I am so excited for my Round 2. The original Pebble Time Round (20mm w/ brown leather strap) is the single best smartwatch I've ever owned. Can't wait to relive it today haha
Feels so fresh to hear their CEO talk so openly and transparently of all the flaws their products still have. Sounds like he's someone very fun to work with.
Anyone tried/ended up using their Index 01 in any substantial way? Looks interesting but the non-changable battery turned me off a bit, now this post reminded me of the little ring again, looks handy for taking quick voice memos.
I wonder if the functionality od Index 01 will also be available via the Pebble watch? I mean, it would be logical to allow that, all it needs is a separate app for the watch. But I didn't find any clear confirmation of this anywhere.
I got the pebble time 2 now for a month. Pebble is the Casio smartwatch.
The issues are a bit sad. But I will happily upgrade with the discount to the revised version of time 2.
To me, a Pebble is better than an apple watch due to battery life and hack-ability. Especially with the latest AI models it is just your imagination. And with ASK and Notification Forwarding it will be much closer to a Apple Watch in functionality.
owning a time 2. nice watch. but i consider its purchase more as voting with my wallet for future editions. its utility is seriously limited by its dependence on a smartphone. given its size it's rather disappointing that it contains neither mobile, nor wifi, not even gps. while it may be an odd comparison, given my user profile and its feature set it is about as useful as my sensorwatch pro 2 which i really enjoy. i wish there where swappable custom boards for casios with more than three buttons ... the calculator casios would be a dream.
missed the hype ten years ago, but now have a Pebble 2 Duo since about half a year. absolutely love it, although seeing images of the new models makes me a bit jealous. but just being able to see incoming messages on my wrist on a device i have to charge about once a month is so comfortable.
bit of a bummer that the new weather app is not for P2D, but well.
Cool watch. Have mine for a while. Would recommend. I love battery time (around 2 weeks with my usage patterns with longer backlight time). Love variability and flexibility of watchfaces. Comparing to my usecases of applewatch I am missing "find my phone" (which is mentioned to be under development) and paying with the watch. Yet increased battery life + hackability compensates those for me.
Hacking your own app is also something easily accessible. When I preordered the watch I thought of a breathing app which could be used with closed eyes. App must indicate breathing phase with vibrations. Guess what? In couple days I got first version running and published (couple more weeks of polishing completely transformed the initial version which still has screenshots in the project folder for historical reasons). In case you also want to meditate/box-breach with your pebble here is it free on any charge
The watch I really want is the Pebble Time 2 with a black-and-white screen.
The Pebble Time 2 is a huge step up from the Pebble 2 Duo in almost every conceivable way, but the contrast ratio on the latter is so much better that I still wear the P2D instead of the PT2, and just resign myself to deal with the lower resolution screen and inferior build quality.
> We considered this but decided not to for several reasons:
> You'd probably lose the charger before the battery runs out!
> Adding charge circuitry and including a charger would make the product larger and more expensive.
> You send it back to us to recycle.
I don't think this is true. The charging circuit could have been in the charger itself. To provide access to the battery, one of the terminals could be behind a transistor enabled by the micro. The charger could then send a signal to the ring to unlock the battery terminal. Then all you needed to do was expose two/three pads externally.
I don't know why HN is obsessed with whatever this product is (literally never heard of it) but I'm getting strong juicero vibes. Is this all botted up votes hoping for more VC slop or...?
I disagree with the super limited warranty terms and the lack of charger for the Index 01, but I am happy to give Eric and the Pebble Team a pass this time while their company is in this stage. I really hope they adopt stronger pro-consumer practices as the company finds its footing, but if they don't the good thing about their watches is how durable they are. I kept my Pebble Time on wrist through 2023, and by then I only stopped because I got sick of trying to repair the adhesive connecting the front bezel(?) to the back case. The PT2 is already a marked improvement over that watch's build quality so I figure I'll be good for at least eight years of daily use.
The ring sizing has been such a debacle, first with needing to buy (!) their special ring sizing kit because standard sizing wouldn’t be accurate they said, and now they say that the ring sizing kits weren’t true to size and suggest this:
> When in doubt, order a larger size. You can always adjust a larger Index 01 to feel smaller with a foam adhesive or clip but you can’t make it larger!
Pebble never said that anyone "needs" to buy the ring sizing kit. They did suggest that you buy the sizing kit from them for $10, OR 3D print it at home, OR visit a jeweler.
The ring has a button on it that you are going to press often, and you will likely wear it on a different finger than you would normally wear a ring on. That is/was the advantage of the sizing kit IMO: you can try the different sizes and wear the "dummy" ring for a couple of hours or a day and get a better idea of what size and finger will work best for you.
I think calling the ring sizing a "debacle" is being a little over-dramatic. It is a shame the ring kit is off on sizing, but how big of a problem it is, is kind of an unknown right now. It's a limited production product, there will be problems at the start, just like there have been with the Pebble Time 2.
The Pebble Time 2 looks pretty tempting to develop a custom running/fitness app for. It's got heartrate detector, accelerometer, vibrator for silent feedback, plus an SDK that works with Linux.
I feel this would have been incredible....in the 2014-2016 timeframe. There just isn't any room for this product anymore. Pebble was at the top of their game before Apple came in and showed them up.
The index is a ludicrous product. The battery life, they claim, is 2 years. This is one heck of a misrepresentation. It is actually 12-15 hours. They get the 2 years because its meant to be used around 10-20 times a day, in *3-6 second* recordings.
The device is being marketed as external memory for your brain. I'm hardly a philosopher, but I don't have many useful thoughts that are 3-6 seconds in length. heck, when i try to voice record a thought, i'm uhming and erring for the at least 3 seconds.
Even if it was really 2 years, that really doesn’t sound great IMHO. I personally keep my devices a very long time, and given there is no reasons for such a simple device to become obsolete I wouldn’t want to replace it after only 2 years
I liked the idea of the Pebble index, but don't really want another device to manage. So I ended up configuring my apple watch to record a memo using the double-pinch gesture. It uses whisper ai, and translation has been great. After voice memo is translated, I parse the text using some apple shortcuts and inject things like tasks into my daily memos.
So far it's been working great, and it's allowed me to offload important ideas that are on the tip of my brain.
It's kind of interesting reading the scathing comments about the lack of a rechargable battery, but it probably makes the most sense if the two year battery life claims are true, as you'd likely be ready for an upgrade by then and the technology would be cheaper and/or more advanced. This thing isn't an iphone. It weighs a few grams. There's likely less silicon and battery in it than in the singing greeting card you got two year old for their birthday. Everyone needs to chill out
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[ 1125 ms ] story [ 340 ms ] threadI am very keen to use the PT2 version. Don't need a dedicated ring.
The issues are a bit sad. But I will happily upgrade with the discount to the revised version of time 2.
To me, a Pebble is better than an apple watch due to battery life and hack-ability. Especially with the latest AI models it is just your imagination. And with ASK and Notification Forwarding it will be much closer to a Apple Watch in functionality.
bit of a bummer that the new weather app is not for P2D, but well.
> Yes, we warrant against manufacturing defects for 30 days after you receive your order.
Is this the shortest warranty on a consumer electronics device ever? What on earth are they thinking.
Hacking your own app is also something easily accessible. When I preordered the watch I thought of a breathing app which could be used with closed eyes. App must indicate breathing phase with vibrations. Guess what? In couple days I got first version running and published (couple more weeks of polishing completely transformed the initial version which still has screenshots in the project folder for historical reasons). In case you also want to meditate/box-breach with your pebble here is it free on any charge
https://github.com/podgorniy/pebble-box-breathing
The Pebble Time 2 is a huge step up from the Pebble 2 Duo in almost every conceivable way, but the contrast ratio on the latter is so much better that I still wear the P2D instead of the PT2, and just resign myself to deal with the lower resolution screen and inferior build quality.
> Why can't it be recharged?
> We considered this but decided not to for several reasons:
> You'd probably lose the charger before the battery runs out!
> Adding charge circuitry and including a charger would make the product larger and more expensive.
> You send it back to us to recycle.
I don't think this is true. The charging circuit could have been in the charger itself. To provide access to the battery, one of the terminals could be behind a transistor enabled by the micro. The charger could then send a signal to the ring to unlock the battery terminal. Then all you needed to do was expose two/three pads externally.
[1] https://repebble.com/index
That seems extremely little for 100$...
Its so good having Pebble back in action though.
> When in doubt, order a larger size. You can always adjust a larger Index 01 to feel smaller with a foam adhesive or clip but you can’t make it larger!
Size up and shim it with foam!
The ring has a button on it that you are going to press often, and you will likely wear it on a different finger than you would normally wear a ring on. That is/was the advantage of the sizing kit IMO: you can try the different sizes and wear the "dummy" ring for a couple of hours or a day and get a better idea of what size and finger will work best for you.
I think calling the ring sizing a "debacle" is being a little over-dramatic. It is a shame the ring kit is off on sizing, but how big of a problem it is, is kind of an unknown right now. It's a limited production product, there will be problems at the start, just like there have been with the Pebble Time 2.
The device is being marketed as external memory for your brain. I'm hardly a philosopher, but I don't have many useful thoughts that are 3-6 seconds in length. heck, when i try to voice record a thought, i'm uhming and erring for the at least 3 seconds.
But there are 1,000s of us that heard about it, researched the limitations.. and still bought one immediately.
At $100 even if it only lasts a year it would still be worth it. For me.
So far it's been working great, and it's allowed me to offload important ideas that are on the tip of my brain.