I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Tag: Pebble Watch

The pebble watch device range

Why are smart bands not more of a thing?

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When Pebble was a going concern there were a couple of smart bands that appeared to add functionality to the Pebble watch. I liked the idea of these although I’m not sure that they were particularly successful.

The Apple Watch has had a couple of similar add ons with bands that add video capability and one that adds gestural control. I looked at both and decided that, whilst they were both interesting, they were both bulky and I knew that in the end I wouldn’t use them and they’d end up on eBay.

Now I wonder why these haven’t become more mainstream? It would seem like an obvious place to put more functionality and controls, but no one seems to be doing that. I do wonder if a future Apple Watch will bring that kind of functionality. One thing is for sure though. They’ll have looked at it, or they are looking at it.

Pebble Again

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If you’ve been here before then you may have heard me mention the Pebble smartwatch and have some idea of what seems to be some kind of obsession with making a pebble device useful again. Well, I’m sad to say that I am still trying. I had previously given up, but I couldn’t resist and picked up another one of these on eBay for a few pounds.

I have some ideas for how I want to use it, but I kind of want to get back to seeing how things are going at Rebble. Especially after their hackathon.

Yet another Pebble

I suppose that this is really about an unswerving love of old, and even obsolete tech. I have a few ideas of what I’ll do with this one, and as things develop, I’ll probably post about how it works out.

Rebble hackathon

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I find myself inextricably drawn back to the Pebble ecosystem, if indeed you can call it that. I had the original Pebble, then the Pebble Time. I got rid of both. The I decided to try something different with an original Pebble that I put on my key ring. I tried that for a few months, but in the end I really had no need for it, it had no real use at all.

Then I heard about this Rebble Hackathon, and once more, my interest is peaked. Why? Well, I have no idea really. For a start I don’t currently even own a Pebble device. However, I’ve been looking on eBay for them again. Once more, why? I do not know. It is probably just an obsession of some kind. I even tried using a Pebble on my key chain.

Sadly that little experiment was never really a success.

Anyway, I’m interested in what comes out from it. The event is running now (18th – 20th November 2022). If you want to find out more here’s the event page.

Original Pebble revived

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I backed the original Pebble on Kickstarter, and used the original Pebble device for quite some time. It was great and very useful indeed, but I replaced it with the Pebble Time when that came out.

I had experimented with using the original with an old iPhone, and effectively converting the Pebble to be used as a keychain accessory. This is fairly easy to do with a 3D printed part.

However, on reflection, there was really no point to this, so I gave up this idea. It’s a shame, but if it serves no purpose, then there’s no real point in doing it.

So, whilst it still works just fine, it’s probably time to say goodbye to Pebble 1. Maybe someone else will have a good use for it.

Pebble Time Resurrected

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  • Problems with Pebble
    Problems with Pebble
  • Latest Pebble Face
    Latest Pebble Face
  • Handy Pebble Information
    Handy Pebble Information
  • Pebble Time Watch Faces - Elegant and fairly usable
    Pebble Time Watch Faces – Elegant and fairly usable
  • Pebble Time Watch Faces - Good for daily use
    Pebble Time Watch Faces – Good for daily use
  • Pebble Time Watch Faces - Binary watch face
    Pebble Time Watch Faces – Binary watch face
My Pebble Time over the years …

For some time I’ve thought that my Pebble Time smartwatch was done for. But just a week or so ago I managed to resurrect it. Partly just as an experiment to see if it might be useful or not. Partly as something to do at the moment.

So far it seems to be working ok. My next step is to see if I can connect it to Rebble as the original Pebble servers are long gone. More on that in the next few days I’d guess.

More posts about the Pebble Smartwatch

So the Pebble will last a bit longer then

Pebble’s latest iOS app (and I guess Android as well), removes the Pebble watch reliance on Pebble’s servers and means that the device can last a lot longer than the end of 2017, or at least that’s how it seems. I’m still hopeful that someone else will bring out a real alternative firmware for Pebble…

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Goodbye Pebble, I think

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For ages I’ve been trying to find better ways to make use of my Pebble Time. I’ve tried music related apps. There weren’t many. You can see above the ‘chordinator’, but there was also a metronome, and even a synth controller that I could never make work sadly.

I did stumble over some other briefly useful apps, like a headline app for BBC news, and a public transport app that was brilliant, although it seems to have given up now. They were good, but never amazing.

So now it seems that at some point in the not too distant future the Pebble will stop working completely. Which is really disappointing. Apparently Fitbit intend to keep things going for a year. That’s nice, but what’s going to be more interesting is what alternatives might spring up for Pebble users. Things like alternative operating systems. I’ve been doing some research on this. There were a couple that looked interesting.

AsteroidOS:

This is quite an interesting OS but doesn’t support Pebble, at least not at the moment anyway. It looks good, but as Pebble isn’t even listed I’m not too hopeful.

Cronologics:

This was another possible, but has now been bought up by Google so it looks like it’ll become a part of Android Wear. So it’s a dead end.

Pebble-Bits:

This is actually an iOS app that lets you create and install custom firmware. Which might be useful in time.

Aside from that it doesn’t look particularly good. I’m hoping that users will develop a community based solution to this. That’s the best outcome. The worst outcome is that Pebbles will be bricked and become obsolete. I really hope that doesn’t happen. I’d like to think that my Pebble has some life left in it. This is especially important for two or three reasons.

  1. I’d started looking into building my own Pebble app as I couldn’t find any that really did what I wanted.
  2. I’ve got a Pebble re-phone kit that I literally got out the day before Pebble got bought.
  3. I’m still waiting for a Deus Ex Aria smart strap from kickstarter

So it would be nice if the Pebble itself lasted a bit longer.

Time will tell what happens next. As for my own next steps, I still plan to tinker around with this stuff, and as I do I’ll post any results worth sharing.