Technology

Does it use just standard watch bands? It looks like it, but I didn't see it mentioned.

One of the things I find ridiculous about other smart watches is that they use proprietary bands. When I found out that people are paying $60+ for a silicon band for an Apple watch, it blew my mind. Also that people put screen protectors or cases on their Apple watches because their $500+ watch doesn't even have a crystal lens, and is prone to scratching.

He wasn't going to add compass because most people don't use it, but then he added it to the Core 2 Duo as a favor to a friend who helped on that version and wanted a compass in it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1jea5cc/ama_with_eric_migicovsky_lets_talk_about_the_new/migw1ct/

Because that's the feature people actually want. The biggest use of these watches is having an active heart rate monitor, as evident by even most of the cheaper watches having them.

Pebble is now playing a gambit, whereby they think they will sell more of the premium model to people who will be using it for exercise and health reasons.

Either that, or the hardware chosen specifically separates the heart rate monitor so that vendors strike a better deal with the factories to get specially designed chips.

Either way, someone is getting taken for a ride.

From their FAQ, emphasis mine:

You shouldn’t get one if…

You need a perfectly polished smartwatch. This project is a labour of love rather than a startup trying to sell millions of watches. There may be some rough edges (literally). Things will get delayed. Some features will not be ready at launch. Things could break. Things could not last as long as you’d like. The only thing we can guarantee is that it will be awesome and a lot of fun! Every time you look down at your watch, you will smile

So yeah, I’d say your take is pretty accurate. At least they’re honest lol

He also screwed a lot of the employees on the way out from Pebble, and he also bailed on Beeper the minute it got complicated. Sold it to Matt Mullenweg a year or two after getting pimp-slapped by Apple because he had no real plan for what to do if Apple started banning the devices he was using as Matrix bridges. He gave up after like three days, it was honestly genuinely pathetic. This was a paid service and he fucked it all up for anyone using iMessage on it.

I have personal experiences with Beeper that make me less than trust Eric Migicovsky, and I really don't think he seems like a "nice guy." He actively sucks, doesn't have plans for sustainability and then sells it all off to someone else at a personal profit while the people doing the actual work get fucked out of a job.

Yeah for the same price as the color option you could get a Garmin Vivoactive​ on a sale.

Idk if garmin allows you to download your data in an easily accessible format but I would expect Pebble to do it and I expect a nice ecosystem of user-created apps based on that

And why are both watches a “2” variant?

Because this is the next generation of the original Pebble watches.

Core 2 Duo

I'll actually be surprised if this makes it to launch without Intel perhaps making a few legal calls and prompting a device name change.

No moving on here. I still wear a OG Pebble daily, and I'm super excited about this. I just wish they hadn't chosen 'Core 2 Duo' like it hadn't been the name of another product...

I haven't moved on. Pebble Time Steel was the best watch I've ever had. I've been using Fitbit since the death of Pebble and they never got as good as Pebble was. If Repebble hadn't shown up, I'd probably be going Garmin after the inevitable death of Fitbit. But now that the choice is between Garmin and a hackable open source Pebble with 30 days of battery life... Repebble wins for me. ☺️

There are a couple already, e.g. https://github.com/Willow-Systems/pebble-home-assistant

What's even cooler is that the nRF52840 chip that they will use has ZigBee support, which theoretically means it can talk to your network directly if software supports it

This is neat but the selling point for me with the Pebble is the e-ink display. If repebble fails though, my next watch will be a Pine. Hopefully my Versa 2 holds on for a bit longer 🤞

As someone very excited for this watch, the battery life with an always on display is more important to me than a sp02 sensor (Btw it will do sleep tracking). That and the button navigation are the killer features. The watch shows me what I need to know when I need to know it, always has the time on, and I can navigate it and control media playback without having to look at it (since buttons are consistent). I want a smart watch to be a good watch first then being smart is the second priority, and the pebble is the only watch I've ever had that gets those priorities right for me. Every other smart watch I've used sacrifices something I value to fit more features that I dont value as much. The pebbles have just gotten it right for me.

That said, the watch also isn't for everyone, and a lot of people are OK charging their watch every day if it means they also get every feature they want.