> 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!
And we are very determined to keep the Open-Meteo weather API open-access indefinitely and don’t share the same fate as many closed-source APIs like Yahoo or OpenWeatherMap.
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?
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'm sure it helps that the owner of the pebble package ID is Google, assuming all the developer accounts were part of the original Fitbit acquisition, and then Google acquiring Fitbit.
I see they haven't handed over https://pebble.com though, that still forwards to Google's smartwatch lineup.
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.
> 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).
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).
I too am very excited. I had a voice recorder laying around and have worked that into my workflow over the past few months. Although, my AI assistant is a cobbled together set of python scripts.
can you give some more detail about the airtag-sized device you made? This is exactly what I've been thinking about doing to test the "idea" of the Index, but haven't figured out how to go about doing it.
(Tried looking on your blog, but ended up instead reading your article about the little ESP8266 clock which convinced me to buy one to play with myself, thanks!)
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.
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.
Yup. I actually strongly prefer the look of the duo and consider the time to be ugly. Was fairly annoyed when I got an email saying that actually they can't deliver the watch I bought and would I like to pay more for the ugly one. (Although, some other folks on HN who did get a duo said it had quality issues, so I guess I dodged a bullet)
> 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.
Glue and seals weaken with exposure to temperature extremes in both directions. I found this out the hard way too.
I spent all day out in below freezing temps, when I got back to my hotel room and my smartband (not pebble) started to warm up, the screen just fell off. Everything still worked and the screen was lit up. Fortunately I discovered it before I ripped the screen off on something. When I got home I was able to glue the screen back on and it's been operating just fine, of course it's probably no longer waterproof.
Hoping this thing holds out until I get my Pebble.
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 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.
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
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.
Yep. I don't understand the appeal of the ring, assuming you're wearing the watch all the time. One-handed operation isn't worth much to me, and I have zero interest in a ring (which won't fit either when it's hot or cold).
It can't, and I wouldn't hold my breath for such a small company being able to navigate compliance for contactless payments. The Pebble does use standard watch straps though, so you could get one of the ones with a programmable payment chip embedded inside.
If that's all you use your smartwatch for, you may as well skip the watch and get a payment bracelet or ring though.
Since this is hackernews, I'll point out that you can use a solvent to remove the card part of a credit card leaving only the chip plus antenna. Then embed in a new housing of your own design.
This. I seldom leave the house with an iPhone, and my Apple Watch with cellular is my primary "mobile" device. I want to leave the Apple ecosystem as my devices age out, and the one thing I would love to have is an NFC ring or bracelet to replace my Apple Watch.
Eric has said publicly this is not happening. Looks like he's making a watch that fits his use case, and since he always carries his phone that's not a priority.
Pebble was my first smartwatch, all the way back in 2015. It was fun and quirky back when it was first released. Then it stopped production for many years while smartwatch category grew. Now they're coming back with same/similar models as before.
For me, its value lies more in nostalgia than anything else. I don't expect it to ever compete with the likes of my Apple watch for smart features, or a Garmin for activity tracking.
That said, it's an e-paper display so battery life is pretty good. Plus it had (and probably will have) an active community of small apps and watchfaces, which kept (and probably will keep) it from becoming stale quickly.
I never had an original Pebble but was always a curious observer. To me, the attraction is a device that is clearly complementing a modern smartphone rather than trying to be a second phone on my wrist. I know lots of Apple Watches are sold sans-eSIM, and I get the appeal in very specific situations like a water park where I have to leave my phone in the locker but I can still wear a watch... the watch is now my gateway to texts, calls, Find-My, etc.
But nonetheless, that is a rare occurrence, and I don't think for me it's worth paying the battery life and complexity cost of an Apple Watch (or similar full featured wearable) for that 1% use case. I'd rather have a simpler device that just focuses on health tracking and a few notifications, basically what FitBit was if it had a better battery and didn't suck.
That it's hackable and there will likely be lots of community-maintained apps that link into services I use is gravy on top.
Focus on longevity and extensibility. Lots of people still use their original Pebbles from 10 years ago and the community continued to release content for the platform. Also, the batteries last a really long time.
Longtime pebble user here. The main things are the always-on ePaper display, long battery life (they claim this new gen's battery will last a month!), and the hackability. I personally love the user interface and charming animations!
I had a couple of Pebbles in the past that are now broken, I'm considering buying one of the newer ones. One Pebble Steel which had a defect for a bunch of them where the screen would gradually start corrupting and a Pebble 2 where the rubberized buttons turned to mush after all these years.
The thing I like about Pebble is the fact its not trying to do a million other things. The two things I really want in a smart watch is to be able to triage a notification/get an update without having to actually pull out my phone and have easy media controls on my wrist. Optimizing for that means it gets excellent battery life and comparatively low prices, because it doesn't need a ton of compute and giant screen and a million sensors constantly taking measurements to accomplish it.
Its nice being able to still get messages and change the music and what not while you're doing something dirty or whatever and aren't about to pull out your phone. Doing yard work, wrenching on the car or motorcycle, lounging in the pool, riding a bicycle, etc. That's all I really want.
You know the proverb: "jack of all trades, master of none"?
For Pebble fans most of other watches sound like that. Pebble, o.t.o.h., is focused on doing well just the essential: always on reflective screen, long battery life, easy to develop, UI based on buttons instead of touch screens, being easy to program to,...
On top of what others have said, the Watchface/App dev experience is pretty great. The OS provides a lot of compositing and animation features that encourage really lively and cute designs, and the Pebble app has a JS runtime that allows apps to do whatever phone-side stuff you need without having to build separate Android and iOS apps (or, as a user, install a ton of companion apps). Spin-up and iteration is really easy because pebble-tool manages building, deploying to QEMU, and running the phone-side code in Node.js so that you can launch and test your app end-to-end with one command.
Having to write C on the watch-side isn't everyone's cup of tea but they are actively working on a replacement for rocky.js so that you can write everything in JS.
Pebble was sort of the first/only smartwatch that are common+open enough && uses simplistic lightweight OS such that it'll last couple weeks per charge. Its competitors either didn't exist, weren't open(Xiaomi), or burned enormous amounts of power that they required daily recharges(Google/Apple).
I still wish other smart watches behaved like a pebble, the interface was so intuitive you could use it to do the basics without looking at it most of the time.
It's like trying something so good it ruins every other one for you. The UX was just so well thought through i don't know how to explain it.
The attraction is that it's like the early versions of Android, you can do whatever you want with your hardware and there's nobody to tell you no.
The app store is delightfully quirky and adding a watchface is just a matter of drag and drop. There's no Gatekeeper, or hundred of pages of Terms of Services and Privacy Policies and GDPR disclaimers you have to fill out. You don't have to sacrifice your first born child to Big Tech and nor do you have to beg for root permissions on your own hardware. Whatever goes, caveat emptor. If you install malware and brick your device (a very difficult thing to do given that it's a watch), well, that's also entirely on you.
It's similar to why OpenClaw went viral; you can do whatever the fuck you want with it, nothing is wrapped up in carefully sanitized corporatism, with everything locked down to a t and filled with cover-your-ass privacy and permissions declarations that are not worth the pixels they are displayed on.
Nobody's around to nanny you and play authoritarian daddy with what you do with your watch. If you want to share offensive, pirated, or DMCAed watchfaces — go wild. If you want to build a protest app to track government thugs and civil servants — all the power to you! If you want to turn it in to a sex toy controller to use during long boring church services — well, that's between you and your faith, there's no Big Tech between God and your bedroom. It's just like the old days of Android and APKs and jailbroken iPhones. A return back to simpler days of open computing.
Your grandma won't get as much out of this watch versus an Apple Watch, but if you are a real hacker at heart, this is the device for you.
I was an original Pebble Kickstarter wearer from 2012, then got the initial Time, then the first Android smartwatches (Moto 360!) then basically every Apple Watch from then to now. Even used Google Glass a few months in 2013.
I like my wearables. I use features on my Apple Watch constantly: NFC payments, voice reminders, fitness and sleep tracking, make my iPhone yell out so I can find where I put it, etc.
But not a single damn wearable I've had has captured a fraction of the charm the original Pebble and Pebble Time had. Their UIs are low-res by modern standards, and greyscale or largely solid colors, but wow.
Dug up some videos as reference. Here's one that highlights what the core system UI aesthetic is like. Notice the transitions as you use the UI. I remember it feeling really snappy too, and it feels great to use a UI that moves like that with physical tactile buttons, as opposed to scrolling a Digital Crown or using the touch screen on an Apple Watch:
And aside from the system UI, the community of apps that existed for it back then and no doubt will continue to grow now has a lot of charm too. The creators of all the apps are making them out of love, not to be a Top 10 on an Apple app store. And they don't exactly have a strong cohesive system UI to comply with unlike Apple. Human Interface Guidelines are wonderful for phones and tablets and for serious app ecosystems I depend on, but watches are Not That Serious as far as I'm concerned so the individuality and love within each app just fills me heart with joy every time I look down at my wrist.
The e-ink display is the killer feature. Week-long battery life and always-on readable display even in direct sunlight. Every other smartwatch is a tiny phone screen that dies in a day. Pebble chose the opposite trade-off: less flashy but actually useful as a watch. The open SDK and hackable firmware are the other half - you can write watchfaces and apps in C, which attracted a dev community that most wearables never get.
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.
Size is the main differentiator for me. I had a pebble, then an Apple Watch, and I've always hated how chunky the Apple Watch and other competitors are.
For me it's the eink display that makes them interesting. Being programmable or looking cool is nice, but for that I could also buy an Apple/Google/Samsung watch - that's not unique.
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.
lopis|11 days ago
That's some sweet quality of life fixes!
open-meteo|11 days ago
CodesInChaos|10 days ago
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?
Fiveplus|11 days ago
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?
wlesieutre|11 days ago
I see they haven't handed over https://pebble.com though, that still forwards to Google's smartwatch lineup.
creinhardt|11 days ago
yjftsjthsd-h|11 days ago
https://repebble.com/watch says the Pebble Time 2 has
> Heart rate, step and sleep tracking
Isn't that what you want?
Lutzb|11 days ago
hobo_mark|11 days ago
albatrosstrophy|11 days ago
wishfish|10 days ago
maxglute|10 days ago
LtdJorge|10 days ago
z0mghii|11 days ago
stavros|11 days ago
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).
richardlblair|11 days ago
What are you using for your AI assistant?
p1nkpineapple|11 days ago
(Tried looking on your blog, but ended up instead reading your article about the little ESP8266 clock which convinced me to buy one to play with myself, thanks!)
apparent|11 days ago
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!
chias|10 days ago
unknown|10 days ago
[deleted]
poisonborz|11 days ago
yjftsjthsd-h|11 days ago
jolmg|10 days ago
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...
stavros|11 days ago
saidinesh5|11 days ago
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.
cptskippy|11 days ago
I spent all day out in below freezing temps, when I got back to my hotel room and my smartband (not pebble) started to warm up, the screen just fell off. Everything still worked and the screen was lit up. Fortunately I discovered it before I ripped the screen off on something. When I got home I was able to glue the screen back on and it's been operating just fine, of course it's probably no longer waterproof.
Hoping this thing holds out until I get my Pebble.
usrnm|11 days ago
wan23|11 days ago
simlevesque|11 days ago
But if you just need that, almost any watch will do. The Pebble is clearly not made for those people.
ge96|11 days ago
raffael_de|11 days ago
Larrikin|11 days ago
Markoff|10 days ago
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
apparent|10 days ago
tanin|11 days ago
gessha|10 days ago
nine_k|11 days ago
ameen|10 days ago
It’s funny how these very tariffs were introduced to “combat inflation” end up increasing it by an order of magnitude.
fix4fun|11 days ago
nemomarx|11 days ago
30 days for the Time 2 will be pretty impressive if they can pull it off, though.
toisanji|11 days ago
apparent|11 days ago
ismail|10 days ago
billfor|11 days ago
jsheard|11 days ago
If that's all you use your smartwatch for, you may as well skip the watch and get a payment bracelet or ring though.
e.g. https://www.curve.com/wearables/
fc417fc802|11 days ago
zikduruqe|11 days ago
apparent|11 days ago
beratbozkurt0|11 days ago
akagr|11 days ago
For me, its value lies more in nostalgia than anything else. I don't expect it to ever compete with the likes of my Apple watch for smart features, or a Garmin for activity tracking.
That said, it's an e-paper display so battery life is pretty good. Plus it had (and probably will have) an active community of small apps and watchfaces, which kept (and probably will keep) it from becoming stale quickly.
mikepurvis|11 days ago
But nonetheless, that is a rare occurrence, and I don't think for me it's worth paying the battery life and complexity cost of an Apple Watch (or similar full featured wearable) for that 1% use case. I'd rather have a simpler device that just focuses on health tracking and a few notifications, basically what FitBit was if it had a better battery and didn't suck.
That it's hackable and there will likely be lots of community-maintained apps that link into services I use is gravy on top.
lopis|11 days ago
me_online|11 days ago
neobrain|11 days ago
vel0city|11 days ago
The thing I like about Pebble is the fact its not trying to do a million other things. The two things I really want in a smart watch is to be able to triage a notification/get an update without having to actually pull out my phone and have easy media controls on my wrist. Optimizing for that means it gets excellent battery life and comparatively low prices, because it doesn't need a ton of compute and giant screen and a million sensors constantly taking measurements to accomplish it.
Its nice being able to still get messages and change the music and what not while you're doing something dirty or whatever and aren't about to pull out your phone. Doing yard work, wrenching on the car or motorcycle, lounging in the pool, riding a bicycle, etc. That's all I really want.
diego_moita|11 days ago
For Pebble fans most of other watches sound like that. Pebble, o.t.o.h., is focused on doing well just the essential: always on reflective screen, long battery life, easy to develop, UI based on buttons instead of touch screens, being easy to program to,...
enragedcacti|11 days ago
Having to write C on the watch-side isn't everyone's cup of tea but they are actively working on a replacement for rocky.js so that you can write everything in JS.
qwertox|11 days ago
numpad0|11 days ago
avh02|11 days ago
It's like trying something so good it ruins every other one for you. The UX was just so well thought through i don't know how to explain it.
Onavo|11 days ago
The app store is delightfully quirky and adding a watchface is just a matter of drag and drop. There's no Gatekeeper, or hundred of pages of Terms of Services and Privacy Policies and GDPR disclaimers you have to fill out. You don't have to sacrifice your first born child to Big Tech and nor do you have to beg for root permissions on your own hardware. Whatever goes, caveat emptor. If you install malware and brick your device (a very difficult thing to do given that it's a watch), well, that's also entirely on you.
It's similar to why OpenClaw went viral; you can do whatever the fuck you want with it, nothing is wrapped up in carefully sanitized corporatism, with everything locked down to a t and filled with cover-your-ass privacy and permissions declarations that are not worth the pixels they are displayed on.
Nobody's around to nanny you and play authoritarian daddy with what you do with your watch. If you want to share offensive, pirated, or DMCAed watchfaces — go wild. If you want to build a protest app to track government thugs and civil servants — all the power to you! If you want to turn it in to a sex toy controller to use during long boring church services — well, that's between you and your faith, there's no Big Tech between God and your bedroom. It's just like the old days of Android and APKs and jailbroken iPhones. A return back to simpler days of open computing.
Your grandma won't get as much out of this watch versus an Apple Watch, but if you are a real hacker at heart, this is the device for you.
dag11|11 days ago
I was an original Pebble Kickstarter wearer from 2012, then got the initial Time, then the first Android smartwatches (Moto 360!) then basically every Apple Watch from then to now. Even used Google Glass a few months in 2013.
I like my wearables. I use features on my Apple Watch constantly: NFC payments, voice reminders, fitness and sleep tracking, make my iPhone yell out so I can find where I put it, etc.
But not a single damn wearable I've had has captured a fraction of the charm the original Pebble and Pebble Time had. Their UIs are low-res by modern standards, and greyscale or largely solid colors, but wow.
Dug up some videos as reference. Here's one that highlights what the core system UI aesthetic is like. Notice the transitions as you use the UI. I remember it feeling really snappy too, and it feels great to use a UI that moves like that with physical tactile buttons, as opposed to scrolling a Digital Crown or using the touch screen on an Apple Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdRENEQcymQ
And aside from the system UI, the community of apps that existed for it back then and no doubt will continue to grow now has a lot of charm too. The creators of all the apps are making them out of love, not to be a Top 10 on an Apple app store. And they don't exactly have a strong cohesive system UI to comply with unlike Apple. Human Interface Guidelines are wonderful for phones and tablets and for serious app ecosystems I depend on, but watches are Not That Serious as far as I'm concerned so the individuality and love within each app just fills me heart with joy every time I look down at my wrist.
unknown|11 days ago
[deleted]
cranberryturkey|11 days ago
milleramp|11 days ago
brcmthrowaway|11 days ago
bronlund|11 days ago
Edit: https://diyusthad.com/2021/04/top-5-open-source-smartwatch.h...
mrbn100ful|11 days ago
Far has I know, pebble user have spent the last 10 years searching for another pebble without luck.
wlesieutre|11 days ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1qr1npj/pebble_roun...
rozenmd|11 days ago
I'd pay more for being able to fumble about in the codebase and add exactly what I want.
elaus|11 days ago
qwertox|11 days ago
desireco42|11 days ago
I had Basis first and this is the most loved watch from me, then Pebble.
maxglute|10 days ago
micromacrofoot|11 days ago