I love my Pebble Time watch, and for the first several years I used all the bells and whistles: the sleep tracking, the Bluetooth alerts, even the mini games (like Tetris) from the Pebble Store.
But after about 6 years of ownership, I noticed that my battery could only hold a charge for 3-4 days, compared with 10-12 when I first got it.
Then I realized that I wasn't regularly paying attention to the sleep tracking data. And the Bluetooth alerts were a little noisy, especially since I'm in front of a laptop for most of my workday. And once Pebble went out of business and the Rebble app store became more of a gamble, I realized it had been a while since I used any apps.
So about a month ago, I bought a simple $40 Timex watch. And it dawned on me that it has the three things I really want: a clock, an always-on display, and a super long battery life.
I'm not entirely abandoning my Pebble. It's still nice to wear when I'm out and about and don't want to constantly check my phone for notifications. But it's nice to know that when it finally wears out for good, I've got an acceptable backup.
Had the same experience w/ the Apple Watch Ultra. I realized the main way I'm using the watch is as a stopwatch when I'm at the gym. For fun -- let's do a quick comparison:
Cheap Casio Watch:
- Never have to charge it
- Continuously shows me the minutes and seconds on the stopwatch
$700 Apple Watch Ultra:
- Needs to be re-charged daily
- Refuses to offer a minutes and seconds mode for more than 10-15 seconds at a time (it will keep counting, but will just show the minutes unless you continuously keep raising your wrist)
- Refuses to offer a settings option to adjust the above behavior (presumably because Apple's UI in general is basically "would you like 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or 60 minutes?" with very little thought given to the idea you might be able to actually comprehend how many minutes you want and that it might not be one of the Cupertino options)
Also since I'm already rambling -- just to ramble a bit more:
- Receiving "now's a good time to be mindful" or "time to take a break and stand up" alerts while I'm driving and (maybe because of the specific distance from my house) particularly when I'm about to merge onto the nearest freeway .... when the watch has a GPS and knows how fast I've been moving and where I am ... kinda leaves me speechless.
To balance:
It is still useful overall for seeing Maps directions displayed directly on the watch face -- and this would be the major use case for me. But it's enough of a PITA to keep it charged that I generally just use my phone instead anyway.
I got one of the Fossil Hybrid Watches. Looks like a normal watch (that was important for me) but has an eInk display in the background. I've disabled lots of notifications but it still keeps track of various data without a hassle and relays important messages to the watch face.
Battery lifetime on a charge is... I don't know, maybe I charge it once a week or every 10 days or something like that?! It's not so often that I find myself doing it conciously, I just sometimes take it of at night and leave it to charge.
I'm in a similar boat - I pretty much use the watch for HR tracking (as a proxy for stress), but otherwise keep things like the notifications disabled. This gets me about 20 days between charges
However the biggest problem is that the eInk screens seem to be a major failure point - even when working normally it seems to suffer massive burn-in making it unreadable after a few months.
My first watch had the screen die due to what I believe was trapped moisture (the weep-hole on the back is easily clogged) and just a few days ago my current watch also had the screen go bad.
It's really sad because the feature-set is almost precisely what I want, at exactly the price I'd like to pay
Similarly, I'd also suggest the Withings watches. I love mine. My battery lasts about a month but that also depends on how active its smart aspects are (like vibrating, the display, sport activities, etc).
Regarding notifications, I've had a bunch of small smart clocks (Xiaomi Band style), and I found notifications really intrusive in general, specially given my attention problems.
So finally I removed them all excepot for two that weren't as intrusive and also were very useful for me: phone calls and meeting/event notifications from calendars. That way I could keep my phone "silent", and also don't miss meetings (I have very bad time management abilities)
I now wear a cheap (~£20) vintage mechanical watch. It tells the time. It does need charging every day or two, but charging only takes a few seconds and doesn't require an adapter or power socket.
Hi, I'm working on How We Feel. I'm eager to make it more useful. If there is anyone on this thread interested in helping, please send a note to ben@howwefeel.org.
So far, I've learned that the biggest benefit of mood tracking is the process of tracking: taking a moment to reflect on how you feel, name the emotion, and think about why you feel the way you do. The next big opportunity is to teach people effective strategies for dealing with their emotions in a healthy way (even if that just means accepting the emotion without judgement).
As an aside, I also loved my Pebble and physical buttons :D
Hey thanks for work on the app! Is there any possibility of translating the app to different languages? I can drop a note to email if you want, since as I understand you are based on Yale's Mood Meter - https://moodmeterapp.com/science/ - it might have some more or less official translations in some languages.
I recently discovered How We Feel so I just wanted to thank you for your work. I really enjoy using the app!
I found a small bug in the analyze tab though. If you look at e.g. weekly and select a tab that is not the left most one, then scroll down, then tap the top of the display (the universal scroll to the top feature of iOS), the content disappears.
I still use the Pebble as my main smartwatch. I tried out a ticwatch, but got tired of it pretty quickly. The Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel were really great devices, with a great balance of capability and battery life.
The fact that it can easily last a day on a small fraction of the battery has often unexpected benefits too. Forgot to charge? np, just charge while doing something else for ~10 minutes and it will get you through the day anyway. Even less if it just needs to last overnight to use as an alarm the next day.
I’ve had an Apple Watch for years but I very rarely use it for anything I couldn’t do with my Pebble Time Round all those years ago. Set timers, control music, check the weather… all possible with a device that was cheaper, had a longer lasting battery and looked better (subjective opinion of course).
RIP Pebble. You were always doomed because you couldn’t have the kind of OS integration a first party device could, but you were the little watch that could.
I've always felt the Pebble was superior to the Apple Watch for controlling music playback, because you could control the playback with tactile buttons you can operate without looking at. With the Apple Watch you don't really have any choice but to raise your wrist (to make the screen turn on), look at the screen to know where to tap, and tap precisely on the right spot on the screen. With the Pebble you can just feel for the upper button and push on it. One of the ways in which my "upgrade" to an Apple Watch was actually a downgrade :\
Exactly. I looked for a long time to replace my pebble. Garmin sort of does it, but most of the time I actually control music playback via my AirPods, which don’t need to be in the right state in order to control anything.
When Pebble died, I switched to a Garmin watch. It replicated the features of the Pebble that I held most dear, most importantly, the long battery life and physical buttons.
Sadly, it isn't possible to develop apps for it, though. To this day, there isn't a watch that adequately replaced the full glory that is the Pebble.
I did the same, and I still miss my pebble, I miss how well it handled my calendar - and agenda. Now after a number of years with my fenix 5, without it really changing, I'm eyeing up an apple watch, to fill that agenda shaped hole on my wrist/
Same. Wish Apple made an AWU that was less focused on rugged sports and more focused on maximizing battery life.
It’s bizarre that xiaomi and amazfit make nice looking watches with 8x as much battery life as an Apple Watch. What is Apple’s problem?
I would have stuck with the amazfit but the physical buttons won’t control music (and I don’t trust their data policy enough to wear a gps-enabled device on my person 24/7).
Not for my model. I have an Instinct, which is their cheapest line and doesn't allow app development. Their more expensive offerings do, though, you're right.
I went for the Instinct because I use it heavily when backpacking in the wilderness, and it's the most rugged. Plus, it's inexpensive enough that if I bash it against a rock or something and destroy it, it's not a crisis.
Tangentially related: I'm extremely very interested in working with something like this for people with Alexithymia and related phenomena. I have the tech skills but have the condition which makes development a bit difficult; email in profile.
You're making me miss my Pebble again. There was a project I was looking at a little bit ago of someone who made a Pebble replacement, but I can't recall the name right now.
I've got one. For what it is, I recommend it. The fit and finish is very nice, especially for the price. It's a little bulky, and not waterproof. Not an every-day watch.
The software is basic, but I was able to recompile it and re-upload the same day it arrived in the post. If that appeals to you, you should get one!
I have a fantasy about creating some kind of habit tracker app for it. One day...
They're building a developer API to measure wellness and mood without user input.
I'm considering maybe trying it in an app we're developing, but I have no affiliation with them (aside from being in the same part of the world Aus/Nz).
> Our models are trained on a validated clinical rating scale but instead of needing the user to fill out a questionnaire the models predict the score based on the user’s digital phenotype.
> Sahha produces this digital phenotype by producing a holistic picture of the user’s movement, sleep and phone usage.
I don’t believe this will do anything helpful for my interests, though I can see how this could be used in a surveillance method to adjust things like insurance pricing.
Tangential but nevertheless related: I appreciate how as a culture we’re finally realizing, and sharing, as the author does here, that alcohol is not always a positive. In fact, for most people, it has a significant negative impact on mood and health.
I used to drink more but seeing broader studies and anecdotal notes like this helps me socially and culturally moderate in a healthier way.
> the Digital Crown on an Apple Watch could in theory be a great input. However, ... it's hard to know how far you have rotated it without looking for some kind of visual feedback from the watch
You could make each step give haptic feedback, which seems to be standard behaviour for stuff like time pickers
I miss my Pebble Time Round. Also broke when I wore it in a jacuzzi. What I miss the most was that the UI was so good. I could do many things without even looking at the watch, even setting a timer I think. On my latest watches the UI for setting the timer is terrible.
But after about 6 years of ownership, I noticed that my battery could only hold a charge for 3-4 days, compared with 10-12 when I first got it.
Then I realized that I wasn't regularly paying attention to the sleep tracking data. And the Bluetooth alerts were a little noisy, especially since I'm in front of a laptop for most of my workday. And once Pebble went out of business and the Rebble app store became more of a gamble, I realized it had been a while since I used any apps.
So about a month ago, I bought a simple $40 Timex watch. And it dawned on me that it has the three things I really want: a clock, an always-on display, and a super long battery life.
I'm not entirely abandoning my Pebble. It's still nice to wear when I'm out and about and don't want to constantly check my phone for notifications. But it's nice to know that when it finally wears out for good, I've got an acceptable backup.