[sahila]

> Pebble proves that a simple, shallow, and linear menu system works great!

Hard to say this is true when Garmin watches are far more successful than Pebble. That aside, the forerunner is a sports watch first where you want lots of physical buttons that don't get bothered by sweat. The better Garmin comparison is the Venu series which only have two buttons https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/wearables-smartwatches/?serie....

[Pfhortune]

I'm making a subjective comparison here, true. But spend fifteen minutes with each company's watches and you'll see what I mean.

> Hard to say this is true when Garmin watches are far more successful than Pebble.

A company's success != UX efficacy. That's like saying Apple's products had terrible UX in 1997 because they were flailing up against their Microsoft counterparts of the same era, despite the fact that Apple's UX guidelines of the nineties are regularly raised here as a rubric for UX evaluation, even against Apple's own modern products!

> The better Garmin comparison is the Venu series which only have two buttons

I'm not sure you've ever used a Pebble, but Pebble OS is entirely button-driven with four buttons, whereas the Forerunner and Instinct have five. I've never used a Venu, but isn't it primarily touchscreen-driven?

(yes, the upcoming pebble watches do have touchscreens, but I believe that's just for use in apps and watchfaces, not navigating the system)

[apparent]

> Hard to say this is true when Garmin watches are far more successful than Pebble

This may not be true for long, honestly. Pebble hasn't made watches in years, and I wouldn't be surprised if within 2-4 years they were selling more units than Garmin. The Pebble UI is a dream, especially compared to Garmin. I could never get my parents to get a Garmin, but a Pebble could totally work for them. Super intuitive, hardly needs charging, gives them notifications when they're in a different room than their phone, always-on/always-readable screen.

[mirsadm]

Very unlikely. The reason Garmin watches are successful is because they've carved out an audience (athletes, health and exercise focused). Pebble might have a nice UI but most people would be better off with an Apple Watch or whatever the current flavour of the week is on Android