560
akho wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reader made tons of people use RSS who otherwise wouldn’t, and who now don’t. It did not live long enough to become a villain (though it certainly would have — there is no reason why G wouldn’t have added recommendations, an algo feed, and all it brings). Therefore it’s remembered well.

Reader died because people were switching to social media. Reader also had no vendor lock in at all. There’s no network effect like Facebook. There’s no massive infrastructure demands like Google. No corporate sales process like Oracle, Microsoft, etc. You could very easily create a competitor and after it died, few even tried to replace it. I miss it but not enough to find another RSS reader. You’re never really the…

> Reader also had no vendor lock in at all. There’s no network effect like Facebook.

Reader had a massive social graph and strong network effects. There were social feeds that only existed in Reader and vanished when Reader shut down. I know I had friends that didn't blog but curated fascinating social feeds in Reader based on how widely they read. There were shared comments that only existed in Reader and entire discussions that happened in the margins of feeds that were lost.

Those social feeds were a discoverability joy. You'd find new feeds for yourself. You'd encourage friends to follow feeds you most recommended. None of the replacements have ever quite felt the same. (I love Newsblur, and it has versions of most of those social features, but it has never had the network effect, and probably never will.)

At one point too, the feeds in Reader included full histories up until the date someone first added the feed to Reader. You could scroll back through time "forever" on some feeds all the way to their first posts, sometimes posts that even the site itself had deleted since (and still read Reader-only comments on them). RSS feeds generally only provide the most recent dozen or so posts. Reader was tracking everything. That was a massive infrastructure demand in the Google scale that just about only Google could have done. None of the replacements try, and generally only keep about 45-90 days of feed activity.

Sure, it wasn't a completely walled garden, like Facebook, but it's still a case of Google killing the largest social network it had with the most beloved network effects for a marginal increase in vendor lock-in. They had good vendor lock-in that few could have competed with, and the replacements today are still scored on how much they can't compete with it, despite matching features.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#718

Post by blackdisk »

Gasp0de wrote: post #714
blackdisk wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are nice, but they are no Pebble. Garmin feel like a gadget you bought and are stuck with what you got. Pebble started ok, it was the first attempt. The first UI basically scrolled through watch faces which I wasn't a fan of, but it was the first real Smart watch so experiments were required. Then they put out the new UI that is used today, it's fast, cool playful animations, easy to navigate, had calendar, step…

My Forerunner 255 is now 3(?) years old and it still gets new updates with new features, so what you say isn't really true.

That's cool, they must be investing more in their watches lately, the couple I had right after Pebble died were very basic. The stuff they did worked well, but they were similar to how you bought a GPS back in the day, what it came with was what you got and there were minor updates and you could get new maps but not much else

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#719

Post by blackdisk »

solarkraft wrote: post #28

I’m wearing my Pebble Time Steel right now and the biggest issue I have with it (maintaining the app) is arguably mostly Apple’s fault. I was originally pissed that Pebble never sold replacement parts (actually I still am), but at least this hardware has been holding up extremely well.

Ifixit had some pieces and I got a Pebble 2 screen and bezel from Ali Express. Your point is still valid.

Re: We're bringing Pebble back

#720

Post by mixmastamyk »

pbmonster wrote: post #654
mixmastamyk wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside the US, modern banking is available, and credit cards are unnecessary.

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?

There’s an account number on the register, you send money to it by app or web. For others a debit card will work. Apple is not required.

You can send a friend 25 cents for half a cookie or ten thousand for a deposit on an apartment, all free.

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