I bought an Apple Watch series 4 for Juliane as an early Christmas present. The bigger screen looks amazing!
Now we both have watched with the latest OS (her series 0 watch wasn’t able to update) I’m guessing the breakthrough feature will be the Walkie Talkie app.
Still watch-less here. Looking at the new Apple Watch, I don’t think it’s got enough for me to make it worth paying my own money for, but I wouldn’t turn it down as a gift.
Of course, if it was a “gift” but the money came from a common pool, (i.e. shared spousal bank account), I’d still consider returning it.
I switched from a Pebble Time to a Fitbit Versa. Supposedly this watch is the first product of what came over from the Pebble team. Pros: good battery life (~5 days), clear and vibrant screen, heart rate monitor, easily interchangeable watch bands, touch screen. Cons: touch screen (inadvertent inputs not infrequently), sometimes notifications just don’t show up, tilt sensor to quickly turn on screen is finicky and takes multiple tries to activate at times, bulky charging cradle.
I really like the heart rate sensor, and in theory the touch screen provides more capabilities, but honestly what I want from a smart watch is reliable push notifications not the ability to do much outbound activity from the watch.
I switched to a Casio G-Shock because the regular Casio I had wasn’t holding up to the lifestyle I lead working on servers and cars. It was stupid cheap and thus far fabulous.
I’ve been an Ionic dev since it came out. I was also sent the versa since I have a few faces/apps and I like both of them…but their communication protocol is garbage and unreliable. It is a great fitness tracker with smart watch features at this point. We, the devs, are still hoping it will continue to improve.
I recently bought an Amazfit Bip smartwatch and it has some interesting features. It is Pebble-like in that the battery will probably last for 30-45 days and the display is readable when the backlight is off. It also has activity tracker features, such as GPS, motion, and heart rate monitoring.
The notable limitations is that it doesn’t support responding to messages and also does not do voice transcription. Apparently, someone make a Tasker script to reply to text messages, but I’m on iOS so I can’t use or test it.
There was a C SDK released under a month ago though. It is fairly primitive (you have to flash resources to the device to add apps), and all the comments are in Russian. There is an example app that is commented in English. I don’t have the resources to develop apps for iOS though, so for now if I play with the SDK I’m limited to watch-only functionality.
Been thinking about getting one of these. I had a Fitbit versa but never really used it for anything other than to know I received messages and the time so it was kinda not worth it.
Update on the Amazfit Bip: The SDK is not official, but I did get it to work, even on iOS. I had to Hex Edit the custom OS to increase the version number so the Mi Fit app wouldn’t immediately update it back to the stock version. (It looks like I’ll have to do this each time a new OS version comes out. On Android this wouldn’t be an issue.)
The modded OS adds the ability to edit alams on the watch, a simple calendar, and a calculator. I haven’t actually tried to write my own apps for it, but I did translate the comments in the API to English with Google Translate. I posted all of this on the thread for the unofficial SDK.
EDIT: I’ve flashed back to stock firmware. I don’t think I can easily prevent the resources from being updated, which happened a few hours after I installed the cfw. It also got stuck on updating a-gps, even though I didn’t open the app.
EDIT 2: I faked out the resources version, and it seems to work now: https://myamazfit.ru/threads/bip-application-develop-for-bipos-sdk-en.1171/post-39576
All cool but the opening line:
“Just as rumors have been floating about a possible rugged Apple Watch”
Rugged Apple Watch? Yes please!
Pebble is back from the dead!
Might actually get me to buy a smartwatch, if it’s reletively small and light. My main complaint about smartwatches is that they’re thick as bricks and twice as heavy.
I loved the Pebble back in the day. I would still love to get a watch with that display and form factor. But in 2025, in terms of functionality, I can’t imagine the Pebble will have a chance.
The question is what features do I actually use on my Apple watch, and can Pebble do them all?
Tell time and date, absolutely yes.
Calculator, mostly for tips, sure.
Calendar alerts, probably.
Show me notifications without me having to take out my phone? Probably not with an iPhone, probably yes for Android users.
Actually reply to a notification entirely on the watch? Seems unlikely.
Fitness tracky stuff? Yes, to some extent, but how much? Sleep tracking? Heart rate monitoring? ECG?
Shazam a song? Tough, but possible if there’s a microphone.
Seamlessly remotely control other media players. Play/stream Spotify/Apple Music entirely on its own without any other devices to Bluetooth speakers/headphones? Very challenging.
NFC payments, speciflcally for public transit? Extremely unlikely.
Take a phone call entirely on my watch with a direct 4/5G connection and no phone whatsoever?
Automatically call 911 and give them my location if I fall off my bike, and am unconscious in the woods? Nope. Remember Apple’s marketing message. Get an Apple Watch or DIE.
I hate having to get my phone out on the subway. With the watch I just walk through. 
I think I pay for most things with my watch these days.
I use the fitness tracking (solo without the phone, using GPS) nearly daily.
Seeing notifications on my watch remains my primary use case.
Worth noting that the pebble time can absolutely reply entirely on the watch. It has Voice to Text.
I don’t talk to computers.
This is not a drill. The pebble has returned.