The Pebble Has Been Brought Back
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I had a Pebble Time Steel and it was the best watch I've ever head. I want another Pebble. So does Eric. So I gave him money to make me one.
Yeah, I get that. My question is why Eric (or literally anyone else) didn't just re-make the Pebble (or similar) under a different name at any time in the last 10 years? Why did they wait for the OS to be open sourced instead of just making a new one?
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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.
How does that read to you like him saying it's not replaceable?
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Google recently open sourced Pebble and today, Repebble has put some of the watches up for preorder.
No NFC !!???? Whyyyyyyyyyy
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How does that read to you like him saying it's not replaceable?
Have you tried reading the rest of the comments?
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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.
Google dumped the Pebble OS code on GitHub when this whole "rePebble" thing (not Rebble) started. Now there's a new phone app coming out soon (or out now, depending on your platform and abilities) that handles old and new Pebbles and modern phone platforms.
None of this is from Google.
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I believe these are sharp’s memory in pixel lcds. They’re much lower power than something like the game boy screen as each pixel retains its state and doesn’t need to be refreshed from the controller constantly. I actually like these little screens quite a lot. Worse pixel density and don’t look quite as good as e-ink when static, but still really Low power and can refresh way faster and smoother when needed.
I'm not criticizing the screens, they are ok and I loved my Pebble Time Steel until the battery swelled and popped off the screen. I'm just saying that calling these e-paper is a deceptive marketing strategy.
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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.
Because good software is hard. The PebbleOS is a gem, and no, no one could in 9 years.
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Yeah, I get that. My question is why Eric (or literally anyone else) didn't just re-make the Pebble (or similar) under a different name at any time in the last 10 years? Why did they wait for the OS to be open sourced instead of just making a new one?
Methinks you underestimate the complexity.
And all the other watch makers I've looked at are not doing, or even considering, what Pebble did.
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Yeah, I get that. My question is why Eric (or literally anyone else) didn't just re-make the Pebble (or similar) under a different name at any time in the last 10 years? Why did they wait for the OS to be open sourced instead of just making a new one?
Some reasons:
- It's a lot of work no one wants to do given there are half-decent proprietary alternatives
- Eric wasn't sitting twiddling his thumbs
- The corporate landscape wasn't nearly as hostile to users until the last few years
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Yeah, I get that. My question is why Eric (or literally anyone else) didn't just re-make the Pebble (or similar) under a different name at any time in the last 10 years? Why did they wait for the OS to be open sourced instead of just making a new one?
Making a new OS isn't easy as others have said, but it's also helpful that Pebble OS has a bit of a following. There are still people who are very vocal about how much they love/loved their pebble watches. Making a new OS that's inspired by PebbleOS would be met with more skepticism than just releasing a watch with an OS that people already know that they like.
Assuming that he made no major changes to the software, pebble fans almost already know what they'll be getting out of this product. You couldn't say the same for a watch with a new OS.
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Methinks you underestimate the complexity.
And all the other watch makers I've looked at are not doing, or even considering, what Pebble did.
Methinks you underestimate the complexity.
Maybe I do. But there are dozens of Chinese no-name companies who developed entire smartwatch ecosystems.
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Have you tried reading the rest of the comments?
Sure have!
He told someone not to buy it if they expect more than five years without repairs. That person seemed to think spending more than $100 should get them a product that lasts a lifetime, and was irritated the founder said he thought it was pretty good that a piece of low cost consumer electronics made it five years before needing repairs.
What part of that says to you that it's not reparable or won't last five years?
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Sure have!
He told someone not to buy it if they expect more than five years without repairs. That person seemed to think spending more than $100 should get them a product that lasts a lifetime, and was irritated the founder said he thought it was pretty good that a piece of low cost consumer electronics made it five years before needing repairs.
What part of that says to you that it's not reparable or won't last five years?
The comment that Eric replied to saying "please don't buy this" mentioned nothing about repairs. It was entirely about overall longevity of the device.
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The comment that Eric replied to saying "please don't buy this" mentioned nothing about repairs. It was entirely about overall longevity of the device.
In the context of him saying the device is repairable, the top comment talking about repairing it, and the comment in question replying to that thread, it seems a bit weird to say "he didn't say it in this comment, so the comments where he says it's repairable don't count".
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In the context of him saying the device is repairable, the top comment talking about repairing it, and the comment in question replying to that thread, it seems a bit weird to say "he didn't say it in this comment, so the comments where he says it's repairable don't count".
It seems a bit weird to say the comment he replied directly to was not referencing specifically that comment.
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It might be one of those "you had to have been there" moments. It's 2014, Obama was reelected, Uptown Funk was on the radio (there used to be this thing called FM radio), and there you are - a happy young thing reading texts on your watch in broad daylight, right the middle of a conversation. You felt like a cucumber straight from the freezer.
I know all that sounds slightly laughable now, but there is an undeniable yearning for that zeitgeist compared to where we ended up.
Yeah, I feel you. There was a time, some ten years ago, when computers / the web / tech in general were actually great and not those emshittyfied things we have to use now. There are too much people that are just compliant enough to use every shit that gets shoved down their throat, to the loint that it os damn hard to boycott all the shitty thing and not be effectively Amish.
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Don't love the closed-in ecosystem but Garmin watches with MIP display do almost all you just said.
- Touch screen + also Buttons for 100% touch-free interaction
- Battery life of around 3 to 4 weeks (depending on what you are doing)... more with the Solar models
- Media control is there, but don't really use that
Podcast ad skipping sadly not a thing.
Price might be an issue though. The top end models with all the whistles come at a smartphone flagship price point.
I have a Vivoactive 4 that I picked up used from Facebook a couple of months back. Its a few years old now, and the regular LCD screen looks pretty bank once you've got used to OLED. But it cost me £50, works perfectly well with GrapheneOS, and Tue battery still lasts a week.
It's left me pondering upgrading it to a new one with an OLED screen.
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I have a Vivoactive 4 that I picked up used from Facebook a couple of months back. Its a few years old now, and the regular LCD screen looks pretty bank once you've got used to OLED. But it cost me £50, works perfectly well with GrapheneOS, and Tue battery still lasts a week.
It's left me pondering upgrading it to a new one with an OLED screen.
To offer a counter point: I've owned 3 different VivoActive 3 Music watches for about 2 years each. All of them had the screen stop working. Could be my bad luck, but I wasn't super rough with them (never wore them in water)
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Methinks you underestimate the complexity.
And all the other watch makers I've looked at are not doing, or even considering, what Pebble did.
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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.
