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Posted by smig0 10 hours ago

Pebble Production: February Update(repebble.com)
244 points | 116 comments
lopis 8 hours ago|
> 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 8 hours ago|
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.
ageitgey 7 hours ago|||
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!
0127 5 hours ago||||
Somehow I've managed to avoid learning about Open-Meteo until now, this is really awesome!
Raed667 7 hours ago||||
just here to say i love Open-Meteo keep up the good work !
ThePowerOfFuet 6 hours ago|||
Thank you!!!
Fiveplus 7 hours ago||
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 2 hours ago|
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.

creinhardt 4 hours ago||
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.
yjftsjthsd-h 4 hours ago||
> 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 1 hour ago||
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 40 minutes ago||
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-...
Lutzb 4 hours ago|||
Garmin watches might fit your requirements.
LeifCarrotson 3 hours ago||
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 3 hours ago||
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 4 hours ago|||
My pebble 2 has a heart rate sensor, and the battery still lasts for a week after almost a decade of daily use.
z0mghii 1 hour ago||
Withings scanwatch 2?
stavros 5 hours ago||
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).

richardlblair 2 hours ago||
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 2 hours ago||
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 2 hours ago||
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 2 hours ago||
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.

p1nkpineapple 4 hours ago||
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 3 hours ago||
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/

apparent 2 hours ago||
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 24 minutes ago||
Do the pebbles have the same functionality as the Index ring? As in we can record notes with it?
apparent 15 minutes ago|
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).
wan23 6 hours ago||
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 6 hours ago|
> 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 5 hours ago||
I think it's made for those people as well as people who want a hackable customizable wearable.
poisonborz 4 hours ago||
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.
yjftsjthsd-h 4 hours ago||
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 2 hours ago||
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.
stavros 4 hours ago||
I love my Amazfit Neo, if that's what you want.
ge96 6 hours ago||
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 5 hours ago|
it is possible to call a Uber with a pebble watch?
ge96 4 hours ago||
I don't know, was saying it generally like Apple watch seems to be an extension of the iPhone
ge96 51 minutes ago||
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.
saidinesh5 7 hours ago|
> 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 7 hours ago||
How hot is hot, though? Boiling hot or taking it to a hot shower?
apparent 2 hours ago|||
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.
tmikaeld 6 hours ago||||
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).
that_lurker 6 hours ago|||
How hot is a hot shower?
tmikaeld 6 hours ago||
40-45C
cptskippy 5 hours ago||
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.

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