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(Pebble founder) Happy to answer any questions you have!
by erohead 10mo ago
(Pebble founder)
Happy to answer any questions you have!
- schraitle 10mo agoHow often do you get accidental clicks? Does it interfere with day-to-day activities because you're trying to avoid the button? Also, I love the idea of providing 3d models for something like this that needs to be perfectly sized
- erohead 10mo agoit happens occasionally like when you're leaning against a table at the exact right angle. but I don't think I've noticed it more than a few times.
- weldedtogether 10mo agoLove the idea as a very easily distracted individual, but the battery is keeping me on the fence. I understand how charging circuitry makes this product a non-starter, but is there any hope of the battery being replaceable?
- erohead 10mo agoIf you look at other rechargeable smart rings they're in the $250 to $300 range, plus a $10/month subscription. We didn't want to do that for a new product like this.
- weldedtogether 10mo agoI like the price here, but my question was not about adding charging circuitry, but some way to open the ring and replace the battery once it's depleted.
- skeledrew 10mo agoThen you'd run into waterproofing issues, and there's greater inherent complexity in providing replacement ability.
- Daneel_ 10mo agoGiven that the user will typically have their watch on them as well, why not make the ring a battery-less BLE transmitter that triggers voice input on the watch? It’s still one-handed operation, but now the battery life is infinite since there’s no battery? The disposable ring seems like a solution in search of a problem to me, unfortunately. Example button: https://core-electronics.com.au/self-powered-wireless-switch-ble-beacon-dfrobot.html https://core-electronics.com.au/self-powered-wireless-switch... I imagine the reason is reliability, but USD$99 plus international shipping every two years isn’t worth that to me, sorry. Aside: I loved my kickstarter pebble and my steel, btw!
- margalabargala 10mo agoPiezo switches like the one you linked have a minimum size to generate the power necessary, and that minimum size is larger than the entire current ring.
- Daneel_ 10mo agoThe power generation portion of that switch is around 1.4x1.4cm and can power the transmitter to send a signal over 40m. I think it’s likely that it could be adapted into a ring form. See: https://core-electronics.com.au/attachments/uploads/TEL0173-1.jpg https://core-electronics.com.au/attachments/uploads/TEL0173-...
- margalabargala 10mo ago1.4x1.4cm is gigantic for a ring that is currently just a band. And to say nothing of the depth required. Even if you shrink it 50% the ring would be mostly power generation button.
- erohead 10mo agoShould be possible! Battery would last for decades in this mode.
- piyuv 10mo agoWhy didn’t you make it just a button which activates the watch? It’d be an addon to pebble watch. It couldn’t be used standalone, but you could make it rechargeable and it would solve your issue (actions with only one hand)
- erohead 10mo agoIt can work exactly like that, if you have a Pebble. But it works standalone as well.
- jyxent 10mo agoDo you mean that this is technically possible, or that this is a feature that will be supported? I've preordered the Time 2, so having the ability to configure it that way to significantly extend the battery life of the ring could be interesting. On the other hand, using it standalone might be fine for me. I wouldn't really know how fast I might go through the battery without using it for a while.
- erohead 10mo agoTechnically possible and it's a feature that will be supported
- dzink 10mo ago1. Will it fit on a female with a size 3 finger? 2. Can we pick our own transcription service or export audio to transcribe elsewhere if you transcription is not reliable or privacy is needed? 3. Is it waterproof? Can I wash my hands without taking it off?
- apparent 10mo agoaccording to the video [1] 1: size 4 is the smallest 2: the transcription happens on your phone for free (or via subscription to a slightly better transcription model, not sure about privacy for the paid model) 3: ok to wash hands or shower, but just 1 foot of depth (so no swimming)
- erohead 10mo ago1. smallest size is 6 2. yes! You can send your recordings to any webhook. 3. yes! can even shower with it on
- roughly 10mo agoI actually like the device and can see the purpose of it - I’ve tried to kick together similar solutions in the past, but I like the very “one thing only” nature of this. That said, I absolutely cannot buy a device like this without a replaceable battery. I don’t actually care about the recharge, I get what you’re trying to do with it, but given the state of the e-waste world and, bluntly, the history of hardware brands - a big, big part of the sales pitch for the pebble is the OSS nature of the device because we need to hedge against any one company for longevity. I’d seriously consider this if I knew the battery was replaceable, but I can’t bet on you being around in 4, 6, or 8 years, and I’m not willing to buy intentionally disposable tech anymore.
- erohead 10mo agoThis isn't a question I understand, but I appreciate you writing it. At the end of the day it's up to you - if you think this is useful, please use it. If you don't want to use it because of the 4.7 grams of e-waste, I do get it. All consumer tech is intentionally disposable. That's life. Especially for tiny smart rings that are water resistant. It's a ring, it's going to get banged up, you'll lose it or smash it. It's new tech - there will always be a new version, etc. Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
- enragedcacti 10mo agoAre you still considering implementing the feature as a Pebble app as well? As someone who is very forgetful I like the low-friction external memory concept, but it would be nice if I could try it out (admittedly sub-optimally) before jumping in with a second device. It could also be a nice option for Index owners to keep a similar flow even when they don't want to wear the Index for whatever reason. In general I really like the idea of a local-first, privacy-first, one-way/low-interaction digital assistant regardless of the form factor. A big frustration I have with Gemini as a voice assistant is that I have to wait out the other half of super simple interactions like setting a timer or making a note.
- erohead 10mo agoYes, that's in the works!
- broretore 10mo agoWhy aren't you doing a wild degree of miniaturized power electronics R&D for your low-cost beta test of a new computing modality? /s
- arjvik 10mo agoHow hackable is the firmware, if we want to assign different handling to the button presses? Can we flash our own firmware to the device?
- erohead 10mo agoThe firmware is not open source. I licensed it from a friend of mine. You can definitely assign different actions to button presses, that's handled by the phone side
- ddoeth 10mo agoI really like the thought and the format, but I do not like that I can't change the battery. Even if it is not easy, I still think there should be a way to change the battery.
- clueless 10mo agocould this be a used a bluetooth microphone, so I could use it with a laptop as a quick voice dictation/input for various uses? I'm thinking like a simple microphone for an localy hosted app like Hex: https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex
- erohead 10mo agoYou could write software to do that if you wanted to
- scratchyone 10mo agowhat safety measures does this have to avoid some incident (held down button, software bug, etc) draining the entire battery within a few hours, thus bricking the device?
- erohead 10mo agoIt has a hard cutoff built into the firmware at two minutes so after that point the recording stops and the ring turns off until the next button press.
- yalok 10mo agohow large are the STT and LLM models that you use on-device? are they part of the OS or downloaded with the app?
- dsp_person 10mo agoCan I use something like syncthing to easily backup the recordings and transcripts off my phone? Google's Recorder app makes this a big PITA if I don't want to enable upload to cloud storage, there is a very tedious manual way to export recordings. I really just want plain old data and to be able to copy or delete files via the filesystem. And not be required to use some cloud service.
- erohead 10mo agoThe app is 100% open source so you could add that feature if you wanted to. We'd love a PR for that!
- maxkfranz 10mo agoAs you framed the device as an extension of memory, I'm wondering whether you can query your notes/memory with voice. I'd like to ask questions to the ring, e.g.: "What was that book that Jerry recommended?" Is that an existing feature, or is that something possibly planned for future? Best of luck with your project, Eric.