I was hoping to have my watch well before the forced migration of my FitBit account to Google. Now it seems to be up in the air if I will get it in time.
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.
Hopefully this segment starts cooking with how easy slop code is now. TBH pickings still pretty slim. I just want something with oled touch screen, crown and 3-4 button inputs.
> Many old Pebble apps/faces use weather APIs that no longer work (Yahoo, OpenWeather). The Pebble mobile app now catches these network requests and returns data from Open-Meteo - keeping old watchfaces working!
How does that work? I assume these APIs use SSL, which should prevent such MitM attacks.
Are those Apps using the system SSL library which bypasses certificate validation for those domains? Or does the OS add a Root CA to the certificate store which signs fake certificates for those domains?
> Also, don’t expose it to hot water (this could weaken the waterproof seals), or high pressure water. It’s not invincible.
Aahhh. Finally the mystery of how my old pebble died is solved. Hopefully . One fine morning, the display came off. It was supposed to be waterproof and there was no puffed up battery either.
The return of com.getpebble.android.provider.basalt is a very nice development. It revives the legacy plugin ecosystem overnight without requiring original developers (many of whom may be long gone) to push updates. Moving the app store native and switching iOS weather to WebSockets are also solid wins for latency, but I'm most curious about the package ID reclamation.
Has anyone else successfully recovered a dormant package name from Google Play recently? I was under the impression that once an original developer account goes inactive, those namespaces were effectively burned forever? Is that an incorrect assumption on my part?
I pre-ordered a round one which is going to be my third Pebble and I'm excited for it, but there is some really good competition nowadays. Casio makes a watch with similar display technology, solar power so the battery life is basically infinite (it doesn't even have a way to charge with a wire) and bluetooth time sync to your phone. It's not a smart watch so it doesn't have apps or notifications or customizable watch faces - the things that make the Pebble really fun - but as a watch it's hard to beat a GW-BX5600 if all you need is time-related functions like stop watch, timer, multiple time zones etc.
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.
I'm really excited about the Index. I don't love that it's disposable, but I really like the UX. I couldn't wait, so I made my own (obviously not a ring, but airtag-sized), and it's amazing. I have it in my pocket, I take it out, speak a little note, and it goes off to my AI assistant for whatever needs doing.
That and the AI assistant have really changed how I operate day to day. I'm super excited about the Index, and I hope it has the same capability my app has (mostly, sending a webhook with the transcription with exponential backoff, so I'm sure all my notes will eventually be sent).
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.
Not quite the same: the Duo won't ever be made again, since the leftover parts are now all gone. The PT2 could be made again, but there is no guarantee.
My guess is there will at least be periodic runs, and people will just buy a watch if they anticipate needing one in the next year or two based on battery trajectory, for example.
I wish someone would take all the Fitness sensors of the Apple Watch, and put it in something with a simple e-ink display like these Pebble devices. I don’t care about apps, I just want a thing that measures my heart rate, notifies me if I get a call or text, has more than a couple days of battery life, and that’s it.
If battery life really is high up your list, look up Amazfit. The Bip 6 can last up to a month as a dumb watch health tracker. It's got some decent watchfaces too. Another Amazfit product that's popular is their Helio Strap, essentially a Whoop band rip off that does not require a monthly subscription but works just as well.
The only comparable to Apple Watch Sensor suite is Huawei watch, with 10-15 day battery life, but due to obvious geopolitics, that's not viable for most people, i.e. even EKG is region locked (unless hoop jumping).
Is there a watch that looks like Pebble or Garmin Venu (e.g. small and square) that is good for navigation? I want to walk and look at the watch to see which direction to go next. It would be great for traveling in a foreign city.
The Apple Watch has an interesting vibration-based navigation. Assume you’re going straight and if it vibrates you have to turn left or right. Additionally, it has specific vibration patterns for left and right so you don’t have to look at the watch at all. I use it while driving to remind me to pay attention to turn instructions or exits.
Sorry to see the timing slip once again, now from March to April. I get that hardware manufacturing involves uncertainty and risk, but they've been off launching new products instead of getting these out the door.
The delay from December to April is pretty sizable, and it makes me take all of their current estimates with a huge grain of salt. After all, they might decide to launch a necklace between now and then!
I don't know and can't speak for the team, but I suspect the "launching new products" is not a significant factor in the delays. It sounds to me like the delays are as a result of hardware manufacturing things (which maybe could/should have been planned for, but optimistically weren't), and that basically the alternative for the hardware folks would be a series of "sit on your hands for a couple weeks, then respond to the thing that came up" events, with the resulting delay for the PT2 being roughly equivalent whether they spend the intervening time designing new products or just waiting.
I considered that possibility, and if they were just adding in the PTR launch I could understand. But expanding into a totally different product line seems like it would take up a lot of time, and is surely slowing things down.
Given that the Chinese holiday is falling right in the middle of production and delaying things by over a month, it seems like they could have focused more on the PT2 and gotten it out the door sooner.
My guess is that once they realized they couldn't finish the run before the holiday, they gave up on trying to even start mass production before then. But like you, I'm just speculating from the outside.
looks nice, I am wearing Amazfit Bip for like 8+ years, now on my third one (1st usual issue whole body popped up, 2nd got swollen battery after damaged glass and being exposed to water), the only problem I have with these Pebble watches - they are way too expensive compared to original Amazfit Bip years ago (which I can still buy used for like 15-20EUR and charge it once a month) and their battery life seems to be worse than years old Amazfit Bip
I don't care about the apps, only thing I need are notifications from phone (calendar event reminders, alarm, incoming call, messages), sleep tracking is unnecessary bonus
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 67.1 ms ] threadEdit: https://diyusthad.com/2021/04/top-5-open-source-smartwatch.h...
That's some sweet quality of life fixes!
Are those Apps using the system SSL library which bypasses certificate validation for those domains? Or does the OS add a Root CA to the certificate store which signs fake certificates for those domains?
Aahhh. Finally the mystery of how my old pebble died is solved. Hopefully . One fine morning, the display came off. It was supposed to be waterproof and there was no puffed up battery either.
Has anyone else successfully recovered a dormant package name from Google Play recently? I was under the impression that once an original developer account goes inactive, those namespaces were effectively burned forever? Is that an incorrect assumption on my part?
That and the AI assistant have really changed how I operate day to day. I'm super excited about the Index, and I hope it has the same capability my app has (mostly, sending a webhook with the transcription with exponential backoff, so I'm sure all my notes will eventually be sent).
The Time 2 too:
> Both are available in limited quantities, with worldwide shipping. Prices are in USD. Pre-ordering is the only way to get one --- https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watch...
My guess is there will at least be periodic runs, and people will just buy a watch if they anticipate needing one in the next year or two based on battery trajectory, for example.
The delay from December to April is pretty sizable, and it makes me take all of their current estimates with a huge grain of salt. After all, they might decide to launch a necklace between now and then!
Given that the Chinese holiday is falling right in the middle of production and delaying things by over a month, it seems like they could have focused more on the PT2 and gotten it out the door sooner.
My guess is that once they realized they couldn't finish the run before the holiday, they gave up on trying to even start mass production before then. But like you, I'm just speculating from the outside.
It’s funny how these very tariffs were introduced to “combat inflation” end up increasing it by an order of magnitude.
I don't care about the apps, only thing I need are notifications from phone (calendar event reminders, alarm, incoming call, messages), sleep tracking is unnecessary bonus