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Comment by jamstruth | Hacker News Reader

And here I just bought a Pebble Time. Guess I know why it seemed so cheap.

Hopefully this won't fragment the app marketplace and it will maintain universal app coverage across all the Pebble watches.

I wonder if it would be possible for an Android Wear watch to do something similar to the Pebble: Long battery life, no touch screen, e-paper display and run alright. I imagine the colour space differences between e-paper and LCD would cause issues though.

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Android is a much beefier OS than Pebble, which is an RTOS and doesn't scale down nearly as well. Pebble can produce products at such low prices and high-battery costs because they squeeze every drop out of their low cost hardware.

Most Android apps require more system resources than the entirety of a Pebble watch.

Aside, I'm continually impressed with Pebble, and disappointed with Android Wear products. Taking a phone OS and cramming it on a watch seems lazy, not innovative, and the experience has never felt great. What Pebble has done feels really innovative and polished -- they've come a long way.

The $100 Pebble Core is advertised at the link as an Android device.

It's also much bulkier than the watch and has no screen. It has a lot less to deal with and they can carefully control what apps it's running since the user has no input.

The Core is also advertised as lasting through "5 days of 45 minute workouts" - I imagine that 3:45 battery life isn't too tough to achieve

Yeah, their lighter platform seems to be a win for battery. But their cheapest product is going to be an Android widget, presumably because that is an easy path to a broader range of features.

I agree, every Android Wear watch I've seen has the same issues of lag, screen time-out time and battery life. They feel like they're trying to be something that can't exist yet because of power limitations, whereas the Pebble watches embrace their limits and don't try to be more.

I also don't understand why Google and Apple don't pursue the Pebble market. I think they made the perfect choices given all constraints. Screen always on, at least 10 days bat life (pts), not to big, water resistant. It's a nice watch as it is and then you get the smart part as extra.

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