Tag: pebble

Smartwatches: after the Pebble on to wear OS

Pebble time and Ticwatch pro

Since the pebble I have been a bit fed up with the selection of smartwatches.

Originally I kickstarted the Bangle JS 2 smartwatch then bought the TicWatch 3 pro, but the battery life just frankly annoyed me so much and sent it back to get the Amazefit GTR 4.

I liked the Amazafit GTR 4 because the battery life was 3-5 days but the setup was something else. It doesn’t run Wear OS but I was fine with this because battery life made a big difference.

There is a review I read after getting the watch which sums up the problems with the watch. I like to hack and customise things but the options were insane. Then to add to this was the apps which included the default Zepp app and another one to pick up on the shortcoming of Zepp. Ultimately there were so many options but some of the basic things I expect were not covered.

Amazafit-GTR4 smartwatch

Replying to messages by voice wasn’t possible, although the watch does support voice commands and even Amazon Alexia integrations. The other thing which got me was the calendaring. With the pebble, the calendar was always up to date and I could trust it to know what’s next. With the Amazefit the calendar only updated when I opened the Zepp app, stop the calendar sync and then re-enabled it again. My calendar changes sometimes hourly so an updated calendar is super important.

In the end I got so fed up with a watch I couldn’t really trust, and finally I made the decision to sell the watch on ebay after reading  reviews about the new TicWatch 5. I decided the reasonable battery life, quick charge, wear OS 3 support was enough to convince me to switch (although I am wondering if wear OS 4 will make it to the watch). Its great to have proper sleep as android support again too.

Ticwatch pro 5

Its still early days but  I do miss some things like the automatic workout stuff, I have no idea what to put diaboloing under in my workouts. But generally if I’m charging the watch every day while in the bathroom, everything should be great.

The fast charge really has made a big difference and makes up for the smaller battery life. I can see this working when away from home due to cheap USB chargers (unlike the Oura). But that element of trust when looking at my notifications, calendar and tasks is something which can’t be underestimated.

Sorry Pebble Rebble

Pebble time and Ticwatch pro

Over the last few months, I kept using my Pebble watches for many things but over time every single Pebble 2 (I have 2 which still kinda work) died, even with no buttons.The last survivor is the Pebble time but it got to a point where I need to charge it everyday and partly in the day. I looked into moving the battery from some of the dead Pebble 2’s to the pebble time but its so simple.

The pebble is a great smartwatch but I had to look at my options, so decided to look at the hybrid smartwatches again and wasn’t impressed. After looking at smartwatches which have longer battery lives, I found a number changes and low power modes increasing the battery lives from 1 day to a 3-5 days.

In the end I bought the Ticwatch Pro 3 Ultra with Wear OS (automatically updated to wear 0s 3), although I did originally buy the Samsung Galaxy watch 4 and considered one of the Huawei smartwatches, but I decided I should stick with Wear OS (even with the battery drain). I had hoped the Google Pixel watch would be the answer to my needs but was let down.

Idle mode on the pebble time and ticwatch pro 3

The idle mode seems to be the key to battery usage, and the viewable screen on the ticwatch 3, although not as clear as the epaper screen of the pebble time. Is still good even at extreme angles.

Its a shame having to say goodbye to the rebble (post pebble community, they were amazing and the rebble software engineering is incredible. But it had to happen, as little things like not knowing who is calling and not being able to reply to non-sms messages (signal for example) was grinding on me. The health side is useful but mainly covered by the Oura ring.

Fixing the pebble buttons by leaning on the community

My Pebble with Sugru

I am still holding on to my pebble 2 smartwatches, although I have said in my new years resolutions. I was going to find an alternative to the pebble watch.

I still haven’t found anything. I had hoped the new Android Wear 3.0 and the Fitbit buy might have done something positive in this space. However its not happening.

There was a study I took part in recently from Dr. Susan Lechelt of Edinburgh University about IOT & connected devices after they become non-supported, unusable, broken, etc. Of course I won’t go into details but through-out the study it made me revisit my ongoing task to fix the pebble smartwatch.

Broken pebble 2 smart watches

The pebble community is incredible, you only have to look at rebble to see how amazing. iFix it came up with guides to fix most of the most common problems including my pebble 2 button failures. So with this, I finally decided to skip the 3D print your own buttons which I had planned once I get back into work and bought them at Shapeways.

Pebble 2 and new buttons

After ordering 2 buttons and identifying two of my pebble 2 watches really just need new buttons, I’m ready to go this weekend – or maybe one of these weekends in summer.

Looking forward to extending the life of the pebble smartwatch like how I have extended the life of my Pacemaker device way beyond its limitations.

Keeping the Pebble smartwatch alive

Pebble watch fix

My last pebble 2 smartwatch suffered a number of button problems. Luckily I was able to fix it with Sugru moldable glue. The pebble is showing a lot of wear and tear.

My Pebble with Sugru

I’m still looking for an alternative to Pebble smartwatches, but the there is simply nothing close, even the new Fitbit is LCD based. Although I’m considering maybe now I have the Oura ring, maybe I could rely less on the health and tracking parts?

 

My last pebble smart watch… again?

Broken pebble

Today my pebble 2 smartwatch broke while playing with the diabolo in the garden. The screen came straight out the frame. Not sure why but I did put it back but found the screen was dead.

As I thought my smartphone was still connected to the watch via bluetooth and was responding to the button presses and battery charge.

However without a screen I’m forced to use my very last pebble smartwatch. The Pebble time kindly donated from Ahmed, who got a Apple watch. This is why although I did say the previous pebble was my last, I luckily had this backup. However this is the last. Lets hope the hybrid smartwatches are better than Fossil’s attempt.

Broken pebble with last one

On buying the Fossil hybrid HR watch

fossil hybrid HR smartwatch face

During the seasonal period “I bought” a Fossil hybrid HR smartwatch. It was meant to replace my pebble smartwatch but it never came. I made the decision to give it a try after trying it on in the Fossil store in Manchester.

I found it online also found a discount code from Fossil for first time purchases. Ordered it and expected to come back home after xmas to a little present from myself. The Fossil invoice said it takes 4-5 business days

However after lots of chasing weeks after, I finally got a reply saying they had cancelled the order (without telling me) because they were completely out of stock for that model. It was frustrating  but they finally offered me a discount when it comes back into stock. However the discount was for less than my original discount.

I think I would be more annoyed if I hadn’t read this updated review of the smartwatch. I realised one feature the Fossil didn’t have was the ability to reply to messages or emails. Its something I use on my pebble a lot and seeing the message is useful but sending an acknowledgement of some kind is pretty essential.

Like the Motiv ring, being an early adopter can be troublesome and in this case its time to wait and see what others do in the hybrid smartwatch space.

Down to my last Pebble smartwatch

Pebble 2 with and without a glitch

It was bound to happen but the last few days my pebble 2 watch has experienced a number of very bad glitches. The last glitch made it unreadable and although it was still working as normal which makes a difference from when the last two caved in on themselves.

So I think its time to stop buying old pebbles and maybe look at the hybrid smartwatch market instead.

To be honest I haven’t bought a pebble for quite some time, as I have happily taken from friends who no longer have use for them. The one which broke came from my line manager and my friend Ahmed. Gave me his colour Pebble time, which wil be my last after my pebble 2 white, which I had in storage.

My last lot of pebble watches side by side

Could a hybrid smartwatch be a replacement for the pebble?

fossil hybrid HR smartwatch face

I was reading about the Fossil hybrid HR smartwatch recently, and on the face of it (pun intended) it looks like a good smartwatch with all the features I would be after to replace my pebble smartwatch.

What’s the difference between a hybrid smartwatch and a regular smartwatch? In the hybrid category, Fossil’s Hybrid HR mixes physical watch hands with an always-on display that shows information and notifications. It almost feels like an old-school Pebble watch fused with an everyday analog-style watch.

I always swear by eink for these type of things, and I’m happy to hear its using eink too.

Keeping a smartwatch charged is incredibly annoying. Fossil’s newest line of hybrid smartwatches may have found an answer, and it’s E Ink. The Hybrid HR’s added display feels less like a screen and more of an extension of the watch, the sort of basic readouts that you might expect on a digital watch. Or, like what Google’s Wear OS watches offer, but in E Ink. To be clear, though, this isn’t Wear OS. It almost reminds me of what the TicWatch Pro tried for by layering an always-on display on top of a feature-packed smartwatch, but the Hybrid HR looks a lot nicer.

Earlier this year, Google reportedly paid $40 million for Fossil smartwatch technology that could enable hybrid watches. The Hybrid HR looks like it is, indeed, the watch tech that earlier reports thought Google was interested in… and it’s here now.

I will be keeping en eye on this category, because although I like the Hybrid HR, I’m not so keen on round faces and I’d need to get a sense if theres sleep tracking support? Or more so if theres going to be a standard for watch apps like WearOS and the Pebble OS.

Pebble 2 smartwatch won’t re-connect after Android 10

Pebbles growing in work

I like many Google Pixel users recently got the Android 10 upgrade. It was smooth and everything was in order except there was a notification that the Pebble/Rebble smartwatch software may need to be upgraded as it might be incompatible with the Android 10.

What follows was a long painful process trying to pair the Pebble 2 with my Pixel 2 phone. It took forever and ended up with me unpairing both rebooting both and repairing the whole lot again. Nothing was lost in the process but its a real painful process and I thought, once its done, its done forever.

However I was wrong. It seems like this happens every few weeks? Others have suggested it happens when the Pixel doesn’t see the pebble for a little while. Someone started a bug issue with Google, thankfully and I added my own comment to the growing list.

If you are having similar issues, do add a comment to show Google there is a problem and maybe the Bluetooth LE stack might be at fault? Although I’ve not had a problem with my Motiv Ring yet?

Google takeout to the rescue?

My Motiv ring on my hand

So recently I’ve gone into Quantified Self overload with my new Motiv Ring, added to my Pebble smartwatch for sleep tracking.

The ring is very good, but the app isn’t the best, its seems to work but isn’t very clear when its not syncing with the ring. Also I knew the 2 day battery was going to be a pain but to date I’ve been charging it every 2 days and never got to the point where its gotten below 44%.

As the app is pretty rubbish, I have sent everything to Google fit. I pretty much have everything synced with Google fit now.

The first time I noticed it was all working, was when I looked at sleep as android which I use with my pebble smartwatch and noticed my heart rate over the top of my sleep data.

Sleep data with heart rate
I warn you the sleep is a mess due to my flu I currently have… also why I’ve not blogged those great conferences I’ve been to recently.

Likewise I recently hooked up my Withings/Nokia iot scale to Google fit. The scale has its own app which isn’t bad but frankly its not great. It suffers from the similar problems as most of the quantified apps attached to a device or service; they want to be the centre of the world. Reminds me of my Fitbit which import everything but export little.

I understand Google fit is mining the heck out of my quantified data but with Google takeout, I can get the raw numbers in one place. Everyone wants to sync with Google fit and the dashboard view is far better than what everyone else right now.

I’ve also set it up to send me an update every 2 months. Now that’s pretty neat. Would I pay for a service to do this? Yes I would, how much is the question…

I decided to get the Motiv Ring

Oura Ring vs Motiv Ring

I have been considering something else to help track different activities, since I lost the Mi Band 1. The pebble smartwatch is great for this but there is no way I can wear it while playing volleyball. I also found using gadgetbridge more painful than it needed to be.

While keeping my eyes open for alternatives, I seen Oura but not the Motiv. After reading about it against the Oura and then further reviews. I decided its worth trying. FIDO and 2FA swung it for me, so put down the money and bought one. I’m looking forward to giving it a proper review once I get it and try syncing data, etc. Hopefully its more spa proof than the pebble.

The pebble maybe water resistance but not spa resistance…

Dead pebble

Sadly its the 2nd Pebble smartwatch I have lost to my love of spas. First one died during a spa visit in the Midland hotel, weirdly about a year ago. I instantly got another one exactly the same as my kickstarter version. It worked great but I didn’t learn the lesson and kept wearing the smartwatch at spas and swimming pools.

Then a few days in a hotel spa in London and Liquidrome in Berlin, caused my smartwatch to fail again.

Dead pebble

Looking at the damage I think its the intense steam of the steam room (to be fair, was in the steam room for over 30mins) mixed with the heat of a sauna. Then floating in a salt water pool just killed it for good. I really should have done the bag of rice trick but I was mitte, Berlin and well bags of rice wasn’t easily available at midnight while leaving Liquidrome.

After a few days in Berlin with no smartwatch I realised how much I missed it and looked online to get a replacement. Black pebble 2’s were closer to the 400 pound mark, while the white one was less than half that brand new. So I got a white one.

All the my pebbles
From left to right, My dead pebble from 2017, then my new white pebble and finally the one which just died in Berlin

I did spend some serious time looking at alternatives to the pebble but couldn’t find a decent alternative for anywhere near the price. My list was simply this…

  • Non LCD, so I can get more than 3 days battery on a charge
  • Basic apps to do sleep/fitness tracking, read Google tasks, etc
  • Clear display in sunlight and darkness
  • Replacement straps which are not custom to the device
  • Android WearOS support to get notifications, etc

Nothing too complex but the smartwatch still seems lacking in diversity. As most seem to be clearly copies of previous with beefed up specs. I even consider the Fitbit charge but I hated the straps and the size was massive.

Love your pebble, don’t want to see it turn into plain watch? Setup a rebble account now!

Pebbles growing in work

If like me you love the pebble and although I hate that Fitbit bought them, can’t really slate their support to keep the watch alive and working with the rebble team.

The Rebble team have been literally everywhere urging pebble users to create an account on the rebble servers before the pebble servers are switched off for good.

The Rebble account system is up and running, and now is the time for you to create your accounts. Head over to Rebble Auth and log in using your preferred site. You’ll then be asked to link your Pebble account. Please do: we will use this to import information from the Pebble servers before they shut down in order to help make the transition smoother.

It is especially important for developers to link their Pebble accounts now. Once the Pebble services shut down at the end of this month, we will no longer be able to identify developers who did not link their accounts, and so we will be unable to let them update or otherwise change their apps.

We are also going to use the number of accounts created to assist us in determining service usage and attempt to validate our assumptions about the number of users we expect to see.

That’s all there is to do right now: there is no app to install, and we are not yet ready for users to switch over to Rebble services. We will be sure to update you when we are!

Do it now, it takes a minute or so and will save you a lot of heartache later!

Dead pebble…?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cubicgarden/24449307698/

On my leui half day, I decided to hit the Spa – keep me away from work stuff. Knowing the Pebble is waterproof I was kept an eye on how much time I was spending in the Steam room. To be honest I’ve used in many spas and swimming pools no problem but today it was stuck on the preference screen. I held the left button in and it felt weird and then collapsed in on its self. unfortunately (or stupidly) I did this while in the jacuzzi. It wasn’t in the water but I got the feeling my wet finger might have caused some water to go inside.

Later I tried to start it up after leaving it in the locker with ventilation, but it didn’t help as its now totally dead. Although I haven’t tried the bag of rice water damage trick.

Dead pebble 2 watch

It feels like my arm is naked right now and having to look at my phone to see the actual time or why its buzzing is almost as weird. I had thought about buying another pebble 2, now they are not being made. Looks like I’ll be doing that now, just hoping it will reach me before I go to Madeira. I guess thats the point of Amazon Prime?

Update – The next day

Dead pebble watch

So I hooked up my dead pebble to the charger and it kicked into action. After a long time and looking up the pebble SOS site with a bunch of searching the pebble forums; I was able to get it repaired with my phone again and usable again. I say usable but its never going to be waterproof again.

Dead pebble watch

I also noticed the rubber seal which I assume protects the inners of the watch is coming loose; plus the battery is depleating far quicker than usual. After half a day the battery was down to 50%. I’m assuming it might be the bluetooth discovery trying to connect to my phone killing the battery but I wouldn’t be suprised if it was down to the water damage in someway.

Right now its usable but the back button doesn’t work at all, even pushing the microswitch inside does nothing anymore. This means any sub menus can’t be reversed. I actually found the only way to get back to the clock, is to open the pebble app on my phone and switch the clockface. Not ideal but this means it can work enough for a short while, as notifications and messages automatically switch to the clock after a while.

It could be worst I guess…?

There’s life in Pebble still

Pebbles growing in work
Me, Jimmy and Alex – Photo credit to Jimmy Lee

Its ironic that since Fitbit bought Pebble and even Vector. There has been a bunch of interesting projects to keep Pebble going. Even Fitbit have been friendly to the idea of keep it going once they switch off their servers later this year.

At least two projects are hot on my task list.

What I find really interesting is the amount of Apple watch users who have switched to Pebble. First it started with my line manager (phil) who bought a pebble 1 a while ago, scratched it then sold it to me. He then bought a Apple Watch to go with his new apple phone; but it wasn’t long till he was frustrated with the charging and not being able to see the screen without the shake. I made clear my reasons for kickstarting the Pebble 2 and left it at that.

One day he totally surprised me one day with a pebble 2 watch in white and green. Good choice I said, even with the fear of what Fitbit would do with Pebble still looming.

I also sold my old pebble 1 watch to Andy at work with the warning of what Fitbit might or rather not do, but he was happy with the price.

Third was Jimmy, who had a old classic Casio watch he use to wear. He one day rocked up with a black pebble 2 watch and suddenly I felt the waters was turning.

Pebble 2.0

But the final surprise recently was with a Apple die-hard, Alex. Alex has apple stamped on his heart; me and Jimmy once had a conversation about the turning tide of pebble watches in work and thought who could be next? Jimmy did suggest Alex and I said nahh never, too tied to Apple. I even remember having a conversation with Alex about the Apple watch vs Pebble. I somehow forgot Alex use to own a Samsung Galaxy S4 plus a long time ago, mainly for VR.

He agreed on the advantages, and as designer to designer we critiqued the design decisions of the LCD screen and wondered if jobs would be happy with the one day battery? (to be fair me and Jimmy had a similar discussion before he turned up with one) Any way, that was a while ago and I almost fell out my chair when recently Jimmy announced Alex had ditched his Apple watch for a Pebble 2. I honestly thought he was kidding then I saw it on him.

Jimmy & Alex also have found services doing interesting custom watch faces, but I’m on the look out for more diverse apps (makers would be a plus). As I’d really like to see more things like ifttt on pebble. For example why not Monzo, Paypal balance status?

Pebble 2

Right now you can buy a Pebble on Amazon for between £40 – £90 depending on which one you get. I’d also say if you were considering a smartwatch, the pebble is still the only one I would consider even now.