2w ago

The Pebble Has Been Brought Back

store.repebble.com Get your new PebbleOS watch

Pre-order your new PebbleOS smartwatch today

Google recently open sourced Pebble and today, Repebble has put some of the watches up for preorder.

143 comments

Genuinely considering it as I love e ink, lightweight, long battery life, and open source
- I understand that the watch operating system is open source. However, it seems that the watch will connect to a companion smartphone app. Do you know if the app is a requirement and/or if the app will be open source?
  
  Yeah the mobile app is open source too https://github.com/pebble-dev/mobile-app
  
  Gadgetbridge is compatible with Pebble devices
- IIRC, it has a reflective LCD, not epaper display.
  
  Core 2 Duo
  1.2" black/white e-paper screen
  Core Time 2
  1.5" 64 color e-paper screen
  Am I missing something?

I still can't believe that no one else has made a smart watch with physical buttons and low energy use that has surpassed the pebble after all this time. I'm still cautious that this venture will pan out, but honestly there really hasn't been a smart watch released that matches my use case. Sleep tracking makes no sense if I have to charge the watch daily, as I'd probably charge it over night. Media control with screen buttons is awful. Fossil came close with their hybrid smart watch, but the layout of the media controls made no sense and couldn't easily be used without looking at the watch. Just let me check my calendar and texts and skip through ads in podcasts, and last over a week of battery and you will have my money.
- Don't love the closed-in ecosystem but Garmin watches with MIP display do almost all you just said.
  Touch screen + also Buttons for 100% touch-free interaction
  Battery life of around 3 to 4 weeks (depending on what you are doing)... more with the Solar models
  Media control is there, but don't really use that
  Podcast ad skipping sadly not a thing.
  Price might be an issue though. The top end models with all the whistles come at a smartphone flagship price point.
  
  I have a Vivoactive 4 that I picked up used from Facebook a couple of months back. It's a few years old now, and the regular LCD screen looks pretty janky once you've got used to OLED. But it cost me £50, works perfectly well with GrapheneOS, and the battery still lasts a week.
  It's left me pondering upgrading it to a new one with an OLED screen.
  
  The Garmin Instinct is what I switched to when my Pebble died. Recently upgraded to the Fenix.
  You can absolutely skip ahead through ads with the music controls. Automating it would be the job of the app.
- Garmin watches come close?
- Honestly daily charging isn't the worst I just usually charge my watch when I'm in the shower and getting ready in the morning pop it back on when I'm done and I'm good to go.
  
  A commute-by-car is a great time to charge a smart watch, too.
- My Garmin Forerunner 245 Music does all that I'd say
  
  The benefit if the core repebble watches are that they have 1 month of battery life, they're cheaper, and they are open source

I'm still very confused about why we needed PebbleOS for this. It's been like 10 years and no one could come up with any comparable software? They whipped up the hardware design in a few months.
- From what I've read from Eric since this relaunch was announced, he just wants a new pebble and so do some of the userbase. This project isn't really intended as a viable, polished product. Rather it's a niche thing made for a Core audience of nerds.
  Disclaimer: I'm one of the nerds this is intended for. I instantly pre-ordered a watch because it's a pebble. I7
  
  he just wants a new pebble
  I'm sure that's what he wants you to believe.
- PebbleOS was awesome, though. Such a well thought out system for end-users, and it already has tons of apps. Developing for it (in C!) is also super easy because it has an amazing SDK.
- Because good software is hard. The PebbleOS is a gem, and no, no one could in 9 years.
- To anyone reading - this person is intentionally obtuse.
  PebbleOS was sold to Fitbit, Fitbit sold to Google, Google made PebbleOS open source this year. It couldn't have been made before.
- It has the entire ecosystem of apps.
  They didn't need it, it was just the tipping point

I've pre-ordered the Core Time 2.
Pre-orders are something I never usually do, but given this is essentially just an improved version of an existing product, as opposed to a Kickstarter, I feel more confident. And I can cancel the preorder at any time (plus I'll see reviews of the cheaper model before the Core Time 2 ships).
The price made me wince, though. It's very expensive for the functionality. Technically cheaper than the original watches adjusted for inflation, but that ignores the current-day smartwatch market. Still, I loved the Pebble, so I think it's worth it.
- I pre ordered, and I'm usually annoyingly loud about not pre-ordering. That being said, i love my pebble time. I Kickstarted it back in the day, and it still works but the battery is weak. I could replace the battery, but i want more devices like this, so I'll put some money in and eat Ramen for a few weeks.
  
  Preordered here too, for all the same reasons. I went for the Time2, even though it's not due to ship until later. I've waited nearly ten years, I can wait another six months...

Eh. I prefer the PineTime watch. It was like 25€+shipping and customs and it does everything I need, is fully open-source – it displays weather info, time, date, heart rate (although not very well), and has timer, stopper, etc.

Is there any company that let's you export your health tracking data in a non proprietary format and doesn't charge you a monthly subscription to use your smartwatch's health tracking features?
- Withings
  
  One pro of Withings is that they're French, so their policies on data in general are pretty great.
  One con of Withings is that they're French, so it's not actually pronounced how you think.
- Fuck I want that so bad.
  
  Withings
  
  If only there was a company out there that did it. Alas...
- Garmin allows you to export data to a csv file. I'm not sure if it's all data because I haven't used it, but I know it's simple.
  
  That's good to know, I liked the MIP display watches I saw from Garmin, but the only model with that display seems to be their most expensive watch

Torn between this and a bangle.js 2, if I need a smarwatch at all
- Having used both, personally I highly preferred the Pebble over the Bangle JS.
  Pebble was solid software, good designs and it all just worked simply and did what I needed. I also thought the Pebble Time Round was near perfect in design and execution. I'm not a fan of the geeky look of the normal pebble and bangle watches (or the apple watch look).
  The Bangle was fun to dev for, and I love that it exists, but it all felt like a dev project. Not a finished product. Granted it was early on in the project so I'm sure it's in a better place now.
  They both have similar capabilities. I say go with whichever you think is going to fit what you need a smartwatch to do.

I want one, but I don't know what I'd do with it. It's hackable, it pairs with a phone/tablet/etc.
I'm just trying to figure out what it can do for me. My lack of imagination annoys me.
- I use my autopebble with tasker. Scripted a few things, like find my phone, load my audiobook, messages, etc. Used to have Google Home messages and lights and stuff, but I stopped using smarthome stuff for the most part. Mostly I use it for music control and weather and time though.
  I also scripted a weird one that I could enter my feeling level at work throughout the day (1-10) and based on the average at tthe end tasker would play one of three songs when I got in my car at the end of work (only within a time range and if bluetooth was connected to car)

Pebble sounds cool but i really dont like square watches(except the retro casios and gshocks) and now its owned by google so thats shit as well.
- Google dumped the Pebble OS code on GitHub when this whole "rePebble" thing (not Rebble) started. Now there's a new phone app coming out soon (or out now, depending on your platform and abilities) that handles old and new Pebbles and modern phone platforms.
  None of this is from Google.
- ...and now its owned by google so thats shit as well.
  Google acquired it back in 2021, this move to open source it is a good thing.
- I think Google just owns the software because the product page for these watches say the guy invested his own money to get these produced.

No NFC !!???? Whyyyyyyyyyy
- Basic payment options would be sick

I still have my circa-2016 email confirming my pledge for the Time 2 Silver, which ultimately got cancelled just before the fulfillment date due to Pebble selling out to Fitbit.
While I loved my original Pebble back then, I would really want something similar to look and function of the T2S so will watch this project in hopes it too is resurrected
- due to Pebble selling out to Fitbit.
  Due to Pebble going bankrupt, and managing to sell its software assets to Fitbit to gain just enough money to refund the kickstarter pledges and pay off it's biggest debts.
  
  Subscriber paywalled. I am so unbelievably sick of these.

How's navigation with Pebbles? If I start bike navigation in Google Maps on my phone, can I get turn-by-turn directions on the watch, and does it not suck?
- There was/is a companion app called PebbleNav/NavMe that worked okay-ish, as long as you could survive with "Turn left in 100 metres to x street" type instructions with no map view (not really something you can do with 144x168 pixels).
- There is an Android and a companion Pebble app ("Nav me") that reads the Google maps notifications ("In 300 meters turn left onto Jefferson Street") and displays them on the watch. The remaining distance until the next navigation instruction decreases real time. Nothing fancy like minimap view, but can be useful in some situations.

Wearing a Pebble Time steel right now, and I'm cautiously optimistic for this.
- Just got this to talk to my phone, gadget wraps carbon and clear screen protector. All I need now is to find out how to change the watch face.
  
  The app has a nice selection of faces, and you can also make your own (I made a few), though tbh I most use "blue futuristic" on mine

Pre-ordered one immediately. I miss my old Pebble Time Steel so much. Part of me wishes there's one with that design but I'll take what I can get.

Of all possible names, they're really using "Core 2 Duo"? I feel like anyone who has been following tech long enough would immediately think of the Intel processor when hearing that name.
- It's a play on words of core 2 do-over
  
  Just waiting for an IP lawsuit to happen there

can it play tetris
- Yes.

Where’s my round?

I backed the original pebble on kickstarter and it’s what got me into smart watches. Happy they’re coming back and that they’re open source.
Edit: if I’m remembering correctly wasn’t there some server that the original pebble used that shut done that ended up knee-capping it? Wonder if there’s anything server-side being used here that could do the same.
- Pebble still works thanks to the Rebble project. Everything else is free, but the dictation and weather services require a monthly $3 subscription to use as those are the parts that have rather hefty API call costs.
  Though the experience is miserable on iOS. That's entirely all thanks to Apple.
  
  What makes it miserable on iOS?
- I recently did out my old 401B after the screen fell off my Galaxy Active2. It charged right up and still lasts about a week.
  Finding a new band was a PITA because of the weird segmented hinge bit but one person was selling diver bands for it on Amazon (I think it was Amazon)... Really not bad for a watch from a decade ago.
  Edit: Yes, you can still use them without the OG servers being up, look up 'Rebble' (rebble.io)

Isn't there any way to pre-order without a credit card? I guess I'll have to wait until other payment options are available...

Does this interface with your phone at all? Tried skimming thru their website but the fact it doesn't list Bluetooth in the specs leaves me confused why you'd spend this much money on a quasi-smartwatch that doesn't have that capability.
- Yes! The best thing about Pebbles (IMHO) is how they handle notifications. In the specs, they list Nordic nRF52840 BLE chip (BLE stands for Bluetooth Low Energy)
  
  Thanks for the info! Was actually thinking my current watch's battery was beginning to hold a charge less and less lately, so definitely keeping these in mind.
- It says they're able to extend the battery life from 7 days to a month due to how efficient the new Bluetooth chips are.
  You must have skimmed pretty fast.
  
  I did indeed skim pretty fast, but it doesn't say that, it just says from 7 days to 30:
- It absolutely does, on Android at least. On iOS, given Apple's restrictions, the whole situation is a bit more complicated:
  https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-with-iphones
- Follow-up question - is this the watch I've been looking for that doesn't spy on me and require a cl of us account to use?
  
  Yes, this combined with gadgetbridge.
  A pinetime is also a good alternative. (also with gadgetbridge)

Made another post but it was removed for...reasons. Migi says you shouldn't expect your Pebble to last >5 years.
- It reads to me like he's saying that if you expect 5+ years without maintenance if it's more than $100, you should look at a different product.
  The top comments are someone saying that after five years they needed to repair it due to battery failure, and the founder saying the repair process is the same.
  Five years is longer than the average lifespan of a liIon battery. Expecting to be able to skip repairs that long is unreasonable for a $150 product.
  It reads like the founder actually giving realistic expectations. A $150 product will likely need repairs to last longer than five years, and you'll be disappointed if you expect otherwise.
  Can you point to a similar product that costs about as much that fits your criteria?
  
  It doesn't read to me like you will have to replace the battery, it reads to me like he's saying don't expect the device itself to last >5 years.

143 comments

Core 2 Duo

Core Time 2