> One other great thing that Rebble did was in 2017 - they archived and started hosting a copy of the Pebble Appstore, before the servers were shut down. New apps uploaded by developers since 2017 have also been popping up!
Aah, is this how all previous apps were saved and are now available again? That's pretty neat if so!
> No smartwatch on the market since the original Pebble watches offers this combination of features…until today!
Is that a lie? What about Garmin Watches?
Sure Google/Samsung/Apple Watches are not "Long battery life", because they are not "Always on e-paper screen", but I feel like Garmin Watches are.
Obviously some Garmin Watches are pretty expensive, like Fenix (I have not used it since I switched to Apple Watch), but there are ~200USD watches as well https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/741137/ with 2 weeks battery life, custom apps, screens, and even GPS.
Pebble does not have GPS at all. You don't have to use GPS on the watch, if you don't need to. You have an option to choose to use it, if you want to. Garmin watches ~2 weeks just as a smart watch, 8-50 hours with GPS on. But you will not have it on, unless you need it for a specific workout.
I have been using Apple Watch since series 0. I believe I switched from Garmin fenix 3. I feel like at that time Fenix had a lot of issues, I remember there were some about the maps, maybe they did not even had them at that time. And I was really into hiking. So thought that Apple Watch could be a better watch. Workouts were nice, listening music from the watch was a good addition.
I have not tried new fenix watches. And I would assume they are the same good as Apple Watches as well. But I do like my Apple Watch Ultra (2 or 3, whatever was released this year)
My conspiracy theory is there is something inherently rotten at Apple and it is simply not possible to build a smartwatch that never mind can match the feature set of the apple watch but also the levels of battery efficiency on the iPhone paired with a smartwatch different than the Apple Watch. I don't know this for a fact but I am sure multiple cheap ish Chinese watch vendors would not choose to intentionally drain the iPhone battery if they could avoid it.
I was able to develop apps for Garmin Fenix 3, which was released in 2015 https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/160512/#specs it already supported building apps for the watch. They also had a funny name for the language they built, something like "Gorilla language" or something similar.
> One other great thing that Rebble did was in 2017 - they archived and started hosting a copy of the Pebble Appstore, before the servers were shut down. New apps uploaded by developers since 2017 have also been popping up!
Aah, is this how all previous apps were saved and are now available again? That's pretty neat if so!
Yes (and they've been available more or less all along from Rebble - they rebuilt and hosted big parts of the backend I believe).
My app that I published 12 years ago is on there, hah.
> No smartwatch on the market since the original Pebble watches offers this combination of features…until today!
Is that a lie? What about Garmin Watches?
Sure Google/Samsung/Apple Watches are not "Long battery life", because they are not "Always on e-paper screen", but I feel like Garmin Watches are.
Obviously some Garmin Watches are pretty expensive, like Fenix (I have not used it since I switched to Apple Watch), but there are ~200USD watches as well https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/741137/ with 2 weeks battery life, custom apps, screens, and even GPS.
You don't get 2 weeks battery life with GPS. That drops it down to less than a day.
Pebble does not have GPS at all. You don't have to use GPS on the watch, if you don't need to. You have an option to choose to use it, if you want to. Garmin watches ~2 weeks just as a smart watch, 8-50 hours with GPS on. But you will not have it on, unless you need it for a specific workout.
What made you switch to an Apple Watch? I’ve been tossing up between a Garmin Forerunner 955 or an Apple Watch (I have an iPhone SE 2)
I have been using Apple Watch since series 0. I believe I switched from Garmin fenix 3. I feel like at that time Fenix had a lot of issues, I remember there were some about the maps, maybe they did not even had them at that time. And I was really into hiking. So thought that Apple Watch could be a better watch. Workouts were nice, listening music from the watch was a good addition.
I have not tried new fenix watches. And I would assume they are the same good as Apple Watches as well. But I do like my Apple Watch Ultra (2 or 3, whatever was released this year)
My conspiracy theory is there is something inherently rotten at Apple and it is simply not possible to build a smartwatch that never mind can match the feature set of the apple watch but also the levels of battery efficiency on the iPhone paired with a smartwatch different than the Apple Watch. I don't know this for a fact but I am sure multiple cheap ish Chinese watch vendors would not choose to intentionally drain the iPhone battery if they could avoid it.
I can't find the quote in the original post, so I don't know the context of that statement.
But generally, Garmins don't allow developing and installing 3rd-party apps on their watches
Sorry, I guess I was just reading about them, and went to the original blog post published on 2025-03-18 https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watch...
I was able to develop apps for Garmin Fenix 3, which was released in 2015 https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/160512/#specs it already supported building apps for the watch. They also had a funny name for the language they built, something like "Gorilla language" or something similar.
EDIT: found it, they call it Monkey-C https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/monkey-c/
Hah, I didn't know that. And I specifically looked for my pebble replacement, and contemplated over Garmin.
I guess their marketing dept hasn't been doing their work so well.
Thanks for sharing this
Isn’t garmin connect IQ exactly that ?
Edit: damn autocorrect
Yep, you're right. I didn't know about that