
Getting Ready for Rebble - mike-cardwell
https://rebble.io/2018/06/13/get-ready-to-rebble.html
======
mike-cardwell
Basically, Fitbit are shutting down the Pebble servers today. Peoples watches
will continue to work but they wont be able to control apps using voice
anymore and they wont be able to install new apps.

They've been working with Rebble.io to hand over services. They're not ready
yet, but you may want to sign up to rebble.io before pebble goes away today in
order to transfer your data across.

I knew nothing about this deadline until this morning when I got an app update
for the Pebble app on my phone and I read the listed changes.

~~~
mike-cardwell
FYI, the timing in this comment is out. I actually submitted this post and
made this comment yesterday, about 24 hours before it is suggesting.
Apparently the post was put in the "second-chance pool" by HN and resubmitted.
So, the deadline has passed now.

That said, it's still worth knowing about Rebble. Once their services go live,
you will apparently just be able to click a link on your phone, and the Pebble
app will be re-configured to talk to the Rebble servers.

~~~
SyneRyder
Has the deadline actually passed? Looks like the Pebble servers are still live
as I type this (Snowy still works for me) - so if you have a Pebble, _do it
now!_ A Rebble account is free, but dictation & weather services will be
$3/month or $33/year.

------
taneq
I'll always have mixed feelings about Pebble. Their hardware was great (I
still wear my Pebble Time Steel every day) and their developer support was
awesome, but their attitude towards customer privacy was awful (the privacy
policy basically said, in a very sneaky weaselly way, that they would record
anything they wanted off your phone, store it for as long as they wanted, and
use it for whatever they wanted, including selling it to third parties if they
wanted.) I ended up never using the official app for this reason and it
definitely reduced the usefulness of the watch as well as leaving a bad taste
in my mouth.

This is also yet another illustration of how vulnerable "IoT" / "cloud"-based
products are to changes in the market. The producing company crashes or gets
bought out and your toy suddenly doesn't work any more.

Still, it's awesome to see the platform being opened up. It looks like at
least some of the original engineering team are there, maybe there's a future
for the platform after all.

~~~
solarkraft
The hardware is great and they got the concept of a smartwatch just right
(something Fitbit is struggling with even with their latest offering), but I
disliked the software in a bunch of ways ("Hey, how can I access the
microphone stream? What, I can only get the transcription?", "Okay, I'm fed up
enough with X to go into the OS code and change it, where's the repo? What,
it's closed?!)". Plus all of their support ("Hey, where can I get a
replacement glass cover and battery? What, you don't sell parts?").

Infuriating for a product that is called a "geek watch" at every chance.

It's amazing that Rebble is tackling the software part. Ideally I would like
to see a smartwatch OS that can run the same apps on different hardware.

~~~
taneq
Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that the original team had the right idea but
then "smartwatch is the new iphone" fever kicked in. They could have settled
for being a $10 million company selling a practical, hackable smartwatch, and
they'd still be around today. Instead they tried to compete with Apple Watch
and Android Wear and their unlimited budgets, and in doing so they forgot what
made them special: Open platform, long battery life, reasonable prices.

