How to help us build open source Pebble software (opens in new tab)

As a parent, I totally get you though. Ultimately kids should learn to pay attention and stay on task without the crutch of a digital nag, but it sure would be useful to be able to send them reminders or even do something like have their devices hooked up to a shared family calendar, so they could get certain periodic reminders automatically ("it's Friday morning, don't forget your toonie for popcorn day at school!")

There would have been smartwatches without Pebble, but it was arguably the first practical smartwatch, and either paved the way for others, or at least had some influence. It might look simplistic now, but at the time it was the smartwatch equivalent of Buddy Holly.

I’m sure a little mythology helps, too. Like the “e-ink” display. Well, first off, Pebble never claimed it was “e-ink”, it was called “e-paper”. And if you want that display, Garmin still sells watches with the MIPS LCD displays. But the Pebble is still revered for having a unicorn display. Regardless, that display helped give it outstanding battery life.

The software was simple, and yet got the job done. The Pebble didn’t try and do more than it was capable of, making it responsive and simple to use. No touch screen, no gestures, just some buttons.

Also the battery life was measured in days, when Apple couldn't go more than 12 hours.

Keep in mind that an always on smart watch that had good battery was (as far as I know) non-existent at the time. Now, the Apple Watch is fantastic and getting about a day and a half is plenty for me, but it wasn't until just recently that I had anything to fill the space that was left on my wrist after my Pebble left me.

I still have that Pebble Time, and I'll get it from my parent's home next time I visit. I absolutely loved that thing.

Would I switch back to it? Probably not, just because I'm a very happy Apple Watch user now, but if I was still on Android, I wouldn't think twice.

Edit: Thanks to the replies that clarify the difference between e-ink and e-paper. I always forget what the difference is, but I'll have to keep the insight in mind for the future!

I was never in doubt about was button to press. I have had my Apple Watch for many years now, but still fumble around with basic stuff like turning on the torch light.

You could select what apps you want to also trigger notifications on the watch. And easily pause notifications for an hour or for the rest of the day.

The story was about unintrusive technology. An Apple watch is an iPhone on your wrist. It does so much that you forget all the things it does. Problem is:

1. Doing things on the watch sucks. It just does. It is too small and takes too long.

2. The ability to act on things makes it a tool for distraction.

The Pebble watches were simple -

- Watchface display

- Fitness Tracking

- Calendar

- Media Controls

- Notifications

The last one was important, by not being able to act on notifications and by being able to filter the notifications in the app, you could configure it to only buzz you when things actually matter. You can see that notification and then the hint of resistance to reply to it made it easier to stay in the moment.

Other advantages were:

- Battery Life (weeks, not a day)

- Weight & Size (The Pebble Time Round being the smallest smartwatch ever made)

- Tactile controls

- Transflective LCD (Made for incredible outdoor lighting performance)

I would also note that their design team was ungodly good. The Timeline OS's perspective on time and how it interacted with your day was 4D chess brilliant. Liron Damir's ux was some of the most fun ever, sadly the guy got stuck on all kinds of brave products that were good but failed due to biz sabotage. (They worked on the WebOS team at HP, Portal Team at Facebook, etc.)

This is a great read as well: https://medium.com/@ericmigi/why-pebble-failed-d7be937c6232

My first wearable was a Fitbit I got a few years ago, and until recently I would have said that the HRM and sleep tracking were non-negotiable features for me. However the Fitbit (now my second one) has gotten increasingly spotty with its ability to sync that data up to my iPhone— it basically never does it automatically any more, and even when I try to initiate a manual sync it often times out with seemingly nothing transferred. And now, with several months of not having that data, it turns out I actually don't care all that much about it.

So I think I've really become the perfect Pebble customer— someone who'd enjoy something attractive and minimalist, a device that isn't distracting or invasive but gives me just enough notifications that I can fully silence my phone and be more present with the people around me, while still being aware of the important stuff, like a text from my kids.

Hopefully the new team can get this right, and with the benefit of a decade of development on both the e-ink and battery fronts, deliver a Time Round successor that cleans up some of the tradeoffs: properly watertight, no more ugly bezel, and restore the multi-day battery life.

My absolute favorite thing was that it gave developers the ability to create custom watch faces. I wrote a bunch of them and absolutely loved the dumb thing.

it did its job well.

Apps/watchfaces SDK and app store

Smart replies (i.e. reply to sms)

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Obviously he stands to benefit from the free labor, but the only reason the project makes any sense to start with is because of how many passionate hackers have kept the Pebble devices and community going. If they want to dedicate more free effort in exchange for the opportunity to buy hardware built this decade then it feels pretty fair to me.