this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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397
The Pebble Has Been Brought Back (store.repebble.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
99 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Google recently open sourced Pebble and today, Repebble has put some of the watches up for preorder.

(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

I've pre-ordered the Core Time 2.

Pre-orders are something I never usually do, but given this is essentially just an improved version of an existing product, as opposed to a Kickstarter, I feel more confident. And I can cancel the preorder at any time (plus I'll see reviews of the cheaper model before the Core Time 2 ships).

The price made me wince, though. It's very expensive for the functionality. Technically cheaper than the original watches adjusted for inflation, but that ignores the current-day smartwatch market. Still, I loved the Pebble, so I think it's worth it.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 18 hours ago

Pre-ordered one immediately. I miss my old Pebble Time Steel so much. Part of me wishes there's one with that design but I'll take what I can get.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 21 hours ago

Eh. I prefer the PineTime watch. It was like 25€+shipping and customs and it does everything I need, is fully open-source – it displays weather info, time, date, heart rate (although not very well), and has timer, stopper, etc.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 23 hours ago (6 children)

I'm still very confused about why we needed PebbleOS for this. It's been like 10 years and no one could come up with any comparable software? They whipped up the hardware design in a few months.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 21 hours ago

PebbleOS was awesome, though. Such a well thought out system for end-users, and it already has tons of apps. Developing for it (in C!) is also super easy because it has an amazing SDK.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

From what I've read from Eric since this relaunch was announced, he just wants a new pebble and so do some of the userbase. This project isn't really intended as a viable, polished product. Rather it's a niche thing made for a Core audience of nerds.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the nerds this is intended for. I instantly pre-ordered a watch because it's a pebble. I7

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I want one, but I don't know what I'd do with it. It's hackable, it pairs with a phone/tablet/etc.

I'm just trying to figure out what it can do for me. My lack of imagination annoys me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

I use my autopebble with tasker. Scripted a few things, like find my phone, load my audiobook, messages, etc. Used to have Google Home messages and lights and stuff, but I stopped using smarthome stuff for the most part. Mostly I use it for music control and weather and time though.

I also scripted a weird one that I could enter my feeling level at work throughout the day (1-10) and based on the average at tthe end tasker would play one of three songs when I got in my car at the end of work (only within a time range and if bluetooth was connected to car)

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I still can't believe that no one else has made a smart watch with physical buttons and low energy use that has surpassed the pebble after all this time. I'm still cautious that this venture will pan out, but honestly there really hasn't been a smart watch released that matches my use case. Sleep tracking makes no sense if I have to charge the watch daily, as I'd probably charge it over night. Media control with screen buttons is awful. Fossil came close with their hybrid smart watch, but the layout of the media controls made no sense and couldn't easily be used without looking at the watch. Just let me check my calendar and texts and skip through ads in podcasts, and last over a week of battery and you will have my money.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 20 hours ago (4 children)

Don't love the closed-in ecosystem but Garmin watches with MIP display do almost all you just said.

  • Touch screen + also Buttons for 100% touch-free interaction
  • Battery life of around 3 to 4 weeks (depending on what you are doing)... more with the Solar models
  • Media control is there, but don't really use that

Podcast ad skipping sadly not a thing.

Price might be an issue though. The top end models with all the whistles come at a smartphone flagship price point.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

My Garmin Forerunner 245 Music does all that I'd say

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

The benefit if the core repebble watches are that they have 1 month of battery life, they're cheaper, and they are open source

[–] [email protected] 11 points 22 hours ago

Garmin watches come close?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Does this interface with your phone at all? Tried skimming thru their website but the fact it doesn't list Bluetooth in the specs leaves me confused why you'd spend this much money on a quasi-smartwatch that doesn't have that capability.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It says they're able to extend the battery life from 7 days to a month due to how efficient the new Bluetooth chips are.

You must have skimmed pretty fast.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

I did indeed skim pretty fast, but it doesn't say that, it just says from 7 days to 30:

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

[...] Battery life: I’m really excited that battery life will be increased from 7 days to 1 month! This is due to massive improvements in Bluetooth chip power efficiency over the last 10 years. [...]

Source: https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watches

[–] [email protected] 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Battery life: I’m really excited that battery life will be increased from 7 days to 1 month! This is due to massive improvements in Bluetooth chip power efficiency over the last 10 years.

It's further down the page.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago

It's damn near the very bottom lol, so I forgive myself for missing that. When I skim something for a product, I'm looking at the tech specs/BLUF message, not digging thru the entire page of text. Anyway, glad it's all sorted out.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Follow-up question - is this the watch I've been looking for that doesn't spy on me and require a cl of us account to use?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago

Yes, this combined with gadgetbridge.

A pinetime is also a good alternative. (also with gadgetbridge)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

It absolutely does, on Android at least. On iOS, given Apple's restrictions, the whole situation is a bit more complicated:

https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-with-iphones

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes! The best thing about Pebbles (IMHO) is how they handle notifications. In the specs, they list Nordic nRF52840 BLE chip (BLE stands for Bluetooth Low Energy)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

Thanks for the info! Was actually thinking my current watch's battery was beginning to hold a charge less and less lately, so definitely keeping these in mind.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Torn between this and a bangle.js 2, if I need a smarwatch at all

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

Having used both, personally I highly preferred the Pebble over the Bangle JS.

Pebble was solid software, good designs and it all just worked simply and did what I needed. I also thought the Pebble Time Round was near perfect in design and execution. I'm not a fan of the geeky look of the normal pebble and bangle watches (or the apple watch look).

The Bangle was fun to dev for, and I love that it exists, but it all felt like a dev project. Not a finished product. Granted it was early on in the project so I'm sure it's in a better place now.

They both have similar capabilities. I say go with whichever you think is going to fit what you need a smartwatch to do.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Genuinely considering it as I love e ink, lightweight, long battery life, and open source

[–] [email protected] -2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

IIRC, it has a reflective LCD, not epaper display.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

Core 2 Duo

  • 1.2" black/white e-paper screen

Core Time 2

  • 1.5" 64 color e-paper screen

Am I missing something?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (5 children)

The watch featured a 32-millimetre (1.26 in) 144 × 168 pixel black and white memory LCD using an ultra low-power "transflective LCD"

The problem is that e-paper is a category of displays, and some companies label reflective LCDs as "e-paper". Which is subjective (and I personally heavily disagree with that categorization, cause then LCD clocks and Gameboys have "e-paper" displays, too).

But in the comment I responded to it was said Pebble has "eink" display, which is categorically wrong, as that is a very specific proprietary technology, which is e-paper in traditional sense, like the ones in Kindles.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Where exactly is that quote from? I had a look through the product page(s) and could only find e-paper being mentioned...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (3 children)

Quote is from Wikipedia. You can see it's the case for both models here:

Besides, I own a Pebble Time watch and can tell you, it doesn't perform like a typical e-paper. It has the bad viewing angles of LCD and screen goes blank when power is lost.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago

Oh that seems to be new since the original pebble

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I understand that the watch operating system is open source. However, it seems that the watch will connect to a companion smartphone app. Do you know if the app is a requirement and/or if the app will be open source?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 23 hours ago

Gadgetbridge is compatible with Pebble devices

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah the mobile app is open source too https://github.com/pebble-dev/mobile-app

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

It is not clear that this is the app that will be used for the new watches. I imagine it will support the new RePebble watches, but I believe that app was intended for the original Pebble watches.

The thing that makes it so unclear to me is that this is a repo owned by the Rebble team, not the RePebble team. I do not know how much overlap there is between the two teams, but the RePebble team does not have any open source repos that I could find. Any mention of open source software by RePebble (including the OS) are links to repos owned by other teams, which is a little concerning.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Does it spy on us?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago

The hand-wavy answer is: go check the code and find out, however that's not accessible to everyone.

The helpful answer is: The code is out there, and the launch date is far enough away that those who do understand it enough to make that distinction should have the time to do so before it ships, so time will tell.

The Rebble folks probably are the closest to knowing, given they've been hacking on the current app for the past several years.

My guess is probably not. The target audience probably wouldn't be cool with it.

Also, there are 3rd party watchfaces and apps that will be available, so that code will need to be evaluated too. So, it's more complicated than a single yes or no.

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