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Anyone have a pebble?
These things are sick eh?
I’ve had the new one for a few months now and well it’s absolutely incredible. I pre ordered like two years ago and for the longest time my girlfriend was like “you’re getting scammed it’s never coming!”
I love the battery life and Rebble is sweet, the bobby app with a subscription is my new personal assistant without all the hassle of the big tech conglomerates bs
Sheepishly puts his rock back in his pocket and walks away.
i thought the same thing and was mildly disappointed when the thread wasn't talking about small rocks :/
My son picks up an interesting rock and carries it around with him basically any time we leave the house so it’s definitely a thing. Dude just wants to keep a pebble with him at all times.
I still have my original Pebble Time! I don't wear it anymore (I don't use any wearable tech at all), but I charge it once or twice a year, and it still works and holds the charge for a few days.
I had that too back in the day and it really was what got me into open source. Nowadays I am loving the watchfaces.. also interested in its potential for passive RF detection w/ a rpi & RTLSDR.
I still have mine too! Sadly, I discovered the hard way that it's not up to the rigors of high altitude skiing so it died. Was going to replace it with a Time 2 when that all fell apart. At least I got my money back! I also couldn't find any replacement batteries, which I think was the main issue with it. Still was the coolest watch I've had.
Don't mind me, just refreshing my Pebble Round 2 preorder status page on repeat until my eyeballs fall out of my head...
I preordered the Time 2 literally the first day it was possible (I found out about it here on Tildes actually!) and it is my favourite object. I would also very rarely recommend anyone buy it, though, because it is kind of overpriced for what it does. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore it -- the animations are charming, the community is thriving with fun and useful little apps (2fa on my wrist is genuinely life changing lol), and the watchfaces are fantastic (I particularly love Game of Life by Tobias, Time Gear by Capybara, and Synthetic Time by Legitimate Software).
BUT.
For 99% of people, this is not what they want. An Apple Watch (or Fitbit, or Garmin, or whatever else) will suit their needs much better. Sure the Pebble lasts forever without charging, but people charge their phones every day and everyone still has one anyway. I just don't really think having to charge a device is a massive turn-off for people. And in terms of feature parity, realistically you can get everything the Pebble does cheaper, and much more for the same price.
If you're an enthusiast, or loved the originals and just want one back, or just have money to throw around, get one. I cherish mine. But in any other case it's just not really great value for money.
I paid the extra for the rePebble project because I believe in privacy. After Apple recently announced how Apple Watches are going to start recording everything always, I love how much control I have over the Pebble and would recommend it to anyone who is privacy-minded but still wants some of the smartwatch feature set.
What percentage of people even wear a watch? I think Pebbles are more marketable to folks that have never worn one. Or inversely, people that have tried the popular alternatives and don't want a de facto phone on their wrist begging for attention.
I'm really happy to have one again. I wore out the old one, and it was so sad to see what became of smart watches.
The colour display is new for me so I'm really enjoying that extra aspect.
It’s a breath of fresh air really. My favourite watchfaces are tangent and BRUTAL
I love Firewatch (Dynamic) on mine, the landscape changing with the weather looks so nice.
I've got 2 OGs and an HR2 -- nothing from the latest run. I love them but I went back to analog watches after a few years. The build quality of the OG was great. The HR2's buttons were cheap shit.
If you aren't familiar with the whole Pebble timeline, its worth looking up. Its a wild ride.
I had the OG back in the day and it could take a beating!
the OGs had that flickering issue or whatever that had to be fixed with a small slip of paper or something. Its been a long time,.
I'd love to have a nice analog watch (like a Nomos) that could simply vibrate in distinct patterns for different notifications or something.
You know what I just leave the thing on silent mode most days because my fundamental issue with wearables is that my phone annoys me why would I want that on my wrist.
I think Heir has the right idea -- no idea about their execution, but a thin disc to pop under any watch is kind if perfect.
I liked having calendar things coming through the watch, but emails and texts etc was so annoying. The last watchface I made was this -- https://i.ibb.co/Z5MGKXB/image.png -- no time, just vibrations every 15 minutes or whatever.
I want this but I want it to be cellular so I don’t have to deal with reconnecting / surveillance. Bluetooth these days is just a whole other beast in terms of privacy whereas I feel I could non kyc a number and pay for data pretty easily. Just my 2 cents.
its like we need a new protocol with a range of ~1cm for shit like this.
Like radio but encrypted.
nRF52840 with bt disabled in the firmware would be good. 128aes the shit out of our heart rates.
I should say the new ones don’t feel quite as special but I think that’s just age.
I absolutely loved my Pebble Time Steel back in the day and was devastated when the battery in it became a spicy pillow. I even bought a replacement battery and attempted to teach myself how to solder in order to fix it, a project that eventually resulted in failure. I preordered the Pebble Time 2 on the first day it was made available and after a long long (long!) wait it's been great to finally have a Pebble back on my wrist! I really appreciate the long battery life (I've been averaging almost 3 weeks per charge) and the fun and simple operating system is just how I remember it. It's one of my favorite pieces of tech ever and I hope I'll never have to go without it again.
For real! I was so happy when Eric got the trademark back and I understood you know this is a very niche passion project. So I wasn’t upset really with the wait and they didn’t let me down. The new touch firmware is a game changer too, the only thing I’m not crazy about is the raised glass. Cracked the edge and I’m sad since.
I completely agree, I think the exposed raised glass was a huge mistake. I don't understand what they were thinking with that, and sorry to hear that it's already led to yours being cracked. I think it might be worth it to reach out to them and see if they can make things right, I know the warranty is extremely limited but I remember seeing a post from Eric saying that they've helped everyone that's had issues. That may have been awhile ago now though. I've accidentally hit mine against a few things so far, unfortunately it feels like a matter of time until it happens to me too.
For real? I bought two of them maybe I’ll reach out. But yes the exposed glass is a killer. Devastating really!
Yes and yes. Been wearing one since 2013. Recently got my Index 01 though and I'm not sold yet. It's kinda uncomfortable.
Favourite watchface?
Squared 4.0 here!
Oh that’s nice, clearly a pebble wearer of distinction and taste!
Time Cube is the best watchface if you’re wise in science.
Otherwise my faves are: Minimalist Analog, Tangent, TopoLocal, Calvin and Hobbes, RUNNER // MONITOR, BRUTAL, Tarot (dalpek is such an artist holy)
The OG Pebble Time used to solve a very real problem, which was to play/pause audio in my old car (no bluetooth audio, only jack).
I really like the iconography of the device. Distinctive and whimsical yet super clear at the same time.
TimeStyle ftw!
I missed the boat on the og pebble so got on first wave of time 2. It's great, no complaints :)
Echidna is my face of choice
I got one of the Pebble 2 Duos (ordered back when they were still called Core 2 Duo).
It was cool to play with for a few weeks, and gave me a nostalgia blast from back when I owned one of the OG Pebbles, but now it's just collecting dust next to all the other various tech purchases that I don't use anymore but don't have the heart to get rid of. The main feature aside from telling time that I really used it for was the vibrating smart alarm, but I got a pillow shaker now that does the same job without needing to be on my wrist all day.
I seriously considered ordering one. But when I saw the warranty terms (30 days iirc), I passed. It’s an expensive object and if they’re not confident it’ll last longer than a month that’s just a very expensive watch subscription I didn’t want.
How did it turn out to be, for those braver than me who got one?
I got my Pebble Time 2 in June, I was in the 2nd batch. I missed the OG Pebble and its successors when they were originally out and was intrigued when I saw they were coming out with new versions. I preordered one and don't recall if the 1 month warranty was published at that point or not. Anyway, over a year later it came in the mail. I did immediately get a friend to 3D print a bumper, as others noted the glass protrudes out a hair from the case. So far it has held up perfectly fine with it, and glad I wasn't in the first wave.
The Pebble Time 2 has been everything I wanted in a smartwatch though! I was mainly interested in it because of the always-on display and long battery life. Paired with getting notifications from my phone I am a happy camper. I don't do much else with it and that's a highlight. I had the 1st Pixel watch previously and I just didn't need that much in my watch.
Loved my original Pebble and later Pebble Steel, which I repaired more than once.
Would love a new one, but I'm actually pretty happy with my cheapo Timex Expedition these days. I don't feel like a smartwatch is going to fill a gap for me anymore and I'm just happy to glance at my watch now and see the time.
I really wanted to get one of the new ones but the thing that killed it for me was the lack of water resistance. Seems there was a degree of it but I'm uncomfortable with anything that does less than 30m of depth, as I like to keep my watch on at all times and I occasionally go scuba diving/snorkelling.
They're IPX8 which is 30m, no?
Edit: I guess it's not that simple
Thanks for this post, for some reason I’ve always thought this was some old Google watch. Cool to learn it’s OSS.
Just did some digging it seems Pebble filed for insolvency in 2016, and what acquired by Fitbit. Google then purchased Fitbit in 2021.
I'm wearing my time 2 now. Pretty happy with it. Hit a couple smaller glitches earlier but haven't had any issues at all. I got tired of the silicone band and replaced it with a more traditional one, which makes me regret getting the blue racing stripe. The battery life is great, it's nice being able to not think about it for weeks. I think 90% of what I use it for (besides glancing at the time) is controlling media. This is more or less my first smart watch