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And the battery life!! My first Pebble still had about 7 days of battery life after ~6 years of use, just unreal. I think it was rated for 10 at launch. Seeing

And the battery life!! My first Pebble still had about 7 days of battery life after ~6 years of use, just unreal. I think it was rated for 10 at launch. Seeing 10% battery usually means I'm good for a day, maybe two. I'm on my second Pebble Time Steel now - I only had to get a new one because the waterproofing failed while I was surfing! I've had two separate instances of strangers (in Sydney) coming up to me and bumping their wrist to my wrist, because they also had a Pebble and recognised mine. Really lovely community.

ericd 4y ago
Oh, that's crazy that it still lasts 7 days. I guess it's had a lot fewer cycles than a smartphone battery typically gets in that time, because of the long battery life. And looking on eBay, used Pebbles are actually surprisingly affordable, like $20-50.
- Markoff 4y ago
  used Amazfit Bip cost also nothing and will still last you 3 weeks with always on display and Bluetooth enabled, Pebbles are overrated
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Same. The Bip has a 30 day battery life. There's no SDK though so it's not as tinker friendly but when used with Gadgetbridge I get the privacy and some neat features on top. Plus there's a pretty big online community around hacking it.
  - jclardy 4y ago
    Overrated? By who? The amazfit came out like 2 years ago, Pebble launched with 7 day battery in 2012...
    - Markoff 4y ago
      overrated since 2018 release of Amazfit Bip, yes, it has more features than Bip but they are hardly usable on such small screen anyway
  - m-p-3 4y ago
    No 3rd party apps for the watch of any kind, it has no ecosystem. I had one, and yes the battery time was good, but everything else about it was sub-par.
    - Markoff 4y ago
      And how useful is that on Pebble sized screen? I can read all notifications on Bip (that's reason I bought it for), answer/reject calls, track all my vital signs, use it as navigation, use it as flashlight in night (that's second most used feature besides checking the time/date) and with little hacking I could use it as remote control for music player. Please list useful apps I am missing and which are usable on small watch screen, because anything requiring typing is certainly not useful and it's horrible experience and I never use some predefined quick replies. Obviously Bip with open system would be ideal, but if I have to choose between expensive abandoned old thick Pebble with crappy battery life but abandoned dead ecosystem of apps and cheap ultrathin light Bip with amazing battery life in weeks with all basic features one can require, it's easy choice and reason why nobody knows Pebble besides few nerds, why the company failed, but Bip is much more known about ordinary people and its brand still going strong (sadly with transreflective displays and amazing battery life abandoned).
      - m-p-3 4y ago
        One app I used quite often on the Pebble is a TOTP app, where I could retrieve my code from anywhere, even if I forgot my phone that day. Since the battery life was awesome, it was comforting knowing I wouldn't get locked out of my stuff easily. I also used an app to see a camera preview from my phone and as a remote shutter, I also relied on NavMe to see the Google Maps direction while walking or while riding a bike. Another app I was using was to send HTTP requests to toggle some of my IoT stuff, that was quite handy too. IIRC the quick replies could be entirely customized, and I found myself using them quite often.
        Markoff 4y ago
        fair enough, TOTP ain't possible on Bip, though camera shutter and navigation are both available but those things you described as not available are extreme niche, so Bip would be still winner for most of the people
akersten 4y ago
I'm actually shocked that battery life wasn't mentioned at all in this article. A watch that you don't have to charge for a week+ was Pebble's #1 differentiator. No other smart watch had that feature, and (almost) no other smart watch has it today in 2022. The super lightweight C-based runtime and eInk display combination was a genius move. But I'm not sure they realize it, even in hindsight, other than alluding to the "geeky/hacker user base." As one of those geeky hackers, I didn't buy the watch because it looked like an off-brand Casio calculator, I bought it (and came back to buy the Pebble Steel and Time 2) because I don't have to plug the damn thing in every night. And I'd buy another one today if I could.
- adambyrtek 4y ago
  > No other smart watch had that feature, and (almost) no other smart watch has it today in 2022. That's not really true, unless your definition of a smartwatch is limited to Apple/Android devices with LED displays. I use Garmin Fenix with a transflective display which lasts about 2 weeks on a single charge. However, like with Pebble, there are some tradeoffs: the display is not as bright (but clearly visible in the sun), it has less colors, and the screen resolution is lower.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    There are two definitions of "smart" : - having a wide set of capabilities - being sufficiently open so that an "ecosystem" of third party developers can form I assume that Garmin Fenix succeeds at the first one, but fails the second ?
    - jjkaczor 4y ago
      It may not be as open as the Pebble, but Garmin does have a development ecosystem - : https://developer.garmin.com/ https://developer.garmin.com/
- robinsoh 4y ago
  > The super lightweight C-based runtime and eInk display combination was a genius move. Pebble didn't use eInk. It used transflective LCD.
Deganta 4y ago
I often hear about the great battery life of the Pebble watch, and that there is no smart watch with a comparable one. Thats kind of true, depending what one wants from their smart watch. But there actually is an alternative if you only need basic smart watch capabilites: Sport Watches. I personally only want notifications from my phone, which my Garmin Forerunner 245 can do perfectly well. And it has a battery life of up to 2 weeks, depending on how much I use the GPS of the watch.
- perth 4y ago
  Yeah but the issue with a lot of sport watches are they have a "tacticool" look that doesn't look very fashionable, the Pebble had the unique aspect of having models that looked stylish while still maintaining their battery life.
  - danuker 4y ago
    Fashion is what you define it to be. Also, maybe a customer will remember the sporty watch contrasting with the formal suit, and call you instead of a competitor. Also, Zuckerberg wears t-shirts and jeans.
    - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
      Nobody would want to fuck Zuck though.
    - thatguy0900 4y ago
      Are you implying Zuckerberg is fashionable? I'm not sure I've ever seen a positive comment about his appearance, in fact he's usually said to not even look like a living human
  - joking 4y ago
    you have the venu sq, that looks nice, not the best battery however, but 5-6 days it's not bad.
  - samatman 4y ago
Markoff 4y ago
that's pretty horrible battery life, with original Amazfit Bip you can have easily 35-40 days battery life out of the box and even after years 20-25+ days with always readable display, always on Bluetooth, I'm now on my second one since first one fall apart, then I had short stint with OLED smart watch which lasted only few days and had problem to read it outdoors until I gave up and after few months bought used Amazfit Bip for 20USD, which serves me until now actually main reason why not go for Pebble instead Amazfit Bip would be for me extremely short battery life (and huge bezel mentioned in article) and price, while hardly offering more useful features worth the disadvantages
m-p-3 4y ago
Sadly, mine last only a day now, so I switched to the "Bangle.js 2" which I ordered during the Kickstarter. I believe it's based on the SMA-Q3 but with a reverse-engineered firmware (Espruino) and apps are all JavaScript-based. https://hackaday.io/project/175577-hackable-nrf52840-smart-watch https://hackaday.io/project/175577-hackable-nrf52840-smart-w... https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2 https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2
hobo_mark 4y ago
My Pebble 2 still has 7 days of battery life to this day :-) I managed to procure a couple of cheap spare Pebbles over the years in case this one ever gives up the ghost but I'm unlikely to ever give the platform up so long as GadgetBridge supports it, I also wrote some software for it that I still use every day to track my working hours (it had a C SDK).

ericd 4y ago

Oh, that's crazy that it still lasts 7 days. I guess it's had a lot fewer cycles than a smartphone battery typically gets in that time, because of the long battery life. And looking on eBay, used Pebbles are actually surprisingly affordable, like $20-50.

Markoff 4y ago
used Amazfit Bip cost also nothing and will still last you 3 weeks with always on display and Bluetooth enabled, Pebbles are overrated
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Same. The Bip has a 30 day battery life. There's no SDK though so it's not as tinker friendly but when used with Gadgetbridge I get the privacy and some neat features on top. Plus there's a pretty big online community around hacking it.
- jclardy 4y ago
  Overrated? By who? The amazfit came out like 2 years ago, Pebble launched with 7 day battery in 2012...
  - Markoff 4y ago
    overrated since 2018 release of Amazfit Bip, yes, it has more features than Bip but they are hardly usable on such small screen anyway
- m-p-3 4y ago
  No 3rd party apps for the watch of any kind, it has no ecosystem. I had one, and yes the battery time was good, but everything else about it was sub-par.
  - Markoff 4y ago
    And how useful is that on Pebble sized screen? I can read all notifications on Bip (that's reason I bought it for), answer/reject calls, track all my vital signs, use it as navigation, use it as flashlight in night (that's second most used feature besides checking the time/date) and with little hacking I could use it as remote control for music player. Please list useful apps I am missing and which are usable on small watch screen, because anything requiring typing is certainly not useful and it's horrible experience and I never use some predefined quick replies. Obviously Bip with open system would be ideal, but if I have to choose between expensive abandoned old thick Pebble with crappy battery life but abandoned dead ecosystem of apps and cheap ultrathin light Bip with amazing battery life in weeks with all basic features one can require, it's easy choice and reason why nobody knows Pebble besides few nerds, why the company failed, but Bip is much more known about ordinary people and its brand still going strong (sadly with transreflective displays and amazing battery life abandoned).
    - m-p-3 4y ago
      One app I used quite often on the Pebble is a TOTP app, where I could retrieve my code from anywhere, even if I forgot my phone that day. Since the battery life was awesome, it was comforting knowing I wouldn't get locked out of my stuff easily. I also used an app to see a camera preview from my phone and as a remote shutter, I also relied on NavMe to see the Google Maps direction while walking or while riding a bike. Another app I was using was to send HTTP requests to toggle some of my IoT stuff, that was quite handy too. IIRC the quick replies could be entirely customized, and I found myself using them quite often.
      - Markoff 4y ago
        fair enough, TOTP ain't possible on Bip, though camera shutter and navigation are both available but those things you described as not available are extreme niche, so Bip would be still winner for most of the people

akersten 4y ago

I'm actually shocked that battery life wasn't mentioned at all in this article. A watch that you don't have to charge for a week+ was Pebble's #1 differentiator. No other smart watch had that feature, and (almost) no other smart watch has it today in 2022. The super lightweight C-based runtime and eInk display combination was a genius move. But I'm not sure they realize it, even in hindsight, other than alluding to the "geeky/hacker user base." As one of those geeky hackers, I didn't buy the watch because it looked like an off-brand Casio calculator, I bought it (and came back to buy the Pebble Steel and Time 2) because I don't have to plug the damn thing in every night. And I'd buy another one today if I could.

adambyrtek 4y ago
> No other smart watch had that feature, and (almost) no other smart watch has it today in 2022. That's not really true, unless your definition of a smartwatch is limited to Apple/Android devices with LED displays. I use Garmin Fenix with a transflective display which lasts about 2 weeks on a single charge. However, like with Pebble, there are some tradeoffs: the display is not as bright (but clearly visible in the sun), it has less colors, and the screen resolution is lower.
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  There are two definitions of "smart" : - having a wide set of capabilities - being sufficiently open so that an "ecosystem" of third party developers can form I assume that Garmin Fenix succeeds at the first one, but fails the second ?
  - jjkaczor 4y ago
    It may not be as open as the Pebble, but Garmin does have a development ecosystem - : https://developer.garmin.com/ https://developer.garmin.com/
robinsoh 4y ago
> The super lightweight C-based runtime and eInk display combination was a genius move. Pebble didn't use eInk. It used transflective LCD.

Deganta 4y ago

I often hear about the great battery life of the Pebble watch, and that there is no smart watch with a comparable one. Thats kind of true, depending what one wants from their smart watch. But there actually is an alternative if you only need basic smart watch capabilites: Sport Watches. I personally only want notifications from my phone, which my Garmin Forerunner 245 can do perfectly well. And it has a battery life of up to 2 weeks, depending on how much I use the GPS of the watch.

perth 4y ago
Yeah but the issue with a lot of sport watches are they have a "tacticool" look that doesn't look very fashionable, the Pebble had the unique aspect of having models that looked stylish while still maintaining their battery life.
- danuker 4y ago
  Fashion is what you define it to be. Also, maybe a customer will remember the sporty watch contrasting with the formal suit, and call you instead of a competitor. Also, Zuckerberg wears t-shirts and jeans.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    Nobody would want to fuck Zuck though.
  - thatguy0900 4y ago
    Are you implying Zuckerberg is fashionable? I'm not sure I've ever seen a positive comment about his appearance, in fact he's usually said to not even look like a living human
- joking 4y ago
  you have the venu sq, that looks nice, not the best battery however, but 5-6 days it's not bad.
- samatman 4y ago

Markoff 4y ago

that's pretty horrible battery life, with original Amazfit Bip you can have easily 35-40 days battery life out of the box and even after years 20-25+ days with always readable display, always on Bluetooth, I'm now on my second one since first one fall apart, then I had short stint with OLED smart watch which lasted only few days and had problem to read it outdoors until I gave up and after few months bought used Amazfit Bip for 20USD, which serves me until now actually main reason why not go for Pebble instead Amazfit Bip would be for me extremely short battery life (and huge bezel mentioned in article) and price, while hardly offering more useful features worth the disadvantages

m-p-3 4y ago

Sadly, mine last only a day now, so I switched to the "Bangle.js 2" which I ordered during the Kickstarter. I believe it's based on the SMA-Q3 but with a reverse-engineered firmware (Espruino) and apps are all JavaScript-based. https://hackaday.io/project/175577-hackable-nrf52840-smart-watch https://hackaday.io/project/175577-hackable-nrf52840-smart-w... https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2 https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2

hobo_mark 4y ago

My Pebble 2 still has 7 days of battery life to this day :-) I managed to procure a couple of cheap spare Pebbles over the years in case this one ever gives up the ghost but I'm unlikely to ever give the platform up so long as GadgetBridge supports it, I also wrote some software for it that I still use every day to track my working hours (it had a C SDK).