6 ms·

Instead of a stand-alone piece of e-waste, how about this: a device with the same format (a ring and an button) but the only thing it does is trigger the pebble

by lopis 11mo ago

Instead of a stand-alone piece of e-waste, how about this: a device with the same format (a ring and an button) but the only thing it does is trigger the pebble watch to start recording a message. This way the microphone isn't needed, just the radio (and much weaker radio at that), and the battery will last exponentially longer. Then just expose the charging terminals so that we can at least hack the device with custom made external charging controllers, or buy a charger separately.

kwanbix 11mo ago
Or better yet. Use your cellphone wich most of us carry 90% of the time?
- mikestew 11mo ago
  The cellphone that’s buried in my handbag? I think you missed the expressed use case (admittedly, a few paragraphs into TFA): ”Before, I would take my phone out of my pocket to jot these down, but I couldn’t always do that (eg, while bicycling). I also wanted to start using my phone less, especially in front of my kids.”
  - wkat4242 11mo ago
    I'm sure it won't be able to handle wind noise well (it doesn't look big enough to have multiple microphones) so you'd have to stop the bicycle to make a good recording. Might as well grab the phone then.
    - cxr 11mo ago
      Yet another retort addressed directly in the post: > Raw audio playback: Very helpful if STT doesn’t work perfectly due to wind or loud background noises
      - wkat4242 11mo ago
        Yes I know but I doubt it will capture much at all when there's significant wind noise, even enough to understand by ear without STT. A friend of mine has her phone on her handlebars in a gps mount and she sends me voice messages through her bluetooth headset and those are hardly intelligible. A hand on the handlebar would be even further from the mouth. And those are pretty good ones with multiple microphones.
  - Fnoord 11mo ago
    Stop using your phone less in front of your kids. Start using your ring/watch/whatever_else more in front of your kids. Honestly, it isn't about what you use (that is just hype). You can read the paper all day if you want. I grew up with a father who was listening to radio and watching TV all the time (to be fair: he was disabled, including legally blind). It isn't about using your phone less in front of your kids. It is about being there for your kids when they need you; showing genuine interest in your kids; interacting with them. Right now, as I am writing this to you, my kids are watching Peppa Pig before bedtime. Instead of writing this, I could sit next to them and watch an episode with them. As for cycling, with a ring you'd have to move your hand towards you or not, but it isn't much different compared to a watch, except perhaps when you'd wear a sweater over your watch. It is also very typical that in-ear buds are expensive, small, yet hard to repair because the battery isn't user replaceable. And guess what, exactly the same for this device. Apart from the yet another device with microphone (24/7 on, I suppose) and Bluetooth (the wireless spaghetti protocol) and it not being user serviceable the device costs 100 USD. For such a price, I expect it to last longer than two years. I mean, I'm sick of devices lasting only a few years. I wouldn't need yet another one. TL;DR hard pass, do better.
    - cxr 11mo ago
      The remarks in this comment can only come from a gross misunderstanding of what many people mean when they talk about avoiding use of their phones around their kids. Almost every sentence reveals a very me-focused outlook. > It isn't about using your phone less in front of your kids. It is about being there for your kids when they need you That's a very narrow conception if the problem—it isn't solely about being "there" for them or trying to get control over (and maintain control over) one's own addictions. The main thing that people have an issue with when they talk about kids and phone use (and TV for that matter) is addiction observed in the kids themselves. It's absolutely about using one's own phone less while they're around as a means of quashing overexposure. You can show as much genuine interest in them as you want, and it doesn't change anything, because whether the kids feel like the parent is "there for them" not the problem that a parent is is already genuinely interested in them is concerned about and trying to address. > As for cycling, with a ring you'd have to move your hand towards you or not, but it isn't much different compared to a watch, except perhaps when you'd wear a sweater over your watch. "Not much" except that the fingers that are attached to the hand that's attached to the wrist where you're wearing your watch certainly aren't capable of reaching back to press a button on said watch. > Apart from the yet another device with microphone (24/7 on, I suppose) The folks in this thread are really committed to just plucking things out of thin air and acting on foregone conclusions, huh?
  - spike021 11mo ago
    as I wondered in another comment, the button may not always be facing your thumb. so then you'd need to keep fiddling with it anyway.
    - ddoeth 11mo ago
      It's still easier to turn around a ring than to fiddle with a a phone. And more legal as well, no laws against rotating a ring while rinding your bike. That's fully haptic, no is drawn from traffic for that.
  - wing-_-nuts 11mo ago
    "Hey google, make a note: ..." I just tried it, and it worked flawlessly. Now, obviously it's not great for privacy per se, but I'm not jotting down my plans for world domination or anything
- papyrus9244 11mo ago
  That sounds like the perfect thing to do while I'm driving.
- supern0va 11mo ago
  ...and face the seductive allure of all those delicious notifications trying to get me to task switch to a bunch of other things? No, sir. I'm pretty much on board with anything that reduces the number of times I need to light up that phone screen.
  - _79px 11mo ago
    Well, you could just turn off unnecessary notifications like I do, same with emails. I get like 3 notifications a day on average now, and most of those are just dms from friends.
    - supern0va 11mo ago
      I do, aggressively. Honestly, the messages from friends are the hardest to ignore/defer. That's why I also have a highly tedious DND schedule. That aside, there's also far more friction to pull out a device, turn it on, unlock it, then open an app.
- eichin 11mo ago
  If I could press one button (and not unlock the phone) I would; my samsung even has an extra wasted button (the "bixby" button) but it isn't reconfigurable. (Still fails for the "while driving" case but I'd be using it the rest of the time)
  - SchemaLoad 11mo ago
    You can do it on the iphone with the action button.
- lopis 11mo ago
  Why stop there? Why use your phone at all? Just go visit your mum instead of calling... Sorry the sarcasm, but not everything should need you to take your phone, unlock, get distracted, open social media on a reflex and forget what you were doing in the first place.
  - Fnoord 11mo ago
    Get distracted? I mean, are you American? Have you ever looked around you in traffic? Look at all these billboards and bullshit and tell me about distraction. If you are on a mission you do not open your social media. People do so due to boredom, I guess. The sensible thing to do is... stop using social media. Aside from that, let us assume you won't stop with that (after all, it is free!). Smartphones have a driving mode which you can set, setting them on DnD. I take my smartphone out of my pocket when I wait before a traffic light, and that works, but I only do so when I need to and what I certainly do not need to do at that point is have a look at Facebook or Twitter. I also don't have Bluetooth on 24/7 on my smartphone (one reason being tracking concerns). On a Pebble watch, I can put this off. Sadly a software killswitch, but better than nothing.
- afandian 11mo ago
  iOS has recently added a ”trigger voice recorder” to the swipe-down screen from the lock screen. It takes a random length of time to start recording. But it’s always too long. And it’s unreliable. This would be much more convenient. Though I’m not sure the battery situation would convince me.
CGMthrowaway 11mo ago
UX probably not as good in that case. I am thinking about how buggy my voice-remote is for the TV. 1/3 of the time it works, 1/3 of the time there is some lag before it starts working (and requires waiting for feedback i.e. the listening tone before I can speak) and 1/3 of the time it doesn't work at all (never hears me due to lag or booting up or whatever else).
- lopis 11mo ago
  It can't be worse than a tiny ring that records notes...
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
adammarples 11mo ago
Then just put the button on the watch? In fact, why isn't this just a button on the watch?
- skeledrew 11mo ago
  Because you need to use your other hand to press that button, instead of the adjacent finger.
  - smiley1437 11mo ago
    > Because you need to use your other hand to press that button, instead of the adjacent finger. Funnily enough, I've used my nose to tap my watch when my hands are full Yes, I've gotten some strange looks
    - kirtakat 11mo ago
      I do this all the time in the winter as well when I'm wearing gloves that aren't really "touch screen" friendly
    - twsted 11mo ago
      I thought I was the only one on Earth to do that (but surely I'm the only boomer doing it).
- lopis 11mo ago
  If you had read the post you would know the answer.
  - dingaling 11mo ago
    "This was tough to use while bicycling or carrying stuff." That seems an incredibly limited set of use cases for the complication of adding another device to one's life.
    - Contax 11mo ago
skeledrew 11mo ago
Might as well bundle the ring with the watch at that point, and increase the price accordingly, as it's then become an accessory particular to the pebble watch. And including a charging circuit means more complexity and bulk, also leading to an increase in price. And cost is a factor they're optimizing for.
- lopis 11mo ago
  That's my point exactly. This should have been a pebble accessory, not a standalone device that sends voice notes to your phone. If this device actually has a 2 year battery, if you'd remove the microphone and turn it into a "smart button" to trigger a watch action, the battery should easily last 4+ years.
  - skeledrew 11mo ago
    Yet a design goal is for it to also work standalone, so users who don't have/want a pebble watch can use it with their phone, something that essentially everyone has.
svl7 11mo ago
That could be achievable without a battery, using a Piezo button like some Hue remotes... Though not sure with the small form factor.
- lopis 11mo ago
  That's interesting. A Piezo Button generates enough power to send a radio signal?
  - shellfishgene 11mo ago
    Have a look at the EnOcean kinetic smart home switches, there are now also other companies making them.
  - PMunch 11mo ago
    Indeed, I have a remote doorbell where the outer button is a piezo button and the inside bell part is connected to a socket. But the button is quite thick, presumably because it needs a bit of travel to get enough energy. Granted that's for a device that sends multi-wall penetrating strength of 433Mhz radio waves. For something like this where the distance is only about 25cm you might be able to get a button small enough.
bl4kers 11mo ago
It's open source and the button is customizable. So it's very likely that could be achieved with the product as-is.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
ajolly 10mo ago
The biggest downside is I don't think you can directly connect to the pebble for that it'll have to go through the phone. One advantage of the index if it doesn't rely on your phone to be available right then

by lopis 11mo ago

kwanbix 11mo ago

Or better yet. Use your cellphone wich most of us carry 90% of the time?

mikestew 11mo ago
The cellphone that’s buried in my handbag? I think you missed the expressed use case (admittedly, a few paragraphs into TFA): ”Before, I would take my phone out of my pocket to jot these down, but I couldn’t always do that (eg, while bicycling). I also wanted to start using my phone less, especially in front of my kids.”
- wkat4242 11mo ago
  I'm sure it won't be able to handle wind noise well (it doesn't look big enough to have multiple microphones) so you'd have to stop the bicycle to make a good recording. Might as well grab the phone then.
  - cxr 11mo ago
    Yet another retort addressed directly in the post: > Raw audio playback: Very helpful if STT doesn’t work perfectly due to wind or loud background noises
    - wkat4242 11mo ago
      Yes I know but I doubt it will capture much at all when there's significant wind noise, even enough to understand by ear without STT. A friend of mine has her phone on her handlebars in a gps mount and she sends me voice messages through her bluetooth headset and those are hardly intelligible. A hand on the handlebar would be even further from the mouth. And those are pretty good ones with multiple microphones.
- Fnoord 11mo ago
  Stop using your phone less in front of your kids. Start using your ring/watch/whatever_else more in front of your kids. Honestly, it isn't about what you use (that is just hype). You can read the paper all day if you want. I grew up with a father who was listening to radio and watching TV all the time (to be fair: he was disabled, including legally blind). It isn't about using your phone less in front of your kids. It is about being there for your kids when they need you; showing genuine interest in your kids; interacting with them. Right now, as I am writing this to you, my kids are watching Peppa Pig before bedtime. Instead of writing this, I could sit next to them and watch an episode with them. As for cycling, with a ring you'd have to move your hand towards you or not, but it isn't much different compared to a watch, except perhaps when you'd wear a sweater over your watch. It is also very typical that in-ear buds are expensive, small, yet hard to repair because the battery isn't user replaceable. And guess what, exactly the same for this device. Apart from the yet another device with microphone (24/7 on, I suppose) and Bluetooth (the wireless spaghetti protocol) and it not being user serviceable the device costs 100 USD. For such a price, I expect it to last longer than two years. I mean, I'm sick of devices lasting only a few years. I wouldn't need yet another one. TL;DR hard pass, do better.
  - cxr 11mo ago
    The remarks in this comment can only come from a gross misunderstanding of what many people mean when they talk about avoiding use of their phones around their kids. Almost every sentence reveals a very me-focused outlook. > It isn't about using your phone less in front of your kids. It is about being there for your kids when they need you That's a very narrow conception if the problem—it isn't solely about being "there" for them or trying to get control over (and maintain control over) one's own addictions. The main thing that people have an issue with when they talk about kids and phone use (and TV for that matter) is addiction observed in the kids themselves. It's absolutely about using one's own phone less while they're around as a means of quashing overexposure. You can show as much genuine interest in them as you want, and it doesn't change anything, because whether the kids feel like the parent is "there for them" not the problem that a parent is is already genuinely interested in them is concerned about and trying to address. > As for cycling, with a ring you'd have to move your hand towards you or not, but it isn't much different compared to a watch, except perhaps when you'd wear a sweater over your watch. "Not much" except that the fingers that are attached to the hand that's attached to the wrist where you're wearing your watch certainly aren't capable of reaching back to press a button on said watch. > Apart from the yet another device with microphone (24/7 on, I suppose) The folks in this thread are really committed to just plucking things out of thin air and acting on foregone conclusions, huh?
- spike021 11mo ago
  as I wondered in another comment, the button may not always be facing your thumb. so then you'd need to keep fiddling with it anyway.
  - ddoeth 11mo ago
    It's still easier to turn around a ring than to fiddle with a a phone. And more legal as well, no laws against rotating a ring while rinding your bike. That's fully haptic, no is drawn from traffic for that.
- wing-_-nuts 11mo ago
  "Hey google, make a note: ..." I just tried it, and it worked flawlessly. Now, obviously it's not great for privacy per se, but I'm not jotting down my plans for world domination or anything
papyrus9244 11mo ago
That sounds like the perfect thing to do while I'm driving.
supern0va 11mo ago
...and face the seductive allure of all those delicious notifications trying to get me to task switch to a bunch of other things? No, sir. I'm pretty much on board with anything that reduces the number of times I need to light up that phone screen.
- _79px 11mo ago
  Well, you could just turn off unnecessary notifications like I do, same with emails. I get like 3 notifications a day on average now, and most of those are just dms from friends.
  - supern0va 11mo ago
    I do, aggressively. Honestly, the messages from friends are the hardest to ignore/defer. That's why I also have a highly tedious DND schedule. That aside, there's also far more friction to pull out a device, turn it on, unlock it, then open an app.
eichin 11mo ago
If I could press one button (and not unlock the phone) I would; my samsung even has an extra wasted button (the "bixby" button) but it isn't reconfigurable. (Still fails for the "while driving" case but I'd be using it the rest of the time)
- SchemaLoad 11mo ago
  You can do it on the iphone with the action button.
lopis 11mo ago
Why stop there? Why use your phone at all? Just go visit your mum instead of calling... Sorry the sarcasm, but not everything should need you to take your phone, unlock, get distracted, open social media on a reflex and forget what you were doing in the first place.
- Fnoord 11mo ago
  Get distracted? I mean, are you American? Have you ever looked around you in traffic? Look at all these billboards and bullshit and tell me about distraction. If you are on a mission you do not open your social media. People do so due to boredom, I guess. The sensible thing to do is... stop using social media. Aside from that, let us assume you won't stop with that (after all, it is free!). Smartphones have a driving mode which you can set, setting them on DnD. I take my smartphone out of my pocket when I wait before a traffic light, and that works, but I only do so when I need to and what I certainly do not need to do at that point is have a look at Facebook or Twitter. I also don't have Bluetooth on 24/7 on my smartphone (one reason being tracking concerns). On a Pebble watch, I can put this off. Sadly a software killswitch, but better than nothing.
afandian 11mo ago
iOS has recently added a ”trigger voice recorder” to the swipe-down screen from the lock screen. It takes a random length of time to start recording. But it’s always too long. And it’s unreliable. This would be much more convenient. Though I’m not sure the battery situation would convince me.

CGMthrowaway 11mo ago

UX probably not as good in that case. I am thinking about how buggy my voice-remote is for the TV. 1/3 of the time it works, 1/3 of the time there is some lag before it starts working (and requires waiting for feedback i.e. the listening tone before I can speak) and 1/3 of the time it doesn't work at all (never hears me due to lag or booting up or whatever else).

lopis 11mo ago
It can't be worse than a tiny ring that records notes...

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

adammarples 11mo ago

Then just put the button on the watch? In fact, why isn't this just a button on the watch?

skeledrew 11mo ago
Because you need to use your other hand to press that button, instead of the adjacent finger.
- smiley1437 11mo ago
  > Because you need to use your other hand to press that button, instead of the adjacent finger. Funnily enough, I've used my nose to tap my watch when my hands are full Yes, I've gotten some strange looks
  - kirtakat 11mo ago
    I do this all the time in the winter as well when I'm wearing gloves that aren't really "touch screen" friendly
  - twsted 11mo ago
    I thought I was the only one on Earth to do that (but surely I'm the only boomer doing it).
lopis 11mo ago
If you had read the post you would know the answer.
- dingaling 11mo ago
  "This was tough to use while bicycling or carrying stuff." That seems an incredibly limited set of use cases for the complication of adding another device to one's life.
  - Contax 11mo ago

skeledrew 11mo ago

Might as well bundle the ring with the watch at that point, and increase the price accordingly, as it's then become an accessory particular to the pebble watch. And including a charging circuit means more complexity and bulk, also leading to an increase in price. And cost is a factor they're optimizing for.

lopis 11mo ago
That's my point exactly. This should have been a pebble accessory, not a standalone device that sends voice notes to your phone. If this device actually has a 2 year battery, if you'd remove the microphone and turn it into a "smart button" to trigger a watch action, the battery should easily last 4+ years.
- skeledrew 11mo ago
  Yet a design goal is for it to also work standalone, so users who don't have/want a pebble watch can use it with their phone, something that essentially everyone has.

svl7 11mo ago

That could be achievable without a battery, using a Piezo button like some Hue remotes... Though not sure with the small form factor.

lopis 11mo ago
That's interesting. A Piezo Button generates enough power to send a radio signal?
- shellfishgene 11mo ago
  Have a look at the EnOcean kinetic smart home switches, there are now also other companies making them.
- PMunch 11mo ago
  Indeed, I have a remote doorbell where the outer button is a piezo button and the inside bell part is connected to a socket. But the button is quite thick, presumably because it needs a bit of travel to get enough energy. Granted that's for a device that sends multi-wall penetrating strength of 433Mhz radio waves. For something like this where the distance is only about 25cm you might be able to get a button small enough.

bl4kers 11mo ago

It's open source and the button is customizable. So it's very likely that could be achieved with the product as-is.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

ajolly 10mo ago

The biggest downside is I don't think you can directly connect to the pebble for that it'll have to go through the phone. One advantage of the index if it doesn't rely on your phone to be available right then