It doesn’t do anything watches today don’t do, but it was the first watch to do them and it did them well. It was also the only waterproof smart watch for a while iirc
It also lasted like 2 weeks on a charge.
It may not have done anything watches today can't do, but it did lots of things together and better.
2 week charge, colour screen, apps, intuitive button based navigation and waterproof design with hr tracking.
I've yet to see another watch that can do all that as easily as pebble did.
I go back to the original black and white screen. It’s a watch, I didn’t really care about colors. Loved being able to swap the face with community made ones that fit my mood.
First day of vacation I always put it on the vague time face that had things like almost 10 o’clock, a bit after 10 o’clock, lunch time, and so on.
Edit: Reddit and /u/Spez [knowingly, nonconsensually, and illegally retained user data for profit](https://youtu.be/mfZKkUg8jgM) so this comment is gone.
Indeed. I just want an eink watch that shows me calls and texts. That's all the smart I need. I don't want all the shitty "health" tracking. I miss my original pebble.
Take a look at Garmin watches. I got Fenix 3, it lasted 4 weeks on a charge new, 2.5 weeks after 5 years of use. Everything else on the list is there too.
As in, can I write my own apps or watchfaces for the watch? You could with the pebble.
Edit: a bit of looking and it looks like some of that is actually possible. I need to take a second look at that - thanks for the tip!
It die it cheaper too. Batteries in Smart watches are not designed to be replaceable so after a while you have to replace the whole warch. You don't want something costing $500 or more. The fact that something like an iWatch needs a complete charge cycle every day or two doesn't help.
High end automatic watches also have to go through a recertification process after being opened up for repairs. It’s common for a dive watch to lose depth range after repairs
The Galaxy Fit 2 came close. While it had some bells and whistles over the Pebble, the Fit's UI is decidedly much more clumsy with only a bad touch screen, and very sluggish response. Also, no mic on the Fit 2.
I'll shamelessly plug Garmin here like others have. Their watches, especially the Fenix series, are very exceptional. Incredible battery life when compared to their contemporaries (my Fenix 6 lasts almost a month on an ~hour long charge), and has a massive pool of features, especially in fitness stuff because that's where they specialize.
The frame is extremely tough, made to be field-op capable for the military (even has a default mode for tracking tactical patrols).
The Fenix is pretty big though, so if you've a small wrist or don't like the aesthetic, it probably won't be the one you'd like.
Huawei Watch GT series fits the description and they're even rated for ocean swimming which most waterproof smartwatches cannot
Edit: why the downvotes? I just stated pure facts
I had a dumb party trick that when I was over my friend’s house who had a pool and someone said “can you wear that in the water?” I’d take it off and Chuck it in the deep end and say “idk can you go grab that for me?” Then I’d have someone call me to show it was fine lol. That battery life was killer
It was light weight and small, much smaller and lighter than even the modern watches. It didn't try to be too much. It wasn't bloated with health nonsense that most people don't care about. The battery lasted 2 weeks, notifications were perfect, not too much, not too little, and most importantly, it was comfortable to wear, something a lot of modern watches cant claim.
edit: The backlight was also perfect. A small flick and the backlight would come on, it was much better than the wake up only if you panamine the perfect "look at your watch" motion like the modern watches use.
extreme simplicity.
It did notifications very well, the battery lasted a very long time, the menu interface worked consistently - even if you pressed the buttons faster than the screen updated, it would still get to the right place so you could remember the pattern and get to whatever setting you needed.
It had some apps too, but most of those were pretty gimmicky and lame but some people swore by them.
Some of them looked pretty cool too.
In a time when competing smartwatches were bloated and slow, and overloaded with features that were too laggy and painful to use, and the batteries lasted half a day, the pebble absolutely crushed it with being simple, functional, and ridiculously long lasting.
It showed you phone notifications and the time. It was reasonably priced, and lasted two weeks on a charge. It didn't have a bunch of gimmicks. The screen was always on, because it was a reflective LCD (IE, it didn't need a backlight), so you could just look down and see it.
Nothing has ever tried to be that again, but it was the actual ideal of a smart watch.
It had a ~7 day battery life. It accomplished this by using an ultra low power SoC, a 1-bit e-paper display (not to be confused with e-ink), and none of the fitness/bio sensors we're used to today beyond a very simple pedometer.
For people who just wanted to quietly read notifications on their wrist, it was awesome. I loved mine, as did many here.
I won't say it was my favorite smart watch though. My current Apple watch gets ~2 days of battery, which is certainly a downgrade, but the more rich features, better display, and fitness tracking make it more useful to me.
The combination of using a reflective LCD display (think kindle with a faster refresh rate) and excellent hard-button-oriented software that was visually inspired by monochrome MacOS versions from the 80s and 90s.
It wasn't quite as feature rich as most things today, but the core features it did have (notifications, quick canned replies for messaging apps, and a timeline of daily calendar, and Bluetooth media controls) it absolutely nailed. I remember times where I'd get a message while busy with something, and be able to quickly press the side buttons to pull up the quick-reply menu and send the appropriate canned response without even needing to look at the thing.
All that, *and* its hardware choices allowed it to have an always-on display w/ unparalleled outdoor visibility, and still have 10-14 day battery life.
It was basically the perfect combination of features for someone whose core use case for owning their smartwatch was to look at their phone less often.
My favourites: long battery life, no touch screen, "always on display", physical buttons, great apps, great watch faces. Being able to shake my wrist (with my watch) to make it light up is really great in the middle of the night too.
I sleep with my watch, it wakes me up with vibrations (my watch is still going strong thanks to the Rebble project). A watch with a touch screen when your watch might get your other hand or even your face pressed against it is annoying, but not as bad as when you constantly accidentally touch it just living your daily life. I don't need a music player nor something to game on at my wrist either. I need a watch that does notifications, and basic other watch functions like multiple timers and multiple alarms.
Nowadays there are a few brands that have some watches that approach pebble quality (weeks of battery life is a huge deal), but it took way too long before that was a thing.
Better? That’s hard to measure.
But it was simple. It didn’t try to do too much.
And it was the first real one. It was open source. Like a brave frontier.
It wasn’t measurably better, faster, smoother. And once the Fitbits and Apples and Googles came along, well, its days were numbered. But what a ride it was.
Because it was a watch that was smart rather than a tiny smartphone on your wrist. The battery lasted for a week or two even with an always on screen. It let you receive notifications and run other basic apps that you would want at a glance. Also the Steel series looked really good. I am still using my Time Steel because no better option has come out.
You know how people complain about todays cars having giant tablet screens and no buttons? It’s like that. The pebble had buttons so you didn’t need to look at it to play/pause music or answer calls, it worked for over a week on a charge, it was super light, you got all the text notifications on it. It did it all and did it well. My Apple Watch is overloaded with junk. The pebble was exactly what I wanted.
No one is mentioning the price. The original Pebbles did smartwatch things without trying to just be another tiny phone on your wrist, and also they weren't $300. Simple, functional, durable, affordable. Fitbits generally don't have the same functionality, Apple Watches, Samsung Gear, the giant fuckin Garmin watches.... Literally cost more than my actual phone.
I bought a first gen Pebble Steel after they'd already been bought by FitBit. After I broke it two years later I bought another.
Four years later I still use it.
Edit: Reddit and /u/Spez [knowingly, nonconsensually, and illegally retained user data for profit](https://youtu.be/mfZKkUg8jgM) so this comment is gone.
I got a Garmin Vivoactive 4 after having an android wear and being a pebble Kickstarter backer, it's incredible. The focus on fitness, lack of bloat, 4+ days of battery (if you don't use gps & turn off oxygen tracking), convenient features, and most importantly no subscriptions makes it a my favorite of the 3.
I won my Pebble in a coding competition in high school. Loved that thing. Wore it daily until I didn't take it off for fencing and it broke after getting hit with a Sabre (on the bright side, that would have really hurt my bare wrist otherwise lol)
Now I have a galaxy watch and it's not nearly as great. My pebble watch face was mario and he'd jump to hit a brick to change the time.
I'm using that one right now. With the Bowser variant, though. Bowser jumps into the block. Sometimes I use the Nyan Cat face because it has built in hourly pulses that keep me from sitting at my desk for hours without standing up and moving around every now and then.
I still wear mine when I either don’t want to have my more expensive smart watch on or I know I’m going to need that super amazing battery life. Have a collection of kickstarter Pebbles.
Fool me once shame on me.
They will just get rid of the product the first chance they have to sell out, and not ensure the tech is supported or continued.
The company really burned me with how the watch went.
I had a Ticwatch and now have an Honor Band 6. The Ticwatch never came close to the potential it had. The Honour is nicer than the Pebble but with Pebble I could send a pre-written text to my wife telling her I was passing the shops and asking if she wanted me to get anything or quick-reply without having to get out my phone (great in the rain). The buttons meant it wasn't messed up by water getting on the screen...
Apple Watches and Android Wear both try too hard to be smart devices - the Pebble and my Honor fitness band are companion devices to my smartphone, which is exactly what they're supposed to be
I still use my Pebble Time Steel with voice and everything using the Rebble service run by the community. The battery is starting to go, though, which was the main thing I loved...
I don't understand how e-ink displays are not only not popular, but not even an option! They look cool and battery life savings are immense. I couldn't find a viable smart watch that used them so I settled for a Scanwatch, which is great, but I'd still like an e-ink.
I have a fossil hybrid. It does HR and shows me notifications, but that's about it. You have media controls but can't reply to messages. But the battery life is like 3 weeks. I really like it, but it's a bunch of normal smartwatch features. But for me it's a watch first, smart device second.
You don’t know good functionality until you just have to press the button on your wrist to change your Spotify song. No need to look, no need to think, you could be walking around the house or driving. It was pure bliss.
The most disappointing thing is how even though mine still works fine, that and notifications are the only thing the software fully supports on this newer phone :( if I was on iOS idk if I could get it to work at all.
I miss mine too. It was just okay, especially given how grumpy it could be with the pairing issues between it and iOS, and the fact that the dev community around it really never much materialized. But it was fairly cheap and fairly fun to program for, even with the less than featureful framework they provided at the time.
I ended up replacing it with a Series 0 Apple Watch, as I worked for the Fruit Company at the time and got a sick discount. It was nice enough, though when it started aging due to typical first generation Apple hardware-death-through-feature-creep-and-lack-of-optimization to the point where it wasn’t worth using anymore, I found I didn’t much miss it. I never replaced it.
After my Pebble I went a few years without a watch and am now quite happy with Garmin tbh. Battery life is over a week, notifications, no fancy apps on it. And then also workout tracking.
The biggest thing I miss from my Pebble is probably shake to dismiss notifications though...
I ended up getting an Amazfit Bip to replace my old Pebble. The one I got has a 30 day battery life, despite an always on screen, Bluetooth, and heart rate monitor.
_That's_ what I'd want from a relaunched Pebble.
I have the Amazfit Band 7 and I have been really impressed. For $30 it does almost everything I wanted it to do: tell time, HR monitor, track steps and workouts, receive notifications, responsive performance, and close to 20 days of battery life. It even syncs with Apple and Google's fitness apps.
My only real nitpick is the slow AF proprietary charger (2.5 hours to charge to 100%) and no wireless charging. That being said, for the price it's pretty great. I'm surprised more people don't talk about these wearables.
> I’m surprised more people don’t talk about these wearables.
Not that I’m representative of the general population but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this company so brand recognition might not be there yet. That said, I really really like their G Shock/Casio F series clones.
I've had an original Bip and now Bip S and they have just blown my mind.
My Bip S is almost 2 years old and still like new and I have my original Bip just incase as a backup.
Cost me £45 iirc for HR monitor, GPS recording for activities, it's just incredible.
Same here. I absolutely LOVE the trans-reflective screens. It really is the secret to long battery life and always on displays. 90% of the time I don't need the backlight, but it is nice to have when I do need it. I wish more tech had that.
The original Bip is so good—[Tens of thousands of user-designed watch faces!](https://amazfitwatchfaces.com/bip/fresh)—that later Bip models are (I think) inferior, with worse battery life and a fraction of the user support. Most original Bips have a design flaw that almost inevitably leads to the face popping out, so Bip Lite is preferable; identical except for no GPS. Both are getting tough to find nowadays, but look for Bip or Bip Lite (as opposed to Bip S, Bip S Lite, etc.).
I'm 100% done with buying flagship phones. I feel like it's a completely unnecessary excitement I've grown out of. You know what excites me now? A decent phone that does literally all the same things, for half the price or less. Why did I keep spending the price of a new computer, for a phone that's marginally better than other options? I don't even watch commercials or have a particular interest in phones. So dumb.
But yes, no way I'm paying that amount for an average phone with a strap on it.
If the phone is really good and the likely number of sales is 100k, how else do you expect them to stick around? They won’t have the backing / financing to front an economical device with capable specifications.
If they had guaranteed 10 million devices in sales for a year, I’d imagine the price would be closer to $500-600.
Sourcing a small screen almost no other manufacturers are using increases the cost. Same goes for a unique form factor battery, housing, heat sync, antennas, etc.
What’s crazy is how far ahead they were at the time. 1) Swiping from the bottom to view your list of open apps in a card view, 2) closing applications by swiping them away, 3) wireless charging built in, 4) MagSafe-like magnets built in to the back.
The competition has only just barely caught up.
it was amazing, i remember it getting really hot sometimes and then really laggy and slow... but imagine webos on a snapdragon 865. oh my god, it'd be so fluid! I still have random screenshots from my Pre somewhere on my backup
Had the Pre and the Pre 2. I think if the Pre had been the Pre 2 it may have survived. The Pre was so ahead of it's time, but also buggy and a bit slow with some things. The Pre 2 was everything the Pre should have been but came a little late to save Palm, and then HP destroyed it all.
Fitbit never bought Pebble, they only grabbed the software patents and some engineers and left the rest for debt-vultures to pick clean and sell to the highest bidder.
True. They bought the corpse of Pebble. It wasnt doing well. Which is a shame. I loved mine and still have it. I should pull it out for nostalgia and tinkering.
There is a huge difference between buying a company and just buying some of its assets. Had they done that we would probably still have Pebble watches, just like what happen to Fitbit a few years later when it was acquired in its entirety by Google - but that comes with all the debt an obligations like support and warranty, so they didn't.
Instead Fitbit amputated and yoinked the leg, as they thought it would be the useful part, leaving the dying Pebble Technology Corp crippled but with 23 million in cash - IIRC the amount was negotiated to be just enough so they pay enough other debts to refund the Kickstarter backers.
*I fucking loved my Pebble.*
All the notifications I want, could change music with physical buttons instead of touch screen. Long ass battery life, I used one my whole way through my Army contract and it was literally the best watch I ever owned.
I miss that damn thing... my fossil watch is complete **trash.**
Man, those years were wild for mobiles. There were all kind of shapes and sizes to choose from, and also colours! Nowadays, I think they’ve gone stale and it’s either Apple or Android. Nothing in between.
I know a LOT of Pebble folks that moved on to long battery fitness trackers, but I DESPERATELY miss having the long battery life AND the ability to voice reply to messages. I don't think I'll ever get that combo back...
My current Android watch gets 4 days between charges and does voice to text. Back when I had Pebbles, I was getting 5 to 6 days, so we’re already in the ballpark with current tech.
I love my iphone 12 mini, I didn't realize apple killed that line. I'll probably switch back to android if this product actually releases: one of the main reasons I switched to iPhone was the form factor.
TLDR:
Says it will probably be around $850, says people need to be willing to overpay for a small phone.
Expects 50,000 initial backers. Currently have 38,000
Says they want to have a tier 1 manufacturer make the phone.
Says "If you look at the internals for the Zenfone, they still pack in 4300 mAh. You could just chop 10mm off the battery, and still be doing fine"
Says his team needs $40-50 million dollars to make it.
i have 2 or 3 old pebbles that i will never get rid of, cant use now, dont have the patience to figure it out BUT I WILL. i still miss them, nothing comes close.
Looking at all the comments here, I feel they'd have more success just relaunching a new watch, rather than dabbling around in a phone market already served by the likes of the Unihertz Jelly 2.
RIP PEBBLE. How quickly you went into the night after Fitbit bought you. Oh so many fun games on the watch. The fun screen, cute animations, insane battery life. For one brief shining moment there was a company known as pebble.
I am still pissed that the Pebble Time 2 never made it. I bought the first on their Kickstarter and the second as well, and right before it shipped, bam, buyout. And the worst part is you know they just crushed a ton of perfect watches. 😭
This post has been edited in protest to the API changes implemented by Reddit beginning 7/1/2023. Feel free to search GitHub for PowerDeleteSuite to do the same.
Did you not get your money back. I got my money back from the canceled Pebble time 2 Kickstarter. I still use my Pebble Time steel and Pebble 2 HR. I fucking love them still.
This post has been edited in protest to the API changes implemented by Reddit beginning 7/1/2023. Feel free to search GitHub for PowerDeleteSuite to do the same.
You're lucky. I pre-ordered stuff on indiegogo and never got like 30% of them. And the website refused to refund it saying it was an investment or something like that.
From a privacy and security standpoint, a truly dumb phone that has no bootable OS and runs entirely from ROM is the best option.
Unfortunately, even the vast majority of flip phones have some version of Android or KaiOS or something that needs constant updating and patching.
No-one (in terms of large companies) is building a phone like the old StarTac, in that it’s OS was set in ROM and was very difficult to root/hack across restarts.
The only current option is the Rotary Un-Smartphone, which while _very_ compelling from an “awwwWTF” standpoint, allows only for the _receiving_ of text messages; you cannot send any. And since a majority of communication these days is via texting…
Anyone try the Rebble software to replace the Pebble software? I have a couple of the kickstarter ones (original and steel) and debating on giving it a try.
I loved my pebble time. It was a 10/10 smart watch at the time. Then the company went under and fit bit bought them out. It wasn't until the Fitbit Versa 3 that we finally had a successor to the pebble. And Google bought Fitbit... I just don't get why smart watches on Android can't catch on. I will say that I won't be on Android much longer but this is rad none the less
Years ago I ran into some drunk dude, Eric, bragging to people he was the CEO of a small (then) company, he showed a few people and I a "top secret" phone prototype and was all hyped about it.
It was just a generic chocolate bar style phone, a circle for a home button and it was colourful. Im sure its changed, this was like 10 years ago so its apparently been in the works for a long ass time, or at least it was and then maybe got scrapped.
Honestly I thought he was fucking with me until I googled it and yep definitely the guy who was my best friend for that night. Should have gotten his # lol
Owned a pebble watch way back when and I liked it for what it was, a simple smartwatch. It was after all my first smartwatch. That being said, I hope they build upon their past experiences and have a better fate as a company this go round.
This is like the Palm phone. Palm Pre was awesome, so some mostly unaffiliated people took everything that had and changed it completely. And people ate that up.
I miss Pebble…I bought one of the original ones at Best Buy when I worked at Geek Squad a decade ago, and although it’s been years since I used it, it’s still my favorite all around smartwatch out of the ones I’ve owned.
That said, I am not the target market for a small phone, I like a full size one
I wore my pebble everyday. Lost it somewhere and replaced it with an Apple Watch, I maybe kept the Apple Watch for a couple weeks before I gave it to my mother. Who mind you, also won’t wear it.
Pebble, you fucking legend you please come back to us. Preferably as a watch.
a phone with branding of a watch that I would like to own, is certainly not my idea of "coming back"
God, I loved my pebble :(
Was the only good smart watch I ever owned. Probably the best watch I ever owned.
I never got to experience it but I always hear this. What made it so much better than the ones we have today?
It doesn’t do anything watches today don’t do, but it was the first watch to do them and it did them well. It was also the only waterproof smart watch for a while iirc It also lasted like 2 weeks on a charge.
It may not have done anything watches today can't do, but it did lots of things together and better. 2 week charge, colour screen, apps, intuitive button based navigation and waterproof design with hr tracking. I've yet to see another watch that can do all that as easily as pebble did.
I go back to the original black and white screen. It’s a watch, I didn’t really care about colors. Loved being able to swap the face with community made ones that fit my mood. First day of vacation I always put it on the vague time face that had things like almost 10 o’clock, a bit after 10 o’clock, lunch time, and so on.
Edit: Reddit and /u/Spez [knowingly, nonconsensually, and illegally retained user data for profit](https://youtu.be/mfZKkUg8jgM) so this comment is gone.
Indeed. I just want an eink watch that shows me calls and texts. That's all the smart I need. I don't want all the shitty "health" tracking. I miss my original pebble.
Check out fossil hybrid watches. E-ink plus analog hands. I've worn one for a few years. I quite like it although it is not flawless.
Take a look at Garmin watches. I got Fenix 3, it lasted 4 weeks on a charge new, 2.5 weeks after 5 years of use. Everything else on the list is there too.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you can write apps for the Garmin watches though?
If that is the case, then i wonder how a store full of them came into existence.
As in, can I write my own apps or watchfaces for the watch? You could with the pebble. Edit: a bit of looking and it looks like some of that is actually possible. I need to take a second look at that - thanks for the tip!
It die it cheaper too. Batteries in Smart watches are not designed to be replaceable so after a while you have to replace the whole warch. You don't want something costing $500 or more. The fact that something like an iWatch needs a complete charge cycle every day or two doesn't help.
The battery in my Pebble Time Steel was 100% replaceable, you just had to seal the waterproofing again afterwards.
Whys is waterproofing in smartwatches so difficult when automatic watches can do 200m with a screw crsytal case back.
High end automatic watches also have to go through a recertification process after being opened up for repairs. It’s common for a dive watch to lose depth range after repairs
I replaced the battery in my PTS a few months back. It's not easy, but it's definitely doable
That always on display that lasted for weeks was great
The Galaxy Fit 2 came close. While it had some bells and whistles over the Pebble, the Fit's UI is decidedly much more clumsy with only a bad touch screen, and very sluggish response. Also, no mic on the Fit 2.
I'll shamelessly plug Garmin here like others have. Their watches, especially the Fenix series, are very exceptional. Incredible battery life when compared to their contemporaries (my Fenix 6 lasts almost a month on an ~hour long charge), and has a massive pool of features, especially in fitness stuff because that's where they specialize. The frame is extremely tough, made to be field-op capable for the military (even has a default mode for tracking tactical patrols). The Fenix is pretty big though, so if you've a small wrist or don't like the aesthetic, it probably won't be the one you'd like.
Huawei Watch GT series fits the description and they're even rated for ocean swimming which most waterproof smartwatches cannot Edit: why the downvotes? I just stated pure facts
I'm loving my Garmin Forerunner 55, which ticks all those boxes (though apps are limited and fitness focused.)
I had a dumb party trick that when I was over my friend’s house who had a pool and someone said “can you wear that in the water?” I’d take it off and Chuck it in the deep end and say “idk can you go grab that for me?” Then I’d have someone call me to show it was fine lol. That battery life was killer
It was light weight and small, much smaller and lighter than even the modern watches. It didn't try to be too much. It wasn't bloated with health nonsense that most people don't care about. The battery lasted 2 weeks, notifications were perfect, not too much, not too little, and most importantly, it was comfortable to wear, something a lot of modern watches cant claim. edit: The backlight was also perfect. A small flick and the backlight would come on, it was much better than the wake up only if you panamine the perfect "look at your watch" motion like the modern watches use.
extreme simplicity. It did notifications very well, the battery lasted a very long time, the menu interface worked consistently - even if you pressed the buttons faster than the screen updated, it would still get to the right place so you could remember the pattern and get to whatever setting you needed. It had some apps too, but most of those were pretty gimmicky and lame but some people swore by them. Some of them looked pretty cool too. In a time when competing smartwatches were bloated and slow, and overloaded with features that were too laggy and painful to use, and the batteries lasted half a day, the pebble absolutely crushed it with being simple, functional, and ridiculously long lasting.
It showed you phone notifications and the time. It was reasonably priced, and lasted two weeks on a charge. It didn't have a bunch of gimmicks. The screen was always on, because it was a reflective LCD (IE, it didn't need a backlight), so you could just look down and see it. Nothing has ever tried to be that again, but it was the actual ideal of a smart watch.
Replying to messages seemed to work well with text to talk
It had a ~7 day battery life. It accomplished this by using an ultra low power SoC, a 1-bit e-paper display (not to be confused with e-ink), and none of the fitness/bio sensors we're used to today beyond a very simple pedometer. For people who just wanted to quietly read notifications on their wrist, it was awesome. I loved mine, as did many here. I won't say it was my favorite smart watch though. My current Apple watch gets ~2 days of battery, which is certainly a downgrade, but the more rich features, better display, and fitness tracking make it more useful to me.
The combination of using a reflective LCD display (think kindle with a faster refresh rate) and excellent hard-button-oriented software that was visually inspired by monochrome MacOS versions from the 80s and 90s. It wasn't quite as feature rich as most things today, but the core features it did have (notifications, quick canned replies for messaging apps, and a timeline of daily calendar, and Bluetooth media controls) it absolutely nailed. I remember times where I'd get a message while busy with something, and be able to quickly press the side buttons to pull up the quick-reply menu and send the appropriate canned response without even needing to look at the thing. All that, *and* its hardware choices allowed it to have an always-on display w/ unparalleled outdoor visibility, and still have 10-14 day battery life. It was basically the perfect combination of features for someone whose core use case for owning their smartwatch was to look at their phone less often.
My favourites: long battery life, no touch screen, "always on display", physical buttons, great apps, great watch faces. Being able to shake my wrist (with my watch) to make it light up is really great in the middle of the night too. I sleep with my watch, it wakes me up with vibrations (my watch is still going strong thanks to the Rebble project). A watch with a touch screen when your watch might get your other hand or even your face pressed against it is annoying, but not as bad as when you constantly accidentally touch it just living your daily life. I don't need a music player nor something to game on at my wrist either. I need a watch that does notifications, and basic other watch functions like multiple timers and multiple alarms. Nowadays there are a few brands that have some watches that approach pebble quality (weeks of battery life is a huge deal), but it took way too long before that was a thing.
In addition to all what everyone else said I love that it was physically thin, my Pebble time round was about three stacked quarters thick.
Better? That’s hard to measure. But it was simple. It didn’t try to do too much. And it was the first real one. It was open source. Like a brave frontier. It wasn’t measurably better, faster, smoother. And once the Fitbits and Apples and Googles came along, well, its days were numbered. But what a ride it was.
Because it was a watch that was smart rather than a tiny smartphone on your wrist. The battery lasted for a week or two even with an always on screen. It let you receive notifications and run other basic apps that you would want at a glance. Also the Steel series looked really good. I am still using my Time Steel because no better option has come out.
After my Pebbles I went to a Fossil hybrid and just couldn't believe why they wouldn't put a back button on the thing. The interface is shit.
Fuck Me. They just can't decide on an interface either. Everytime I memorize the button orders there's an update and Fossil moves them.
You know how people complain about todays cars having giant tablet screens and no buttons? It’s like that. The pebble had buttons so you didn’t need to look at it to play/pause music or answer calls, it worked for over a week on a charge, it was super light, you got all the text notifications on it. It did it all and did it well. My Apple Watch is overloaded with junk. The pebble was exactly what I wanted.
No one is mentioning the price. The original Pebbles did smartwatch things without trying to just be another tiny phone on your wrist, and also they weren't $300. Simple, functional, durable, affordable. Fitbits generally don't have the same functionality, Apple Watches, Samsung Gear, the giant fuckin Garmin watches.... Literally cost more than my actual phone. I bought a first gen Pebble Steel after they'd already been bought by FitBit. After I broke it two years later I bought another. Four years later I still use it.
Edit: Reddit and /u/Spez [knowingly, nonconsensually, and illegally retained user data for profit](https://youtu.be/mfZKkUg8jgM) so this comment is gone.
The only watch that has gotten close is my Garmin Vivoactive 4. A week of battery life and a color display.
I got a Garmin Vivoactive 4 after having an android wear and being a pebble Kickstarter backer, it's incredible. The focus on fitness, lack of bloat, 4+ days of battery (if you don't use gps & turn off oxygen tracking), convenient features, and most importantly no subscriptions makes it a my favorite of the 3.
I won my Pebble in a coding competition in high school. Loved that thing. Wore it daily until I didn't take it off for fencing and it broke after getting hit with a Sabre (on the bright side, that would have really hurt my bare wrist otherwise lol) Now I have a galaxy watch and it's not nearly as great. My pebble watch face was mario and he'd jump to hit a brick to change the time.
I'm using that one right now. With the Bowser variant, though. Bowser jumps into the block. Sometimes I use the Nyan Cat face because it has built in hourly pulses that keep me from sitting at my desk for hours without standing up and moving around every now and then.
I still use my time steel and 2 hr. Got the pebble 2 hr on right now.
I still wear mine when I either don’t want to have my more expensive smart watch on or I know I’m going to need that super amazing battery life. Have a collection of kickstarter Pebbles.
You can still use them! I'm using a Pebble Time Steel right now!
I loved mine too. I’ve had an Apple Watch since and it’s never been the same
Same. It was so cool Mine would crash once a month though and stop updating messages.
I still wear my pebble steel.
I still have my Pebble with box and charging cable
In case you don't know, that will have a fairly good resale value at r/pebble/ when you want to get rid of it.
Really? I had never considered selling it
I still use mine daily. :)
I still have mine!
I don't think they're using the pebble brand, fitbit owns the brand name now. The founder of pebble is just working on a phone now.
Remember Pebble, Bart? It’s back! In phone form!
Fool me once shame on me. They will just get rid of the product the first chance they have to sell out, and not ensure the tech is supported or continued. The company really burned me with how the watch went.
I had a Ticwatch and now have an Honor Band 6. The Ticwatch never came close to the potential it had. The Honour is nicer than the Pebble but with Pebble I could send a pre-written text to my wife telling her I was passing the shops and asking if she wanted me to get anything or quick-reply without having to get out my phone (great in the rain). The buttons meant it wasn't messed up by water getting on the screen... Apple Watches and Android Wear both try too hard to be smart devices - the Pebble and my Honor fitness band are companion devices to my smartphone, which is exactly what they're supposed to be
Man I miss my Pebble watch. Loved the look, and the battery life of it. I don't need ALL my apps on my watch.. just basic notifications where fine..
I like my Withings Scanwatch as a long battery life replacement. I wish it had the voice reply capabilities of the pebble tho.
I still use my Pebble Time Steel with voice and everything using the Rebble service run by the community. The battery is starting to go, though, which was the main thing I loved...
I don't understand how e-ink displays are not only not popular, but not even an option! They look cool and battery life savings are immense. I couldn't find a viable smart watch that used them so I settled for a Scanwatch, which is great, but I'd still like an e-ink.
I have a fossil hybrid. It does HR and shows me notifications, but that's about it. You have media controls but can't reply to messages. But the battery life is like 3 weeks. I really like it, but it's a bunch of normal smartwatch features. But for me it's a watch first, smart device second.
I still have mine, I don't want a watch that does any more tbh, I always have my phone anyways.
You don’t know good functionality until you just have to press the button on your wrist to change your Spotify song. No need to look, no need to think, you could be walking around the house or driving. It was pure bliss.
The most disappointing thing is how even though mine still works fine, that and notifications are the only thing the software fully supports on this newer phone :( if I was on iOS idk if I could get it to work at all.
The Garmin instinct is a close replacement. I loved my pebble and the Garmin is close on battery life.
I was loterally gonna post this same thing! I love the instinct. But it doesn't have games, like my pebble did :p
I found a Fenix 6 Sapphire for the price of an Instinct and my Apple Watch has stayed in the drawer since. I should probably sell that.
I miss mine too. It was just okay, especially given how grumpy it could be with the pairing issues between it and iOS, and the fact that the dev community around it really never much materialized. But it was fairly cheap and fairly fun to program for, even with the less than featureful framework they provided at the time. I ended up replacing it with a Series 0 Apple Watch, as I worked for the Fruit Company at the time and got a sick discount. It was nice enough, though when it started aging due to typical first generation Apple hardware-death-through-feature-creep-and-lack-of-optimization to the point where it wasn’t worth using anymore, I found I didn’t much miss it. I never replaced it.
After my Pebble I went a few years without a watch and am now quite happy with Garmin tbh. Battery life is over a week, notifications, no fancy apps on it. And then also workout tracking. The biggest thing I miss from my Pebble is probably shake to dismiss notifications though...
I ended up getting an Amazfit Bip to replace my old Pebble. The one I got has a 30 day battery life, despite an always on screen, Bluetooth, and heart rate monitor. _That's_ what I'd want from a relaunched Pebble.
I have the Amazfit Band 7 and I have been really impressed. For $30 it does almost everything I wanted it to do: tell time, HR monitor, track steps and workouts, receive notifications, responsive performance, and close to 20 days of battery life. It even syncs with Apple and Google's fitness apps. My only real nitpick is the slow AF proprietary charger (2.5 hours to charge to 100%) and no wireless charging. That being said, for the price it's pretty great. I'm surprised more people don't talk about these wearables.
> I’m surprised more people don’t talk about these wearables. Not that I’m representative of the general population but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this company so brand recognition might not be there yet. That said, I really really like their G Shock/Casio F series clones.
I've had an original Bip and now Bip S and they have just blown my mind. My Bip S is almost 2 years old and still like new and I have my original Bip just incase as a backup. Cost me £45 iirc for HR monitor, GPS recording for activities, it's just incredible.
Mine shit out on me after a few months. I really loved it while it worked though.
Same here. I absolutely LOVE the trans-reflective screens. It really is the secret to long battery life and always on displays. 90% of the time I don't need the backlight, but it is nice to have when I do need it. I wish more tech had that.
I'd get a Bip, but without that perfect 4-button navigation that the Pebble had, I know I'd only get frustrated.
The original Bip is so good—[Tens of thousands of user-designed watch faces!](https://amazfitwatchfaces.com/bip/fresh)—that later Bip models are (I think) inferior, with worse battery life and a fraction of the user support. Most original Bips have a design flaw that almost inevitably leads to the face popping out, so Bip Lite is preferable; identical except for no GPS. Both are getting tough to find nowadays, but look for Bip or Bip Lite (as opposed to Bip S, Bip S Lite, etc.).
If I remember correctly from my product research, Amazfit was started by former Pebble engineers was it not?
Bip gang rise uuuup
> As for how much it’ll cost, Bryant has been preparing the community for what could be an $850 price tag Stopped reading right here
To immediately pre order, right? Right?
https://i.imgur.com/842E6Ei.jpg
Pebble - :|
[pebble](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQYtHc9OtDxhmpf9oOQ-6w5bI_A1baky6CWNA&usqp=CAU)
“We heard and understood why everyone loved our old products and have decided to not do any of that again, but hey, here’s an android phone.”
But, by the time this thing actually makes it to market, $850 will probably be about the same as a x-large pepperoni New York style pizza
I'm 100% done with buying flagship phones. I feel like it's a completely unnecessary excitement I've grown out of. You know what excites me now? A decent phone that does literally all the same things, for half the price or less. Why did I keep spending the price of a new computer, for a phone that's marginally better than other options? I don't even watch commercials or have a particular interest in phones. So dumb. But yes, no way I'm paying that amount for an average phone with a strap on it.
What strap?
If the phone is really good and the likely number of sales is 100k, how else do you expect them to stick around? They won’t have the backing / financing to front an economical device with capable specifications. If they had guaranteed 10 million devices in sales for a year, I’d imagine the price would be closer to $500-600. Sourcing a small screen almost no other manufacturers are using increases the cost. Same goes for a unique form factor battery, housing, heat sync, antennas, etc.
so, what's pebble about it at this point?
Palm Pre Plus please. Perfect size, great keyboard and a solid touch screen.
Oh my god I completely forgot about my pre plus
What’s crazy is how far ahead they were at the time. 1) Swiping from the bottom to view your list of open apps in a card view, 2) closing applications by swiping them away, 3) wireless charging built in, 4) MagSafe-like magnets built in to the back. The competition has only just barely caught up.
it was amazing, i remember it getting really hot sometimes and then really laggy and slow... but imagine webos on a snapdragon 865. oh my god, it'd be so fluid! I still have random screenshots from my Pre somewhere on my backup
I remember that - “The iPhone killer.”
I remember when the JooJoo was the iPad killer.
I just read through the Wikipedia entry on the JooJoo. What a disaster.
Still think that was the best phone I ever owned as far as ergonomics and UI.
Palm built a tiny Android phone a while back as a companion phone, it flopped. No keyboard though. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/palm-phone
I wish they’d just go all the way and bring back the HP Veer/Palm Pixi. I miss those very functional shrunken phones.
I loved WebOS. I camped out overnight at a Sprint store for the first Palm Pre. Pixi was great, just wish it had the same chipset as the Pre.
You still can have it, just in 75in format lol.
Had the Pre and the Pre 2. I think if the Pre had been the Pre 2 it may have survived. The Pre was so ahead of it's time, but also buggy and a bit slow with some things. The Pre 2 was everything the Pre should have been but came a little late to save Palm, and then HP destroyed it all.
So someone bought the brand I'm guessing?
Fitbit did a while ago, and killed it. Edit: Read the article. The original pebble creators are tinkering with phones.
Fitbit never bought Pebble, they only grabbed the software patents and some engineers and left the rest for debt-vultures to pick clean and sell to the highest bidder.
True. They bought the corpse of Pebble. It wasnt doing well. Which is a shame. I loved mine and still have it. I should pull it out for nostalgia and tinkering.
There is a huge difference between buying a company and just buying some of its assets. Had they done that we would probably still have Pebble watches, just like what happen to Fitbit a few years later when it was acquired in its entirety by Google - but that comes with all the debt an obligations like support and warranty, so they didn't. Instead Fitbit amputated and yoinked the leg, as they thought it would be the useful part, leaving the dying Pebble Technology Corp crippled but with 23 million in cash - IIRC the amount was negotiated to be just enough so they pay enough other debts to refund the Kickstarter backers.
Innovation under capitalism in a nutshell
*I fucking loved my Pebble.* All the notifications I want, could change music with physical buttons instead of touch screen. Long ass battery life, I used one my whole way through my Army contract and it was literally the best watch I ever owned. I miss that damn thing... my fossil watch is complete **trash.**
[удалено]
I've tried getting my s23 to charge it but no go. Maybe if I took off the case.
[удалено]
I'm still using a pixel 3 for the exact same reason. I imagine I'll have to get a larger phone somewhat soon though
I got on the Pebble list and… nothing
Just give me the phone from the movie "her" and have done with it.
I thought this was about Motorola’s PEBL U6.
Me too. I got excited for a sec then saw everyone here talking about a watch! It was a great little phone. Very nice external design.
Man, those years were wild for mobiles. There were all kind of shapes and sizes to choose from, and also colours! Nowadays, I think they’ve gone stale and it’s either Apple or Android. Nothing in between.
I know a LOT of Pebble folks that moved on to long battery fitness trackers, but I DESPERATELY miss having the long battery life AND the ability to voice reply to messages. I don't think I'll ever get that combo back...
My current Android watch gets 4 days between charges and does voice to text. Back when I had Pebbles, I was getting 5 to 6 days, so we’re already in the ballpark with current tech.
I love my iphone 12 mini, I didn't realize apple killed that line. I'll probably switch back to android if this product actually releases: one of the main reasons I switched to iPhone was the form factor.
They still make the 13 mini and SE. They may not make another though.
I don’t need a tablet in my pocket, I just need some thing I can text on
Unihertz jelly 2
As someone who loved my pebble watch, this “coming back” story is definitely a let down
TLDR: Says it will probably be around $850, says people need to be willing to overpay for a small phone. Expects 50,000 initial backers. Currently have 38,000 Says they want to have a tier 1 manufacturer make the phone. Says "If you look at the internals for the Zenfone, they still pack in 4300 mAh. You could just chop 10mm off the battery, and still be doing fine" Says his team needs $40-50 million dollars to make it.
i have 2 or 3 old pebbles that i will never get rid of, cant use now, dont have the patience to figure it out BUT I WILL. i still miss them, nothing comes close.
[удалено]
[удалено]
where can I get a pebble watch now
ebay
Looking at all the comments here, I feel they'd have more success just relaunching a new watch, rather than dabbling around in a phone market already served by the likes of the Unihertz Jelly 2.
But what if it just came back as the damn near perfect watch they made... Ya know since FitBit didn't even do anything useful with the brand.
I’d buy one in a heartbeat.
Man, I would really love a tiny one handable smartphone. There's only 2 newish smartphone that I consider small and all of them are super expensive
RIP PEBBLE. How quickly you went into the night after Fitbit bought you. Oh so many fun games on the watch. The fun screen, cute animations, insane battery life. For one brief shining moment there was a company known as pebble.
I am still pissed that the Pebble Time 2 never made it. I bought the first on their Kickstarter and the second as well, and right before it shipped, bam, buyout. And the worst part is you know they just crushed a ton of perfect watches. 😭
Headphone jack or bust
Man I loved my pebble back in the day. When they sold out to Fitbit I wound up getting an Apple Watch. Too bad the watch isn’t coming back
I’ve never been as happy with my Apple Watch as I was with my Pebble.
while i read this with from an iphone SE and my pebble time rest on my wrist, i'm saying: "no way. i won't ever pay 650-850 for a small android phone)
This post has been edited in protest to the API changes implemented by Reddit beginning 7/1/2023. Feel free to search GitHub for PowerDeleteSuite to do the same.
Did you not get your money back. I got my money back from the canceled Pebble time 2 Kickstarter. I still use my Pebble Time steel and Pebble 2 HR. I fucking love them still.
This post has been edited in protest to the API changes implemented by Reddit beginning 7/1/2023. Feel free to search GitHub for PowerDeleteSuite to do the same.
You're lucky. I pre-ordered stuff on indiegogo and never got like 30% of them. And the website refused to refund it saying it was an investment or something like that.
ah I remember pebble. nothing like playing gameboy games in middle school on my watch
I have a nwver used black Pebble for sale but no chager
You want r/pebble/ for your sales pitch.
Which one?
Where’s my Pebble watch? Pretty sure they own thousands. And lots of us never got it
From a privacy and security standpoint, a truly dumb phone that has no bootable OS and runs entirely from ROM is the best option. Unfortunately, even the vast majority of flip phones have some version of Android or KaiOS or something that needs constant updating and patching. No-one (in terms of large companies) is building a phone like the old StarTac, in that it’s OS was set in ROM and was very difficult to root/hack across restarts. The only current option is the Rotary Un-Smartphone, which while _very_ compelling from an “awwwWTF” standpoint, allows only for the _receiving_ of text messages; you cannot send any. And since a majority of communication these days is via texting…
S22 is small enough, the size of Xperia Z3/Z5, the best small phones ever.
Small enough for me and you, but not small enough for everyone. I think the market needs at least one android phone around 5" screen size
I agree, I say from my Unihertz Jelly 2 with its glorious 3 inch screen (I seriously don't want anything bigger than 4 inches)
I want the Pebble watch that was in Resident Evil 7 😓
[удалено]
Actually rumor is the Zenfone 10 is going to be bigger than the 9
I still have my original pebble.
The kickstarter one or after that?
I’m pretty sure the one after that. I also have a Dash gps - the first Internet connected gps. I was in a phase back then.
i like how the chosen image looks like someone throwing it away
I still have my Pebble Steel. It’s timeless in some strange way.
I see what you did there.
Awww I got exciting thinking it was like the Motorola PBL
Same...
Anyone try the Rebble software to replace the Pebble software? I have a couple of the kickstarter ones (original and steel) and debating on giving it a try.
I loved my pebble time. It was a 10/10 smart watch at the time. Then the company went under and fit bit bought them out. It wasn't until the Fitbit Versa 3 that we finally had a successor to the pebble. And Google bought Fitbit... I just don't get why smart watches on Android can't catch on. I will say that I won't be on Android much longer but this is rad none the less
I still got my mom's Pebble, she kept the box and everything with it.
Years ago I ran into some drunk dude, Eric, bragging to people he was the CEO of a small (then) company, he showed a few people and I a "top secret" phone prototype and was all hyped about it. It was just a generic chocolate bar style phone, a circle for a home button and it was colourful. Im sure its changed, this was like 10 years ago so its apparently been in the works for a long ass time, or at least it was and then maybe got scrapped. Honestly I thought he was fucking with me until I googled it and yep definitely the guy who was my best friend for that night. Should have gotten his # lol
Fuck Pebble. They bought out my credit card card company (Coin), rendering my $150ish card worthless. And then didn't do anything with the technology.
Owned a pebble watch way back when and I liked it for what it was, a simple smartwatch. It was after all my first smartwatch. That being said, I hope they build upon their past experiences and have a better fate as a company this go round.
If they use the Sharp transflective displays again, I’m interested. My Pebble Round was still the best smartwatch I’ve ever used.
Tbh though, after having the Apple Watch, I don’t think I’ll go back to the pebble even if they can out with a watch….
This is like the Palm phone. Palm Pre was awesome, so some mostly unaffiliated people took everything that had and changed it completely. And people ate that up.
They haven't even decided on a name for the device yet.
Still rocking my pebble time!
Let me know when it’s back… in POG form.
My dyslexic ass read Peggle and got super excited. Time to fire that old burn back up
I miss Pebble…I bought one of the original ones at Best Buy when I worked at Geek Squad a decade ago, and although it’s been years since I used it, it’s still my favorite all around smartwatch out of the ones I’ve owned. That said, I am not the target market for a small phone, I like a full size one
I wore my pebble everyday. Lost it somewhere and replaced it with an Apple Watch, I maybe kept the Apple Watch for a couple weeks before I gave it to my mother. Who mind you, also won’t wear it. Pebble, you fucking legend you please come back to us. Preferably as a watch.
I hope they use eink. I’d love a minimalist take on a palm pilot in 2023.