[HN Gopher] Pebble Production: February Update
___________________________________________________________________
Pebble Production: February Update
Author : smig0
Score : 246 points
Date : 2026-02-19 12:36 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (repebble.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (repebble.com)
| Larrikin wrote:
| I was hoping to have my watch well before the forced migration of
| my FitBit account to Google. Now it seems to be up in the air if
| I will get it in time.
| bronlund wrote:
| When the first Pebble was released, and I got a couple of those,
| it was unique and cool as hell. This time around, you can get a
| programmable smartwatch from China for a fraction of the price
| looking way cooler.
|
| Edit: https://diyusthad.com/2021/04/top-5-open-source-
| smartwatch.h...
| mrbn100ful wrote:
| Mind to share one of those models ?
|
| Far has I know, pebble user have spent the last 10 years
| searching for another pebble without luck.
| bronlund wrote:
| One example could be Watchy. ESP32 based. 40 bucks. Check the
| link I've added in my original reply.
| rozenmd wrote:
| You can't get a hackable watch for a fraction of the price,
| though.
|
| I'd pay more for being able to fumble about in the codebase and
| add exactly what I want.
| forkerenok wrote:
| I wouldn't put in the same league as pebble, but it
| definitely ticks the boxes:
|
| https://banglejs.com/
|
| Battery life is real.
| ramses0 wrote:
| Ticks the boxes, but not the buttons. :-(
| bronlund wrote:
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007059416132.html
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| https://pine64.org/devices/pinetime/ is $27, which is a
| _small_ fraction of the cost of a Pebble.
| elaus wrote:
| For me it's the eink display that makes them interesting. Being
| programmable or looking cool is nice, but for that I could also
| buy an Apple/Google/Samsung watch - that's not unique.
| jsheard wrote:
| The Pebble display isn't e-ink, or unique amongst watches,
| it's an off-the-shelf MIP LCD from Sharp.
|
| You can get the same thing in watches from Garmin, Coros,
| Polar, Suunto, Casio and probably more.
| elaus wrote:
| I think you're confusing Pebble with something else. All
| current models on the website as well as the OG pebble
| (according to Wikipedia) use eink displays.
| ramses0 wrote:
| Transflective.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Hardware
| jsheard wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Hardware
|
| _> The watch featured a 32-millimetre (1.26 in) 144 x
| 168 pixel black and white memory LCD using an ultra low-
| power "transflective LCD" manufactured by Sharp_
|
| Later generations are color, but it's the same tech. If
| you've ever used actual e-ink then it should be obvious
| enough that the Pebble displays are something else, it
| would be nowhere near responsive enough to keep up with
| pebbleOS's animations.
| drum55 wrote:
| They're Sharp memory displays, functionally LCDs but with
| memory for retention under each pixel. They are not and
| have never been eink.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Size is the main differentiator for me. I had a pebble, then an
| Apple Watch, and I've always hated how chunky the Apple Watch
| and other competitors are.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1qr1npj/pebble_roun...
| qwertox wrote:
| "programmable smartwatch from China" can you share some
| examples?
| _ink_ wrote:
| Not gp, but here are some:
| https://diyusthad.com/2021/04/top-5-open-source-
| smartwatch.h...
| bronlund wrote:
| Check out Watchy. $40. If you search for ESP32 based watches,
| you'll find plenty. Not all that good looking, but you can
| probably get one for under 5 bucks.
| Fnoord wrote:
| There's so many these days. Just have a look at AliExpress.
| There were various KS/IGG campaigns, too. One thing which
| kind of stood out was a smartwatch remote with what I will
| summarize as 'Flipper Zero capabilities'. I think I saw it on
| Etsy. It looked terrible though. For red teaming, you'd want
| something which looks professional, and blends in. Ideally
| with a watchface as, ehh.. 'screensaver'.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| ok buy one of those then
| bronlund wrote:
| I have. The main reason though, for me not buying a Pebble,
| is less about the watch and more about Eric. It seems that
| his whole modus operandi, is selling out his customers.
|
| Pebble hadn't been in this mess in the first place, if it
| wasn't for him. Going back to him a second time, is just
| unresponsible in my opinion.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Pebble also wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for him
| (either time) so I suppose it's a wash
| bronlund wrote:
| I guess you have a good point there :)
| rationalist wrote:
| > his whole modus operandi
|
| Are there other examples besides just his Pebble company
| version 1?
| bronlund wrote:
| InPulse, Beeper. He isn't in this to build something, he
| is just starting it in order to sell it - as he always
| does.
| desireco42 wrote:
| I started using Amazfit years ago, love it and it delivers.
|
| I had Basis first and this is the most loved watch from me,
| then Pebble.
| bronlund wrote:
| Personally. If I were to use $100+ on a hackable smartwatch,
| I would much rather go for a Sensor Watch Pro than a Pebble
| :)
| beratbozkurt0 wrote:
| I'm curious, what sets it apart from other watches? The design
| look nice
| qwertox wrote:
| Privacy, it does not push data to the cloud. And also the ease
| of access to the data.
| lopis wrote:
| Focus on longevity and extensibility. Lots of people still use
| their original Pebbles from 10 years ago and the community
| continued to release content for the platform. Also, the
| batteries last a really long time.
| me_online wrote:
| Longtime pebble user here. The main things are the always-on
| ePaper display, long battery life (they claim this new gen's
| battery will last a month!), and the hackability. I personally
| love the user interface and charming animations!
| akagr wrote:
| Pebble was my first smartwatch, all the way back in 2015. It
| was fun and quirky back when it was first released. Then it
| stopped production for many years while smartwatch category
| grew. Now they're coming back with same/similar models as
| before.
|
| For me, its value lies more in nostalgia than anything else. I
| don't expect it to ever compete with the likes of my Apple
| watch for smart features, or a Garmin for activity tracking.
|
| That said, it's an e-paper display so battery life is pretty
| good. Plus it had (and probably will have) an active community
| of small apps and watchfaces, which kept (and probably will
| keep) it from becoming stale quickly.
| drum55 wrote:
| It's a very minor distinction, but they aren't a epaper
| display (low refresh rate, zero power to maintain an image),
| rather the technology is a sharp memory LCD (ludicrously low
| power, but high refresh rate). They're extremely neat and
| don't suffer from the washed out color and ghosting that
| epaper does, at the cost of needing ever so slightly above no
| power to keep an image displayed. I much, much prefer them
| even though Sharp doesn't really advertise them anymore.
|
| https://sharpdevices.com/memory-lcd/
| akagr wrote:
| Isn't e-paper the general category of low power displays? I
| understand that "e-ink" are a trademarked subset of the
| broader e-paper category, which also includes memory-in-
| pixel LCD displays which other watches like Garmin (and
| probably pebble) have. E-ink displays are only manufactured
| by eink corp, and are popularly found on e-readers, shelf
| price tags in some stores etc.
|
| I may be mixing terms in my brain, though. Happy to be
| corrected.
| drum55 wrote:
| I haven't really heard it being used like that, always
| heard e-paper being used as the specific e-ink displays
| and never anything else. The only time I've seen the (in
| my mind) confused messaging is on Pebble's own website, I
| still have my original Pebble Time somewhere, and that's
| a good part just down to how much I love those displays.
| I don't think I'd have used one for years if they were
| epaper.
| jsheard wrote:
| > The only time I've seen the (in my mind) confused
| messaging is on Pebble's own website
|
| Yeah, other wearable manufacturers who use the same
| display technology usually call it MIP instead. Pebble
| are pretty much the only ones who call it e-paper, which
| has led some to think theirs is a distinct thing, but
| it's just MIP.
| cubefox wrote:
| > Isn't e-paper the general category of low power
| displays?
|
| Yes, or more precisely: reflective displays without
| backlight. There were many such display technologies a
| while ago (when the Kindle took off and various companies
| tried to compete with E Ink), but most have since been
| abandoned.
|
| Pretty much all colored e-paper screens have much lower
| contrast than color printing on paper, since they mix
| colors by using can conventional RGB sub-pixels and
| darkening them individually, just like regular lit
| screens, which reduces the amount of reflected light.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| > Pretty much all colored e-paper screens have much lower
| contrast than color printing on paper, since they mix
| colors by using can conventional RGB sub-pixels and
| darkening them individually, just like regular lit
| screens, which reduces the amount of reflected light.
|
| Isn't that how color images printed paper works, too? We
| use inks (often in CMYK coloration, but a galaxy of other
| options exist) to subtract light from what would
| otherwise be reflected by a plain white paper.
|
| What makes e-paper screens worse in this way?
| drum55 wrote:
| They more or less have colored particles hanging around
| in goop and those get pushed around within a small sealed
| cell by electrostatic charges, there's presumably some
| fundamental limit on the total quantity of the colored
| particles within the cell that's quite low. I think
| modern displays have 4 different colored particles in
| each cell implying only a small portion of the contents
| is viewable most of the time. On paper you can have
| basically 100% saturation of whatever color you want in
| one area.
| cubefox wrote:
| > Isn't that how color images printed paper works, too?
|
| No. When you print a piece of paper some color, e.g. red,
| it will be completely red. But most e-paper screens will
| only be 33% red (optimistically) and 66% black. This is
| because physical pixels usually can't change color
| themselves, only brightness, so you use three of them,
| and darken the RGB components, to produce a colored
| pixel.
|
| For displaying white on color e-paper screens you will
| have three non-dark RGB sub-pixels, but each color
| component only reflects at most a third of the incoming
| spectrum, either red, green, or blue wavelengths, while
| white paper (or monochromatic e-paper screens) will
| reflect all three wavelengths everywhere.
| drum55 wrote:
| That's not really correct, modern color eink displays
| actually change color, there's different pigments inside
| each cell and others are created visually using
| dithering. Only the older type are monochrome displays
| with a color filter behaves like you're describing.
|
| https://www.eink.com/tech/detail/How_it_works
| jsheard wrote:
| Multi-pigment panels _exist_ but in practice nearly all
| color e-readers still use the filter-based panels,
| because they are so much cheaper. There are zero Kindle
| or Kobo models with the multi-pigment technology.
| drum55 wrote:
| The ReMarkable devices are E Ink Gallery 3 multi pigment
| display, I have one on my desk.
| jsheard wrote:
| I did say nearly all, and the price of the ReMarkable
| Pros reflects on how expensive the Gallery panels still
| are.
| cubefox wrote:
| Yeah, E Ink Gallery is the only real exception to the
| rule with full color support. (The store signage can also
| change colors, but they don't support color mixing, so
| there are just three or four colors in total.)
| Unfortunately, even after 10 years, E Ink Gallery is
| still far behind colored paper in quality. I think
| fundamentally their approach to e-paper (electrophoresis
| displays) is just not suited for full color.
| neobrain wrote:
| Besides what others already mentioned, it's the only smart
| watch with an open source OS supported by the vendor themselves
| (that I know of anyway).
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| The e-ink display is the killer feature. Week-long battery life
| and always-on readable display even in direct sunlight. Every
| other smartwatch is a tiny phone screen that dies in a day.
| Pebble chose the opposite trade-off: less flashy but actually
| useful as a watch. The open SDK and hackable firmware are the
| other half - you can write watchfaces and apps in C, which
| attracted a dev community that most wearables never get.
| c22 wrote:
| My old pebble lasted a week. I got one of the new ones in
| December and so far I've only had to charge it once!
| vel0city wrote:
| I had a couple of Pebbles in the past that are now broken, I'm
| considering buying one of the newer ones. One Pebble Steel
| which had a defect for a bunch of them where the screen would
| gradually start corrupting and a Pebble 2 where the rubberized
| buttons turned to mush after all these years.
|
| The thing I like about Pebble is the fact its not trying to do
| a million other things. The two things I really want in a smart
| watch is to be able to triage a notification/get an update
| without having to actually pull out my phone and have easy
| media controls on my wrist. Optimizing for that means it gets
| excellent battery life and comparatively low prices, because it
| doesn't need a ton of compute and giant screen and a million
| sensors constantly taking measurements to accomplish it.
|
| Its nice being able to still get messages and change the music
| and what not while you're doing something dirty or whatever and
| aren't about to pull out your phone. Doing yard work, wrenching
| on the car or motorcycle, lounging in the pool, riding a
| bicycle, etc. That's all I really want.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| On top of what others have said, the Watchface/App dev
| experience is pretty great. The OS provides a lot of
| compositing and animation features that encourage really lively
| and cute designs, and the Pebble app has a JS runtime that
| allows apps to do whatever phone-side stuff you need without
| having to build separate Android and iOS apps (or, as a user,
| install a ton of companion apps). Spin-up and iteration is
| really easy because pebble-tool manages building, deploying to
| QEMU, and running the phone-side code in Node.js so that you
| can launch and test your app end-to-end with one command.
|
| Having to write C on the watch-side isn't everyone's cup of tea
| but they are actively working on a replacement for rocky.js so
| that you can write everything in JS.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I never had an original Pebble but was always a curious
| observer. To me, the attraction is a device that is clearly
| _complementing_ a modern smartphone rather than trying to be a
| second phone on my wrist. I know lots of Apple Watches are sold
| sans-eSIM, and I get the appeal in very specific situations
| like a water park where I have to leave my phone in the locker
| but I can still wear a watch... the watch is now my gateway to
| texts, calls, Find-My, etc.
|
| But nonetheless, that is a rare occurrence, and I don't think
| for me it's worth paying the battery life and complexity cost
| of an Apple Watch (or similar full featured wearable) for that
| 1% use case. I'd rather have a simpler device that just focuses
| on health tracking and a few notifications, basically what
| FitBit was if it had a better battery and didn't suck.
|
| That it's hackable and there will likely be lots of community-
| maintained apps that link into services I use is gravy on top.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| > To me, the attraction is a device that is clearly
| complementing a modern smartphone rather than trying to be a
| second phone on my wrist.
|
| That's exactly why I have it. It's hard to get distracted by
| it as yet another screen in my life. Plus since I use an
| iPhone it currently doesn't do text or calls, it just alerts
| me if I have a call coming (and calendar alerts). Basically I
| call it my "advanced beeper."
| Onavo wrote:
| The attraction is that it's like the early versions of Android,
| you can do whatever you want with your hardware and there's
| nobody to tell you no.
|
| The app store is delightfully quirky and adding a watchface is
| just a matter of drag and drop. There's no Gatekeeper, or
| hundred of pages of Terms of Services and Privacy Policies and
| GDPR disclaimers you have to fill out. You don't have to
| sacrifice your first born child to Big Tech and nor do you have
| to beg for root permissions on your own hardware. Whatever
| goes, caveat emptor. If you install malware and brick your
| device (a very difficult thing to do given that it's a _watch_
| ), well, that's also entirely on you.
|
| It's similar to why OpenClaw went viral; you can do whatever
| the fuck you want with it, nothing is wrapped up in carefully
| sanitized corporatism, with everything locked down to a t and
| filled with cover-your-ass privacy and permissions declarations
| that are not worth the pixels they are displayed on.
|
| Nobody's around to nanny you and play authoritarian daddy with
| what you do with your watch. If you want to share offensive,
| pirated, or DMCAed watchfaces -- go wild. If you want to build
| a protest app to track government thugs and civil servants --
| all the power to you! If you want to turn it in to a sex toy
| controller to use during long boring church services -- well,
| that's between you and your faith, there's no Big Tech between
| God and your bedroom. It's just like the old days of Android
| and APKs and jailbroken iPhones. A return back to simpler days
| of open computing.
|
| Your grandma won't get as much out of this watch versus an
| Apple Watch, but if you are a real hacker at heart, this is the
| device for you.
| avh02 wrote:
| I still wish other smart watches behaved like a pebble, the
| interface was so intuitive you could use it to do the basics
| without looking at it most of the time.
|
| It's like trying something so good it ruins every other one for
| you. The UX was just so well thought through i don't know how
| to explain it.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Pebble was sort of the first/only smartwatch that are
| common+open enough && uses simplistic lightweight OS such that
| it'll last couple weeks per charge. Its competitors either
| didn't exist, weren't open(Xiaomi), or burned enormous amounts
| of power that they required daily recharges(Google/Apple).
| diego_moita wrote:
| You know the proverb: "jack of all trades, master of none"?
|
| For Pebble fans most of other watches sound like that. Pebble,
| o.t.o.h., is focused on doing well just the essential: always
| on reflective screen, long battery life, easy to develop, UI
| based on buttons instead of touch screens, being easy to
| program to,...
| dag11 wrote:
| For me, charm and character.
|
| I was an original Pebble Kickstarter wearer from 2012, then got
| the initial Time, then the first Android smartwatches (Moto
| 360!) then basically every Apple Watch from then to now. Even
| used Google Glass a few months in 2013.
|
| I like my wearables. I use features on my Apple Watch
| constantly: NFC payments, voice reminders, fitness and sleep
| tracking, make my iPhone yell out so I can find where I put it,
| etc.
|
| But not a single damn wearable I've had has captured a fraction
| of the charm the original Pebble and Pebble Time had. Their UIs
| are low-res by modern standards, and greyscale or largely solid
| colors, but wow.
|
| Dug up some videos as reference. Here's one that highlights
| what the core system UI aesthetic is like. Notice the
| transitions as you use the UI. I remember it feeling really
| snappy too, and it feels great to use a UI that moves like that
| with physical tactile buttons, as opposed to scrolling a
| Digital Crown or using the touch screen on an Apple Watch:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdRENEQcymQ
|
| And aside from the system UI, the community of apps that
| existed for it back then and no doubt will continue to grow now
| has a lot of charm too. The creators of all the apps are making
| them out of love, not to be a Top 10 on an Apple app store. And
| they don't exactly have a strong cohesive system UI to comply
| with unlike Apple. Human Interface Guidelines are wonderful for
| phones and tablets and for serious app ecosystems I depend on,
| but watches are Not That Serious as far as I'm concerned so the
| individuality and love within each app just fills me heart with
| joy every time I look down at my wrist.
| lopis wrote:
| > Many old Pebble apps/faces use weather APIs that no longer work
| (Yahoo, OpenWeather). The Pebble mobile app now catches these
| network requests and returns data from Open-Meteo - keeping old
| watchfaces working!
|
| That's some sweet quality of life fixes!
| open-meteo wrote:
| And we are very determined to keep the Open-Meteo weather API
| open-access indefinitely and don't share the same fate as many
| closed-source APIs like Yahoo or OpenWeatherMap.
| Raed667 wrote:
| just here to say i love Open-Meteo keep up the good work !
| ageitgey wrote:
| Thanks for providing such a great service. I use it in a
| totally different free, OSS project, and it's really great to
| have this option available!
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| Thank you!!!
| 0127 wrote:
| Somehow I've managed to avoid learning about Open-Meteo until
| now, this is really awesome!
| saidinesh5 wrote:
| > Also, don't expose it to hot water (this could weaken the
| waterproof seals), or high pressure water. It's not invincible.
|
| Aahhh. Finally the mystery of how my old pebble died is solved.
| Hopefully . One fine morning, the display came off. It was
| supposed to be waterproof and there was no puffed up battery
| either.
| usrnm wrote:
| How hot is hot, though? Boiling hot or taking it to a hot
| shower?
| that_lurker wrote:
| How hot is a hot shower?
| tmikaeld wrote:
| 40-45C
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Glue seal can easily loosen at 50 degrees C and a hot shower
| is 40-45C.. so it must have been very hot shower (or bad
| glue).
| apparent wrote:
| He seems to say not in a hot tub, but IIRC I've seen him say
| that showers are OK. Maybe it's because showers don't
| submerge the watch, even if the temp is similar? That is, the
| watch itself wouldn't heat up nearly as much in the shower as
| it would in a hot tub or bath.
| cptskippy wrote:
| Glue and seals weaken with exposure to temperature extremes in
| both directions. I found this out the hard way too.
|
| I spent all day out in below freezing temps, when I got back to
| my hotel room and my smartband (not pebble) started to warm up,
| the screen just fell off. Everything still worked and the
| screen was lit up. Fortunately I discovered it before I ripped
| the screen off on something. When I got home I was able to glue
| the screen back on and it's been operating just fine, of course
| it's probably no longer waterproof.
|
| Hoping this thing holds out until I get my Pebble.
| Fiveplus wrote:
| The return of com.getpebble.android.provider.basalt is a very
| nice development. It revives the legacy plugin ecosystem
| overnight without requiring original developers (many of whom may
| be long gone) to push updates. Moving the app store native and
| switching iOS weather to WebSockets are also solid wins for
| latency, but I'm most curious about the package ID reclamation.
|
| Has anyone else successfully recovered a dormant package name
| from Google Play recently? I was under the impression that once
| an original developer account goes inactive, those namespaces
| were effectively burned forever? Is that an incorrect assumption
| on my part?
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I'm sure it helps that the owner of the pebble package ID is
| Google, assuming all the developer accounts were part of the
| original Fitbit acquisition, and then Google acquiring Fitbit.
|
| I see they haven't handed over https://pebble.com though, that
| still forwards to Google's smartwatch lineup.
| wan23 wrote:
| I pre-ordered a round one which is going to be my third Pebble
| and I'm excited for it, but there is some really good competition
| nowadays. Casio makes a watch with similar display technology,
| solar power so the battery life is basically infinite (it doesn't
| even have a way to charge with a wire) and bluetooth time sync to
| your phone. It's not a smart watch so it doesn't have apps or
| notifications or customizable watch faces - the things that make
| the Pebble really fun - but as a watch it's hard to beat a GW-
| BX5600 if all you need is time-related functions like stop watch,
| timer, multiple time zones etc.
| simlevesque wrote:
| > if all you need is time-related functions like stop watch,
| timer, multiple time zones etc.
|
| But if you just need that, almost any watch will do. The Pebble
| is clearly not made for those people.
| wan23 wrote:
| I think it's made for those people as well as people who want
| a hackable customizable wearable.
| ge96 wrote:
| I've never been a watch, necklace, ring guy. But one time when my
| phone was destroyed, I wished I had a no-screen typing interface
| somehow so I could call an Uber and get home... alas it was not
| meant to be, had to figure out how to use the bus.
| raffael_de wrote:
| it is possible to call a Uber with a pebble watch?
| ge96 wrote:
| I don't know, was saying it generally like Apple watch seems
| to be an extension of the iPhone
| ge96 wrote:
| I also realize your point where Uber has its own app, it's
| not like a phone number you just call. So a "vibration
| input" type device or something small/maybe without a
| screen would have to deal with that problem too. Voice
| would be the easiest interface to talk to an otherwise
| brick.
| billfor wrote:
| Can this do NFC/tap to pay? That's all I use my smartwatch
| for....
| jsheard wrote:
| It can't, and I wouldn't hold my breath for such a small
| company being able to navigate compliance for contactless
| payments. The Pebble does use standard watch straps though, so
| you could get one of the ones with a programmable payment chip
| embedded inside.
|
| If that's _all_ you use your smartwatch for, you may as well
| skip the watch and get a payment bracelet or ring though.
|
| e.g. https://www.curve.com/wearables/
| Arelius wrote:
| Except not in the USA. To bad the rings looks nice.
| jamesbelchamber wrote:
| I used to use Curve but they became really unreliable,
| especially when paying for public transport, so I just
| switched back to a normal card.
|
| Shame because you can get some nice watch straps with curve
| integration, which would neatly solve the missing payment
| feature on Pebble watches.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Since this is _hacker_ news, I'll point out that you can use a
| solvent to remove the card part of a credit card leaving only
| the chip plus antenna. Then embed in a new housing of your own
| design.
| ihaveone wrote:
| Ya, and then attach it to the back of your watch...
| zikduruqe wrote:
| This. I seldom leave the house with an iPhone, and my Apple
| Watch with cellular is my primary "mobile" device. I want to
| leave the Apple ecosystem as my devices age out, and the one
| thing I would love to have is an NFC ring or bracelet to
| replace my Apple Watch.
| apparent wrote:
| Eric has said publicly this is not happening. Looks like he's
| making a watch that fits his use case, and since he always
| carries his phone that's not a priority.
| stavros wrote:
| I'm really excited about the Index. I don't love that it's
| disposable, but I really like the UX. I couldn't wait, so I made
| my own (obviously not a ring, but airtag-sized), and it's
| amazing. I have it in my pocket, I take it out, speak a little
| note, and it goes off to my AI assistant for whatever needs
| doing.
|
| That and the AI assistant have really changed how I operate day
| to day. I'm super excited about the Index, and I hope it has the
| same capability my app has (mostly, sending a webhook with the
| transcription with exponential backoff, so I'm sure all my notes
| will eventually be sent).
| p1nkpineapple wrote:
| can you give some more detail about the airtag-sized device you
| made? This is exactly what I've been thinking about doing to
| test the "idea" of the Index, but haven't figured out how to go
| about doing it.
|
| (Tried looking on your blog, but ended up instead reading your
| article about the little ESP8266 clock which convinced me to
| buy one to play with myself, thanks!)
| stavros wrote:
| Sure, I haven't written it up, but the code is here:
|
| https://github.com/skorokithakis/middle
|
| I'll take some photos, it's larger now than it will be,
| because I don't have a MEMS mic (and a small battery). It
| looks like this now:
|
| https://imgz.org/iACAKWj2/
| richardlblair wrote:
| I too am very excited. I had a voice recorder laying around and
| have worked that into my workflow over the past few months.
| Although, my AI assistant is a cobbled together set of python
| scripts.
|
| What are you using for your AI assistant?
| stavros wrote:
| I made my own, as I thought OpenClaw was a bit too insecure:
|
| https://github.com/skorokithakis/stavrobot
|
| I love it, it's amazing. I want to add a small section to the
| README about how to use it well (how to manage memory and the
| database, basically), but it's just fantastic. It has had
| basically zero bugs, as well.
| justanotherunit wrote:
| Interesting, would you mind sharing your architectural
| setup? How does your index communicate to your agent
| server, what is the main agent framework/engine used?
|
| Sounds like a cool concept to speak into your
| watch/wearable which automatically saves or performs tasks
| on the fly.
|
| What is the general execution time from:
|
| Prompt received -> final task executed?
| stavros wrote:
| So basically there's a /chat endpoint that goes to the
| LLM (a Pi agent), which has access to call specific tools
| (web search, SQL execution, cron) but doesn't have
| filesystem access, so the only thing it can do is
| exfiltrate data it can see (pretty big, but you can't
| really avoid that, and it doesn't have access to anything
| on the host system). There's a Signal bridge that runs on
| another container to connect to Signal, a Telegram
| webhook, and the other big component is a coding agent
| and a tool container. The coding agent can write files to
| a directory that's also mounted in the tool container,
| and the tool container can run the tools. That way you
| separate the coder from everything else, and nothing has
| access to any of your keys.
|
| You can't really avoid the coder exfiltrating your tool
| secrets, but at least it's separated. I also want to add
| a secondary container of "trusted" tool that the main LLM
| can call but no other LLM can change.
|
| This way you're assured that, for example, the agent
| can't contact anyone that you don't want it contact, or
| it can read your emails but not send/delete, things like
| that. It makes it very easy to enforce ACLs for things
| you don't want LLM-coded, but also enables LLM coding of
| less-trusted programs.
| poisonborz wrote:
| So the Pebble Duo was a one time thing based on the cache of old
| parts they found? Why... A lot of people would like a cheap small
| thin plastic watch. Most fans went after Amazfit Blips after
| Pebble went out for a reason.
| stavros wrote:
| I love my Amazfit Neo, if that's what you want.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Yup. I actually strongly prefer the look of the duo and
| consider the time to be ugly. Was fairly annoyed when I got an
| email saying that actually they can't deliver the watch I
| bought and would I like to pay more for the ugly one.
| (Although, some other folks on HN who did get a duo said it had
| quality issues, so I guess I dodged a bullet)
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Yeah I also find the time pretty ugly. I actually had a pre
| order for it, but cancelled when they revealed the final
| design (which was very much not to my taste, whereas I liked
| the preliminary design). I know Eric really likes it, and
| probably others do too, so I don't see it changing, but I
| would really like something of the more sharply rectangular
| design of the original Pebble. It looked so cool.
| creinhardt wrote:
| I wish someone would take all the Fitness sensors of the Apple
| Watch, and put it in something with a simple e-ink display like
| these Pebble devices. I don't care about apps, I just want a
| thing that measures my heart rate, notifies me if I get a call or
| text, has more than a couple days of battery life, and that's it.
| Lutzb wrote:
| Garmin watches might fit your requirements.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I've been a Garmin user for 14 years and I wish someone would
| take the GPS, heart rate, and IMU sensors out of my Fenix and
| put it in an open-source product.
|
| But GPS is really hard to get right, especially if you want
| weeks of battery life.
|
| Garmin have been a decent company (in the ethical/moral
| sense) to be a customer of for many years, but I think
| they're slowly losing that reputation. Yes, my 2018 hardware
| still does everything it did in 2018, no, I don't pay for or
| currently have a need for Connect+, but they're running out
| of hardware optimization opportunities to push people to new
| devices, and appear to be seeking alternative ways to
| maintain growth.
| justapassenger wrote:
| Watches are now roughly in the same spot as phones - form
| factory is largely complete and each new version is a small
| iteration over previous generation, with changes that most
| people don't care about.
|
| That being said - feature I LOVE added recently-ish that
| made really happy I've upgraded my many years old garmin
| was a flashlight (proper one, not screen brightness). It
| seemed like a gimmick but it's now one of most used
| features on my watch - walking dog at night, looking for
| kids toys under the bed, fixing things around the house,
| looking for things in the bag, etc.
| hobo_mark wrote:
| My pebble 2 has a heart rate sensor, and the battery still
| lasts for a week after almost a decade of daily use.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > I don't care about apps, I just want a thing that measures my
| heart rate, notifies me if I get a call or text, has more than
| a couple days of battery life, and that's it.
|
| https://repebble.com/watch says the Pebble Time 2 has
|
| > Heart rate, step and sleep tracking
|
| Isn't that what you want?
| creinhardt wrote:
| Basically! Is heart rate recorded to a Pebble specific app,
| or can it be synced with things like Apple Health?
|
| I guess the one other feature I like of the Apple Watch is
| the rings/daily fitness goals functionality. I'll have to
| look into the Pebble more to see if that's possible. I also
| like the background monitoring features the Watch has
| (hypertensions, etc.), but I'm assuming that's a little too
| much for the Pebble.
| shikshake wrote:
| I believe you can see that stuff on the Pebble app but you
| can't sync with Apple health. See this previous pebble blog
| post: https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-
| from-being-...
| z0mghii wrote:
| Withings scanwatch 2?
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Could it be manufacturee in USA?
| tanin wrote:
| Is there a watch that looks like Pebble or Garmin Venu (e.g.
| small and square) that is good for navigation? I want to walk and
| look at the watch to see which direction to go next. It would be
| great for traveling in a foreign city.
| nine_k wrote:
| At a different angle: can there be a "watch face" that shows a
| bit of map, and directions, while the proper navigation app is
| running on the phone?
| tanin wrote:
| Yup, I want to set a destination, walk, and only look at my
| watch for direction.
| milleramp wrote:
| Left handed mode, nice!
| apparent wrote:
| Sorry to see the timing slip once again, now from March to April.
| I get that hardware manufacturing involves uncertainty and risk,
| but they've been off launching new products instead of getting
| these out the door.
|
| The delay from December to April is pretty sizable, and it makes
| me take all of their current estimates with a huge grain of salt.
| After all, they might decide to launch a necklace between now and
| then!
| toisanji wrote:
| Do the pebbles have the same functionality as the Index ring? As
| in we can record notes with it?
| apparent wrote:
| Yep. I don't understand the appeal of the ring, assuming you're
| wearing the watch all the time. One-handed operation isn't
| worth much to me, and I have zero interest in a ring (which
| won't fit either when it's hot or cold).
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