Always-on e-paper screen (it’s reflective rather than emissive. Sunlight readable. Glanceable. Not distracting to others like a bright wrist)
Long battery life (one less thing to charge. It’s annoying to need extra cables when traveling)
Simple and beautiful user experience around a core set of features (telling time, notifications, music control, alarms, weather, calendar, sleep/step tracking)
Buttons! (to play/pause/skip music on my phone without looking at the screen)
Hackable (apparently you can’t even write your own watchfaces for Apple Watch? That is wild. There were >16k watchfaces on the Pebble appstore!)
Pre-Order: https://store.repebble.com/
https://github.com/google/Pebble
Still works to this day, the battery is shot so its at best 2days, but man what other smart watch still works and still is connected to my phone 8 years after I got it.
Most people with Apple watches have had to replace them since their first or second gen dont get updates.
I had a couple of them and gave them to a friend when they were bought by Fitbit. I'm so sad I don't have them anymore :(
I just ordered a replacement battery, going to attempt a swap and see if I can bring it back from the near dead!
Let me know how it goes!
The swap was challenging but not impossible. New battery seems to last about 6-8 days but I have only charged it once so I'm extrapolating.
I still can't get my calendar/timeline to work but otherwise it's so nice to have a real smartwatch again.
Is it still great?
in so many ways yes! Still did not find a way to fix the events on my calendar but week long battery life, notifications with a real vibration motor and always on screen are just so awesome.
I cant wait for the new one!