- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.world
Google recently open sourced Pebble and today, Repebble has put some of the watches up for preorder.
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I backed the original pebble on kickstarter and it’s what got me into smart watches. Happy they’re coming back and that they’re open source.
Edit: if I’m remembering correctly wasn’t there some server that the original pebble used that shut done that ended up knee-capping it? Wonder if there’s anything server-side being used here that could do the same.
Pebble still works thanks to the Rebble project. Everything else is free, but the dictation and weather services require a monthly $3 subscription to use as those are the parts that have rather hefty API call costs.
Though the experience is miserable on iOS. That’s entirely all thanks to Apple.
What makes it miserable on iOS?
The Pebble app was removed from the App store, so you have to manually sideload it every 7 days.
And:
Here are the things that are harder or impossible for 3rd party smartwatches (ie non Apple Watches) to do on iPhone:
- There’s no way for a smartwatch to send text messages or iMessages.
- You can’t reply to notifications or take ‘actions’ like marking something as done.
- It’s very difficult to enable other iOS apps to work with Pebble. Basically iOS does not have the concept of ‘interprocess communication’(IPC) like on Android. What we did before was publish an SDK that other apps (like Strava) could integrate to make their own BLE connection to Pebble. It was a clunky quasi-solution that other apps didn’t like, because it was hard to test (among other things)
- If you (accidentally) close our iOS app, then your watch can’t talk to app or internet
- Impossible for watch to detect if you are using your phone, so your watch will buzz and display a notification even if you are staring at your iPhone
- You can’t easily side load apps onto an iPhone. That means we have to publish the app on the iPhone appstore. This is a gigantic pain because Apple. Every update comes with the risk that a random app reviewer could make up some BS excuse and block the update.
- Because of iOS Appstore rules, it would be hard for us to enable 3rd party watchface/app developers to charge for their work (ie we can’t easily make an appstore within our app)
- Getting a Javascript engine to run in PebbleOS forced us to go through many hoops due to iOS — creating a compiler inside the Pebble iPhone app that in itself needed to be written in (cross-compiled to) JS to work with Apple’s restriction on downloadable code can only be JS
- As a Pebble watch/app developer, using the iOS app as relay to the watch sucks since the “developer mode” terminates every few minutes
https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-with-iphones
I recently did out my old 401B after the screen fell off my Galaxy Active2. It charged right up and still lasts about a week.
Finding a new band was a PITA because of the weird segmented hinge bit but one person was selling diver bands for it on Amazon (I think it was Amazon)… Really not bad for a watch from a decade ago.
Edit: Yes, you can still use them without the OG servers being up, look up ‘Rebble’ (rebble.io)
Genuinely considering it as I love e ink, lightweight, long battery life, and open source
I understand that the watch operating system is open source. However, it seems that the watch will connect to a companion smartphone app. Do you know if the app is a requirement and/or if the app will be open source?
Gadgetbridge is compatible with Pebble devices
IIRC, it has a reflective LCD, not epaper display.
Core 2 Duo
- 1.2" black/white e-paper screen
Core Time 2
- 1.5" 64 color e-paper screen
Am I missing something?
The watch featured a 32-millimetre (1.26 in) 144 × 168 pixel black and white memory LCD using an ultra low-power “transflective LCD”
The problem is that e-paper is a category of displays, and some companies label reflective LCDs as “e-paper”. Which is subjective (and I personally heavily disagree with that categorization, cause then LCD clocks and Gameboys have “e-paper” displays, too).
But in the comment I responded to it was said Pebble has “eink” display, which is categorically wrong, as that is a very specific proprietary technology, which is e-paper in traditional sense, like the ones in Kindles.
Your response says, “not epaper” which is categorically wrong. I assume you meant to say “eink”
As I mentioned earlier, whether a screen type is considered e-paper is subjective. And in my opinion, reflective LCD isn’t a type of e-paper. You may disagree, but it’s not “categorically” wrong.
Where exactly is that quote from? I had a look through the product page(s) and could only find e-paper being mentioned…
Quote is from Wikipedia. You can see it’s the case for both models here:
Besides, I own a Pebble Time watch and can tell you, it doesn’t perform like a typical e-paper. It has the bad viewing angles of LCD and screen goes blank when power is lost.
That quote is on under features on the article for the original Pebble, right? Might be that the Pebble 2 used a different screen; I can’t really find info on that though.
Regarding the Time, I think the product page for the new Time 2 specifically says how the curved screen lens on the Pebble Time wasn’t that good.
Edit: Found the quote under the Core 2 Time section
Flat glass lens (less glare and reflections than Pebble Time family curved lens)
From the Verge article:
The first watch that Migicovsky and Core plan to ship is called the Core 2 Duo (not to be confused with the old Intel processor), which Migicovsky says will cost $149 and will ship in July. […] It has the exact same black-and-white e-paper display as the old Pebble 2 (technically a transflective LCD, if you’re curious)
Oh that seems to be new since the original pebble
I want one, but I don’t know what I’d do with it. It’s hackable, it pairs with a phone/tablet/etc.
I’m just trying to figure out what it can do for me. My lack of imagination annoys me.
I use my autopebble with tasker. Scripted a few things, like find my phone, load my audiobook, messages, etc. Used to have Google Home messages and lights and stuff, but I stopped using smarthome stuff for the most part. Mostly I use it for music control and weather and time though.
I also scripted a weird one that I could enter my feeling level at work throughout the day (1-10) and based on the average at tthe end tasker would play one of three songs when I got in my car at the end of work (only within a time range and if bluetooth was connected to car)
Eh. I prefer the PineTime watch. It was like 25€+shipping and customs and it does everything I need, is fully open-source – it displays weather info, time, date, heart rate (although not very well), and has timer, stopper, etc.
Torn between this and a bangle.js 2, if I need a smarwatch at all
Having used both, personally I highly preferred the Pebble over the Bangle JS.
Pebble was solid software, good designs and it all just worked simply and did what I needed. I also thought the Pebble Time Round was near perfect in design and execution. I’m not a fan of the geeky look of the normal pebble and bangle watches (or the apple watch look).
The Bangle was fun to dev for, and I love that it exists, but it all felt like a dev project. Not a finished product. Granted it was early on in the project so I’m sure it’s in a better place now.
They both have similar capabilities. I say go with whichever you think is going to fit what you need a smartwatch to do.
I’m still very confused about why we needed PebbleOS for this. It’s been like 10 years and no one could come up with any comparable software? They whipped up the hardware design in a few months.
To anyone reading - this person is intentionally obtuse.
PebbleOS was sold to Fitbit, Fitbit sold to Google, Google made PebbleOS open source this year. It couldn’t have been made before.
Wearing a Pebble Time steel right now, and I’m cautiously optimistic for this.
How’s navigation with Pebbles? If I start bike navigation in Google Maps on my phone, can I get turn-by-turn directions on the watch, and does it not suck?
There is an Android and a companion Pebble app (“Nav me”) that reads the Google maps notifications (“In 300 meters turn left onto Jefferson Street”) and displays them on the watch. The remaining distance until the next navigation instruction decreases real time. Nothing fancy like minimap view, but can be useful in some situations.
There was/is a companion app called PebbleNav/NavMe that worked okay-ish, as long as you could survive with “Turn left in 100 metres to x street” type instructions with no map view (not really something you can do with 144x168 pixels).
Made another post but it was removed for…reasons. Migi says you shouldn’t expect your Pebble to last >5 years.
It reads to me like he’s saying that if you expect 5+ years without maintenance if it’s more than $100, you should look at a different product.
The top comments are someone saying that after five years they needed to repair it due to battery failure, and the founder saying the repair process is the same.Five years is longer than the average lifespan of a liIon battery. Expecting to be able to skip repairs that long is unreasonable for a $150 product.
It reads like the founder actually giving realistic expectations. A $150 product will likely need repairs to last longer than five years, and you’ll be disappointed if you expect otherwise.
Can you point to a similar product that costs about as much that fits your criteria?
It doesn’t read to me like you will have to replace the battery, it reads to me like he’s saying don’t expect the device itself to last >5 years.
Pebble sounds cool but i really dont like square watches(except the retro casios and gshocks) and now its owned by google so thats shit as well.
I think Google just owns the software because the product page for these watches say the guy invested his own money to get these produced.
I still have my circa-2016 email confirming my pledge for the Time 2 Silver, which ultimately got cancelled just before the fulfillment date due to Pebble selling out to Fitbit.
While I loved my original Pebble back then, I would really want something similar to look and function of the T2S so will watch this project in hopes it too is resurrected
due to Pebble selling out to Fitbit.
Due to Pebble going bankrupt, and managing to sell its software assets to Fitbit to gain just enough money to refund the kickstarter pledges and pay off it’s biggest debts.
No NFC ??? Whyyyyyyyyyy
Basic payment options would be sick
can it play tetris
Is there any company that let’s you export your health tracking data in a non proprietary format and doesn’t charge you a monthly subscription to use your smartwatch’s health tracking features?
Withings
One pro of Withings is that they’re French, so their policies on data in general are pretty great.
One con of Withings is that they’re French, so it’s not actually pronounced how you think.
Fuck I want that so bad.
Withings
