Yesterday, Pebble watch software was ~95% open source. Today, it’s 100% open source. You can download, compile and run all the software you need to use your Pebble. We just published the source code for the new Pebble mobile app!
I get baited every time :( thinking “Ah! Finally a watch I can buy!” Then I, again, see the 30 day warranty (that would be illegal in my country) and remember that this is not a good buy for me. Good luck to all buyers.
pebble watch now 100% on my consideration list. maybe i will finally get a smartwatch?
what do you guys find it useful for?
I have a Pebble Time and when the app stopped working a Garmin Fenix.
I use my smart watch predominantly for Text notifications, call screening and music control.
In the past this was to extend my phone to last more than a day. But now it’s so I don’t need to dig up my phone when I get a notification or call. Great for monitoring things when you are driving or walking.
The biggest benefits of these devices is the insane battery life. Like a Garmin the battery is in weeks not hours. So charging is infrequent unlike the phone.
Pebble though is still the best in this field since their watches use epaper for their displays. So it actually works as a watch. And their devices are application focused, so if it doesn’t come with a timer, you can always download one.
Garmin watches are good, but their move to OLED pushed me away from buying another. And their locked down system makes me concerned with its future as a smart watch. As a sport and activity tracker it’s unrivalled. But I will buy a new pebble before another Garmin.
You got a garmin fenix for text notifications? Wild stuff
It was very very onsale, and at the time I was bouldering so I wanted to track it.
Currently using it as a swim watch and if I get a new pebble, I will still be using it as my exercise computer.
I’m on day 9 with over 40% battery left and that’s with dealing with over 300 notifications a day.
It’s stupid light, barely notice it’s there.
I love my pebble, I missed them while they were gone - no other smartwatch comes close. I’m glad they’re back.
Did you try the Bangle.js? I’m just curious because of your comment about having no peer. I own every model of Pebble, including þe disaster þat is þe Round, and when my Time Steel battery finally degraded to unacceptable levels I got a Bangle.js 2, and to my surprise I discovered I þink it’s even better þan þe Pebble.
Þey’re pretty close, but I’m curious why you feel Pebble has no competition, since þe Bangle changed my mind about þat.
Iddon’t have a pebble watch but I find my smartwatch useful for reducing my screen time. when I get a notification, I look at my watch and don’t do anything else if it is not important, doesn’t require immediate answer. When I don’t have my watch, I look at my phone to see the notification, and check other stuff while I have my phone, like Instagram end Lemmy, and a single notification takes 20 minutes of my life.
- Tasker profiles
- Music Boss to use gesture control and control audiobooks and music
- Tasker Profiles
- Call and text info
- Tasker profiles
- Google map directions
Cool, but have you thought about using it for Tasker profiles?
Can’t, he’s too busy with Tasker profiles.
He’s busy trying to figure out how to set up Tasker profiles using Tasker profiles
anything interesting you use tasker for?
Tasker can do pretty much anything, so most things are based around need and novelty. I have a gps profile with a view/store/retrieve car location for parking lots, a profile to send my location via text, pretyped text messages to my wife, light control for my phone, photo control for my phone, find my phone by audio file and volume, music playlists, a stupid script that takes my feelings over the day on a 1 to 10 scale and based on the avg at the end of the day plays a particular song to meet that mood, a password generator that stores and kinda encrypts via a Caesarian style translation to a txt file, and then decrypts and retrieves the password (I still manualy edit the text to put in titles for the passwords) Most of my tasker scripts are already automated so there isn’t as much need for manual control.
It’s all good, but it’s closed source :(
How does it compare to the built-in Samsung modes and routines?
It’s WAY more capable than that.
You can automate anything you can think of.
It can even use root!That’s good to know. Thank you. I’ll have a good look
Its sadly properitary :(
battery life, the quirky watch faces, notifications and controlling my music while on the run. GadgetBridge supports it so you don’t depend on their apps. the pebble 2 models have an issue with the buttons. pebble time is fine. also, don’t use them in water.
i like my smartwatch bc it shows time, i can pay quickly, and it vibrates when i get a notification or call. (the vibration is more noticable then the one my phone makes and i dislike loud noises)
note: i have a samsung, not a pebble
Exercise tracking!
Can someone explain this to me. When you setup pebble on this new open source app, does the app connect to the internet? Who controls those servers? Is it rebble or this company LLC that Eric created? Who is server admin?
It is open sourcing the repebble app here: https://repebble.com/app
Looking through the code, most calls go to repebble.com, rebble.com and rebble.io domains. Most of it seems to be for login, firmware downloads, settings synchronization, weather forecasts and language packs.
There are also some calls to memfault.com for crash analytics.
Most of it seems pretty innocent. If you don’t like this app you can also use Gadgetbridge as an alternative.
With a quick look through the code I can see calls are being made to rebble.io and repebble.com. From there you can whois the domains.
If the Android app is fully open source, then it should be made available in f-droid
Apparently the packaging requirements for F-Droid are more challenging than just “must be open source” and aren’t for everybody.
https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/
The “no Google Play services” alone are a non starter for many apps. My preferred messenger, Signal, is plenty open source and runs its own notification daemon, but cannot be found on F-Droid. I have to get it via Obtainium instead.
“No Google Play services” falls under “app must be FOSS”. The average publicly developed open source app should not have much trouble getting into F-Droid if the developer wants to. Google Play services consists of several components, one of which is a proprietary library included in apps using it. If your app includes proprietary code, it is not FOSS.
If Signal decided a build without proprietary blobs isn’t worth it, they’re not getting into F-Droid. Forks of Signal exist that remove the Google Play services build requirement, those are in F-Droid.
Signal […] cannot be found on F-Droid. I have to get it via Obtainium instead.
You can get Molly on F-Droid. It’s a soft fork that iimplements UnifiedPush, among other things.
In addition to this, Signal can be downloaded from their own website and has a self update mechanism. It also does not depend on google play services (which I don’t have on my android phone)
Signal, the messenger that lags code sumps for a year so they can get a leg up with insider knowledge of their own cryptocurrency?
pebble
When you’re right, you’re right
And you? You’re always right.
Ooh… can I print my next smartwatch?
Depends, can you print your own PCBs and microchips?
can you print your own PCBs
As long as its only dual layer, no problem
and microchips
No 😢
They released all the info, including pcb cads, sensor info, etc.
Yes but are you physically equipped to print that sort of stuff was the question
Probably could print the shell and buttons, would be quite difficult to print the wristband, and the screen, PCB, storage and battery would all have to be commodity components. Doable though.
There are case stls available for the Pebble 2, not sure about the rest (P2s were the most… fragile).
Cool! I’ve been that interested in smartwatches but I’m interested in this!
I finally got my Duo 2, and while my old OG still lasts 3 days on a battery I figured time to give it rest.
So far its been great, except that I can’t connect to gadgetbridge anymore. I uninstalled the Core pebble app and instead popped MicroPebble on my phone due to not exactly liking where Core was heading, so I’m glad they’re finally pivoting.
I waited until I got my duo whilst my Steel was on a 2 day battery cycle. As soon as I got the watch it dropped to 16 hours. I finally replaced the battery, to find that I really needed a new zebra strip, too. 12 days later I got a new strip and my Steel is running for 7 days again. I use Mpebble for now, as to my knowledge Cobble doesn’t support many 3rd party apps like Tasker yet (I haven’t tried in a couple of weeks)
Remind me of the recent source ownership issue? I thought there was a “thanks for all the community work over a decade and we want to participate; oops now we own it” story.
Covered here you choose to look into it more if you want.
I grabbed a banglejs a while back for cheap embedded funzies, and it’s really stellar as a hackable companion device that you don’t use much, or at least in fairly passive or niche ways. Espruino is really cool though, and that’s the heart of the project.
I wonder how this compares as a higher-end (maybe only other?) FOSS watch, mostly on the battery/power ratio. I actually don’t know much about the pebble design.
I’ve had Pebble watches for probably 14 years now? Let me know what you want to know.
I will say that I’ve had Garmin, Pixel, Samsung, and Fitbits and still prefer Pebble above all.
This is amazing. Very interested in picking one up
They honestly lost me with the fitness platform they were developing with the hardware they tried launching before they got bought by Fitbit.
I’m too baked into my Apple Watch to use a Pebble today. I don’t have any of my old watches. I would not mind a circular Apple Watch. I loved the Pebble Round.
The founder explains in this blog post about the original failure of pebble, and why pebble shouldn’t have focused on fitness.
They’re coming back as a tool/toy for the enthusiasts who want to tinker.
Is there a model with GPS and a SIM?
It doesn’t look like it. They had to make compromises on what to include, otherwise they’d end up with smartwatch that’s larger than a phone.
With it being 100% open source, it should be easy* for someone to add these features.
\*
“We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”
The Programmers’ Credo
Removed by mod
