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Nothing else ever really achieved what the pebble did. I just wanted a cheap second point of interaction with my phone.
After it went under the industry has doubled down on insane cost, pointless features, abysmal battery life.
I don’t get it. Pepple made all the right trade offs and the third party support was incredible.
I hope this works out.
Does it let you buy stuff?
I just want a watch that lets me buy stuff, without Google, Apple, or anyone else tracking me. The closest I found is a Pixel watch with WiFi, which I only connect at home, and isn’t connected to my phone most of the time (GrapheneOS). Google still tracks me, but only after the fact, and only when I reconnect to WiFi.
I honestly don’t care about the watch function, I just want something I can wear when I’m on a bike ride so I can leave my phone and wallet at home but still pick up a snack or something.
If the Pebble can do that without phoning home, I’ll get it. But I’m pretty sure that’s impossible since it’s baked into the Wallet app.
I hate to be that guy, but if you’re doing NFC payments, your card issuer is tracking you, AND selling your data. And of course, the merchant you’re using is almost certainly tracking you and profiling you for more ads, too.
There’s no way to do any sort of electronics payment with ‘nobody’ tracking you.
I trust Apple to be slightly less shitty than anyone else in the payment industry, but if you don’t want to be tracked its’ either cash, or you become one of those Monero dudes.
There’s no way to do any sort of electronics payment with ‘nobody’ tracking you.
I fully understand that. My point is that I don’t need Google also getting easy access to my data, along with all the metadata along the way (GPS, heart rate, etc). Right now, I only connect my watch to my phone every other week or so to refresh payment tokens, so the data they’re getting is at least delayed.
I really don’t need any of the smart watch features other than payments. I don’t care about vitals monitoring, seeing my texts, etc. I ride to escape all that. I don’t even need the time, I only need a way to buy a snack or something.
I’d probably use cash if we got rid of pennies, nickels, and dimes, because with sales tax, I always end up with a handful of nonsense ($1.84 -. $2.02 or some BS). I suppose I could just drop it all in a donation cup or something, but that adds up. And some stores don’t even accept cash anymore.
So my solution is a smart watch. It’s not great, but I get extra credit card rewards for using it (3% everywhere), so it’ll pay for itself after a year or so.
Maybe I should just suck it up and just use cash. Idk. Maybe once I’ve finished degoogling everything else (last one Google Sheets), I’ll get rid of my Pixel Watch.
Sorry if i missed it but I have a really stupid question: why not just use the card directly?
Is this just a dont-want-a-wallet thing, or something else?
Yup, pretty much.
I don’t like stuff in my pockets when I exercise, and I often wear shorts without pockets. Before the watch, I’d put my phone and wallet in my saddle bag, which works, but that’s not a thing when running (and I hate those hip ot arm bands).
And my wallet is tiny (basically this, one slot on each side and one pocket), so it’s not the size.
Cash…. What you’re looking for is called cash.
No way is any purchasing system going to allow you to walk away without checking that you are won you claim to be, and that you have the funds available to you to make that purchase.
I really don’t like dealing with small change.
There’s really no technical reason why these contactless payment systems couldn’t be FOSS. When I registered my card with my watch, I needed to call my bank to confirm it was me. The same process could totally happen without Google being involved.
I miss my Pebble Time Round every day, it’s the only smart watch that I owned that I actually liked. I even bought a second and got it running via Rebble.
They both died due to a swollen battery but I’ve been pining for something similar for years! Hope this pans out
Same. I bought one of those ifixit kits and tried to repair mine, but it turns out the wires are very small and I couldnt get everything hooked back in.
I loved my PebbleSteel but the build quality just wasn’t there. Had two go bad after a very short time with button issues. When Pebble got sold i begrudgingly moved to an Apple Watch and have been ok with it. I do wish Apple offered an E-ink display tho. I’d gladly trade display colors and screen resolution for a multi-day battery and lower prices.
I’m all in on the Apple ecosystem but won’t get an Apple Watch for that reason. Besides the fact that I already get distracted enough, I can’t bear to have a wearable that won’t make it 24 hours without a charge. Resistance to that level of obligation is the same reason I never bought a Tamagotchi.
I got a Tamagotchi when they were new and it was annoying as fuck, so I stopped playing with it after two days and enjoyed looking at the floating ghost.
I was looking into Pebble watches right before they got bought by Fitbit, was super bummed. Since then I’ve tried a Garmin (hated the app) and now on my third Apple Watch… I still don’t love the Apple Watch and want an alternative. Between having to charge it all the goddamn time and after 10~ years it only having 3 usable watch faces I’ve been craving an alt. I signed up for the Pebble list - I’m ready. Pebble for every day and going to try out a Coros for fitness.
Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve been enjoying my Withings watches for fitness tracking and everyday wear as well. They look like a decent, non-smart watch. Battery lasts about a month or so.
Thank you for the rec. I checked them out, but it’s not really what I’m looking for. Ideally my watch face will let me see a lot of information related to location and weather. For example, my main Apple Watch face currently shows: a compass, date, time, current temp, the high, the low, the conditions, wind speed and elevation. That’s partly why I’ve stuck with an Apple Watch despite the severe shortcomings
I’m not in to smart watches, but I’m happy this is happening. A couple of friends really liked the pebble and were sad to see it go.
If you click “no” on the website it takes you to the Google pixel watch site. My goodness that thing is ugly.
I ran my Pebble Time into the ground, so I’m hyped as fuck for this. I bought it in my early highschool years and wore it nearly daily until last year when the rumble motor finally gave out. Still wear it from time to time, but it not buzzing for notifications is a bit of a deal breaker for me.
I bought a replacement and it’s so pristine I didn’t want to risk slowly damaging it at work, but now I’m charging that bitch up and running it into the ground until new Pebble comes out. Thanks for sharing OP, this news made me week!
Bonus, here’s what mine looked like as of a few years ago right when the vibration went out. You can see I slapped a skin on it to cover up the bezel scratches, but the screen still looks totally fine!
we’ve got pineWatch so why not pebble? PineWatch is OK but it’s.not pebble. It was an amazing low tech that was actually extremely useful
I’m just very unoptimistic that this won’t come back as corporate garbage and not remotely resembling what it once was.
The people doing the revival have been working to keep the original pebbles working for years now. I think they’re really passionate about the watch, and that gives me hope for the revival.
The best part is you can make your own!
With what? I don’t own a watch factory.
Arduino
How are you gonna fit an Arduino in a watch?
Don’t forget the screen and the battery too.
Raspberry pi Pebble when?
Just want to shout out my PineTime. no one seems to be talking about it. Its a nice piece of kit for $35.
I just went to take a look at it, its €65, I don’t see a price anywhere near $35?
and then i saw they had an e-reader and got all excited… They charge €610 for that thing, holy crap that’s stupid expensive.
Skill issue?
Not really
Which business model are they going for - screwing over their former employees? Or selling access to something that doesn’t belong to them? Or are they going to try to combine them both this time?
I’m confused what you’re asking. Google opens sourced the pebble code, which they acquired from their purchase of Fitbit, who acquired it when they purchased pebble. Repebble is an open source project that has been trying to keep the original pebble watches working since Fitbit shut pebble down.
The former pebble employees at Google worked hard to get the OS open source, so I think it’s fair to assume they were hoping for this outcome. And the repebble team (who are the ones"bringing it back") have been working on providing support and keeping the original pebble watches going for years now.
Loved my pebble watch, got burned with kickstarter campaign for pebble 2 (bid lost money gone when it was cancelled because fibbit taking over right at this moment).
Since then I went back to Casio and will not look at a computer on a wrist anymore, not even Apple Watch or repebble.
I ♥️ my Casio F-91W
Picture taking a dump;
Pants down;
Is that a g-string?
Great watch though
Ayoooo nice g string cuz
Never trust or buy something from a Alphabet company. They will always cancel the project and leave you high and dry.
Their track record speaks for itself.
But this doesn’t have anything to do with alphabet? They just open sourced the code.
Fitbit bought Pebble then Google bought Fitbit.
Yes, and this has nothing to do with Fitbit or Google (beyond Google open-sourcing the old Pebble code).
This is not a Google product.
Yes, true, but irrelevant in this case.
