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Comment by kuon | Hacker News Reader

I looked at Pebble and I was surprised to see they were out of business.

Which, from your point of view, isn't a bad thing. It's no longer dependant on external servers, yet still enjoys a lot of support, is easy to code for, plus it's superb as smart watches go. Charging 3 times a month rather than every night means you can track your sleep with it effectively as well.

The alta HR I bought this year and use for sleep tracking has 5 days of battery.

What is the battery life difference you mention? The lack of external servers or do you mean because it'll have linux on it now?

It lasts up to 10 days on one charge and the app has been decentralised, meaning it's not reliant on external servers.

Aah ok you meant the pebble in general. I agree I loved how long the pebble lasted! I was hoping there was some upgrade that made it last even longer haha. I might have to do this though, attempt to install linux on it!

I understood the comment to be referring to other fancier smartwatches that are designed around ~daily charging.

Aaah, makes a lot of sense! Thank you for the clarification!

It is a bad thing, because electronics get old and eventually die. There isn't really any other company like Pebble on the market (Garmin is probably the only contender here), featuring quality hardware, e-Paper screens and a hacker-friendly ecosystem. So when your watch dies, you'll be forced to downgrade.

(I'm a happy owner of Pebble Time, and I dread the day it lets out the magic smoke.)

Hah. You're not wrong about calling it a downgrade. Absolutely everything I've tried has been a downgrade from pebble. It's as if everyone is deliberately avoiding what was, for me at least, perfection.

IIRC, they were bought by Fitbit, who discontinued the Pebble line.

Not exactly. Pebble went out of business and their hardware products were not acquired. https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-relea...

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