I've mentioned this before, but I want pebble Smart Glasses. Just a few lines of texts as a heads up display. No cameras, no AR or AI BS, just notifications and text.
Please.
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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Well well well...
Even Realities G1: The Pebble of Smart Glasses by MrMobile
$750 w/ prescription lenses is just outside the range of "impulse purchase", but still doable...
Now I've gotta take a harder look at this!
zack freedman on youtube created his own, and i seem to remember went through the build process if you’re interested
it’s not something you’d necessarily wear out, but apparently the utility value is very high
Just watched a video; he sawed an Epson headset in half & did some hardware mods so it doesn't know it was sawed in half.
Also, it's full video, I just need a little LCD/e-ink display...
Pebble was peak smartwatch. It's only been downhill since.
have you actually used other smartwatches? i have a xiaomi smart band 8 and it's honestly really damn good, especially for costing 80 bucks. Even without a fancy display it has longer battery life than a pebble.
Only things i miss is physical buttons and more openness in the software, but honestly the only one that actually bothers me is no physical buttons.
I'm not buying anything Xiaomi.
okay
but that doesn't magically mean the watch doesn't exist lmao, my point is that pebble wasn't actually particularly peak.
But you know what, i kinda suspect you just want to be a hipster..
Never said it didn't exist lmao
Still using my Pebble Time today, I'd love to get a refreshed version with an active store again. It's still my favorite smartwatch by far, nothing comes even close for me, I kept on thinking maybe I was alone in this.
Aight I might bite, loved the pebble 2 with rebble
Also used to be a Pebble enjoyer. I think realistically though, the world has moved on. There are other projects that carry the spirit of it too. I have a Pinetime, which is not nearly as good admittedly. Then there's the Bangle.js which I've heard is really good. I will probably get one of these in the future because it does seem to be the best candidate as a Pebble successor.
Then if you have the right smartwatch, and a bit of tech skill, you can outright put Linux on your wrist with Asteroid OS.
I would love a round watch that uses an analog face but can still buzz me with notifications and do Apple Pay (or Google Pay). I’ve found ones that meet the first two but not the last one. I use my watch to pay way too much.
I think Garmin has some watches that fit.
Skagen had these kinds of watches with their Hagen line. Ran on a standard battery for nearly half a month. You could set up notification groups so that the watch would buzz and the watch's hands point to a specific hour.
hang on, standard button cell? if so then half a month is less than stellar, that could get expensive fast!
I researched what kind of battery it was: CR2016, some kind of Lithium battery.
And boy, what a brain fart: I meant half a year, so six months. It's been a few years since I used that watch regularly, but I was impressed with the endurance of that little battery.
yeah holy shit that’s actually really impressive. that’d only be like $3 a year if you did the replacements yourself!
I really don't understand the significance of this. If there were really a market for epaper watches, why did no one make them for the last 10 years? Was PebbleOS really so amazing that no one could replicate anything similar?
At the time it made way more sense because the "traditional" smart watches were way worse. Not even one day battery life. I would say Pebble still wins on size though - actually normal watch sized.
As for why they didn't catch on.. Probably a little bit ahead of their time, and also less shiny.
Not asking why they didn't catch on. I'm asking why it would catch on today when it hasn't since the Pebble died. And why, even if a very small user-base exists for this type of product, no one has made them since.
A couple of possible reasons:
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If it's a new company with fewer standards then more niche products become more viable. I don't know exactly what the situation at Pebble was but if they took lots of VC funding they can't turn around and say "ok we're just going to trundle along with this niche watch that is loved, but only by a few people". A small company can do that.
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Advertising / brand awareness. Pebble was very well known, but if you make some random alternative nobody is even going to learn of your existence. This attempt is using the actual Pebble code and it's run by the ex-Pebble people.
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Don't underestimate the software effort. Now that they have most of the code, resurrecting it is a lot easier.
Having said that, I would probably put my money on them doing a Kickstarter (which will do very well based on nostalgia), delivering a product that can't really compete with modern smart watches, and then slowly fading into the night. Hope not but I won't hold my breath. (I can't really wear watches anyway so it doesn't really affect me.)
it's a niche market, like not enough people wanting to buy a compact sub-5" flagship phone, so i'll never get one. let people enjoy it :)
Oh, don't me wrong, I will likely buy one. I am the target audience.
But either it's a niche market with not enough customers or it isn't. The OS doesn't change that.
You have far more faith in the decisions of our capitalist overlords than I do
I would drop my Galaxy Watch in a second if I could get a brand new pebble on better hardware with more sensors.
Because companies can make more money with flashy watches that steal your privacy
Right. That's my point. What's changed?
Nothing has, people still want a pebble and nobody has made one in 10 years. this project aims to do that again
If nothing's changed then what makes them think people will start buying them again?
Nothing has changed with the demand. There always was and has been demand albeit small. I'm going to order one for example
Fitbit bought them out after they mismanaged their expansion. My pebble kept working, but I lost the charging cable as I recall and couldn't get a replacement.
...ok?
Sorry, I was being pulled in two directions when I wrote that. Meant to talk about how ePaper watches were basically deleted from the market by Fitbit. They owned the IP and didn't make any, as far as I know. Now smart watches are a multi billion dollar market that Pebble helped popularize (maybe even created), and Pebble was cast aside. The hardware was so simple, effective, cheap, reliable, and lacking bloat that you could buy one and have it work perfectly for ages. Totally against the trend with tech.
Totally against the trend with tech.
Yeah that's my point. Why would anyone launch them again?
Because I fucking hate the trend!
The Pebble platform doesn't make it super easy to monetize itself beyond hardware sales. There's no reason to make a watch like this from a business perspective. Plenty probably could, but no one with the resources to do it properly wanted to make something similar.
Well, if you're not more greed than man, hardware sales might be enough for you.
Except the creator said he will be selling a new one...
Hobbyists do lots of stuff that companies won't.
It's not a hobby, he's going to sell them.
Was PebbleOS really so amazing that no one could replicate anything similar?
Probably no-one just took the responsibility to start doing it for free. Foss projects usually start from one or couple bored people just really wanting something so bad they'll start putting big hours to make it real
Who said anything about free?
Usually it starts "for free" and if you're lucky you might earn something from it
I'm so happy this is back! can't wait to build a watch
Kind of a misleading headline. They have a working prototype. Nothing even close to ready to ship.
I disagree, they have it working on the nRF52840 (which is new and supports new things like NFC and Thread/Zigbee). This means people can start developing features against that chipset.
Hardware doesn't mean "production-ready model".