Pebble is officially back on iOS and Android | Hacker News Reader

Pebble is officially back on iOS and Android

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113 pointsvlod16 comments

13 years ago?! Where does the time go. Unfortunately my original Pebble band deteriorated, but I did charge up my Pebble Time and it seemed to be working, will give it a sync for old times (pun) sake. I have a Pebble 2 Duo in route, I wasn’t much of a programmer 13 years ago so looking forward to doing some development on it (in C no less!).

> Unfortunately my original Pebble band deteriorated

Pebbles always used standard 22mm watch straps so that's an easy fix if you feel like reviving it.

Except the Pebble Steel which had a weird center lug

I'm interested in making something for my Pebble as well, but am hoping to avoid C and use something like Kotlin Native or use it as an excuse to finally learn Rust.

Rust might be possible, but Kotlin Native has a GC, and definitely will not run on a microcontroller. Developing the tooling to allow writing a Pebble app in rust does not sound like something someone who has never even written rust would likely to be well-equipped to take on either, but I'm all for ambitious projects!

I bought Pebble time many years ago, it arrived with the front panel gaping open, it wasn't properly attached to the watch body. I emailed them about this and it took weeks for them to reply... giving me a boilerplate answer. I had to spam as many people in the company as I could including the CEO, to get a replacement.

Never again.

Not sure why you’re downvoted so hard

Small companies making niche products should not get a pass when they have bad service just because it’s not made by one of the big guys.

Had the same crap experience with Thursday boots. The founder goes on podcasts touting nonsense thinking he is the next zappos while customer service is compete garbage when there is a problem.

I bought a pebble when it first came out. Loved it. But this new one is way too late and too expensive to care about.

There is a common sense to support indies therefore negative comments for improper customer support are seen as toxic activity by wide. Since you don't want to stress a single individual.

There are also big-corp. products which are intentionally killed or abandoned. Many people get damaged. In the end all of us pay some price for the sake of progress. Otherwise nobody would dare to innovate or try to sell new stuff.

I think it is “audience capture”, a lot of the “hackers” on here are adult children and can identify themselves too much with this little indie company. After all, they would execute decisions the same way they would have done; recklessly. It’s the tech bro spirit.

https://xcancel.com/ericmigi/status/1979576965494710564

The actual link: http://repebble.com/app

(Edited: as the Rebble project just uses the Pebble app)

On Android, should I give a try to GadgetBridge, which seems both more open but way less official, instead of the Pebble app?

And by the way, why not make the Pebble app open source? I don't see any compelling reason.

Not impressed to see the official Pebble app and app store be closed source once again. Looks like Pebble is taking the Google Play route by making it inconvenient to use the underlying open source software without a proprietary service.

The underlying library (libpebble3) is open source, and Rebble has plans to fund their own app based on it. I plan to switch to that once it's ready.

In the meantime, I believe GadgetBridge is more limited, so I'm planning to stick with the official app for now.

I've used Gadgetbridge with the Pebble and many other compatible smartwatches, would recommend.

Installing the Pebble SDK: https://developer.repebble.com/sdk/

Tutorials: https://developer.repebble.com/tutorials/

Examples: https://developer.repebble.com/examples/

Been using it for a month with my pebble time. No health features yet but everything else more or less works. The underlying library that actually handles the comms with the pebble is open source so it's easy to add new features and fix bugs yourself.

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