Google recently open sourced Pebble and today, Repebble has put some of the watches up for preorder.
Genuinely considering it as I love e ink, lightweight, long battery life, and open source
I understand that the watch operating system is open source. However, it seems that the watch will connect to a companion smartphone app. Do you know if the app is a requirement and/or if the app will be open source?
Gadgetbridge is compatible with Pebble devices
IIRC, it has a reflective LCD, not epaper display.
Core 2 Duo
- 1.2" black/white e-paper screen
Core Time 2
- 1.5" 64 color e-paper screen
Am I missing something?
The watch featured a 32-millimetre (1.26 in) 144 × 168 pixel black and white memory LCD using an ultra low-power “transflective LCD”
The problem is that e-paper is a category of displays, and some companies label reflective LCDs as “e-paper”. Which is subjective (and I personally heavily disagree with that categorization, cause then LCD clocks and Gameboys have “e-paper” displays, too).
But in the comment I responded to it was said Pebble has “eink” display, which is categorically wrong, as that is a very specific proprietary technology, which is e-paper in traditional sense, like the ones in Kindles.
Your response says, “not epaper” which is categorically wrong. I assume you meant to say “eink”
As I mentioned earlier, whether a screen type is considered e-paper is subjective. And in my opinion, reflective LCD isn’t a type of e-paper. You may disagree, but it’s not “categorically” wrong.
I believe these are sharp’s memory in pixel lcds. They’re much lower power than something like the game boy screen as each pixel retains its state and doesn’t need to be refreshed from the controller constantly. I actually like these little screens quite a lot. Worse pixel density and don’t look as good as e-ink when static, but still really Low power and can refresh way faster and smoother when needed.
I’m not criticizing the screens, they are ok and I loved my Pebble Time Steel until the battery swelled and popped off the screen. I’m just saying that calling these e-paper is a deceptive marketing strategy.
I’m still very confused about why we needed PebbleOS for this. It’s been like 10 years and no one could come up with any comparable software? They whipped up the hardware design in a few months.
From what I’ve read from Eric since this relaunch was announced, he just wants a new pebble and so do some of the userbase. This project isn’t really intended as a viable, polished product. Rather it’s a niche thing made for a Core audience of nerds.
Disclaimer: I’m one of the nerds this is intended for. I instantly pre-ordered a watch because it’s a pebble. I7
