1) always-on, sunlight-visible screen 2) week-long (plus) battery life 3) good, simple notification + calendar support 4) ecosystem of apps (developer mindshare)

Heart Rate, Sleep Tracking, Mic/Phone, Payments are all wonderful, but the drawbacks of "machine-learning-shake-to-wake", one-day battery life, and trying to fiddle with a tiny touch screen make the Apple watch less of a watch and more of "everything but a watch".

Long Live Pebble / Rest in Peace.

Don't forget also: tangible buttons for user input, so you can change music tracks without having to look at or tap on a specific spot on a touch screen! Probably the #1 thing I miss from my Pebble OG :(

The value of hardware buttons without having to look on your screen is underrated. You can put a Pebble alarm off in your sleep. You can change a track without even seeing your watch.

Pebble was such a cool platform, and it is a damn shame that FitBit was allowed to purchase the company and immediately shut it down. Predatory competitor-purchasing like this should be illegal.

> Pebble was such a cool platform

The only true part of this sentence

> it is a damn shame that FitBit was allowed to purchase the company

Pebble failed financially and put its assets up for sale, some of which were bought by Fitbit.

> and immediately shut it down

Fitbit kept servers running for years that supported Pebble devices.

I'm a Fitbit employee but don't speak for Fitbit. An official response wouldn't be so terse; I'm just annoyed that this falsehood keeps going years later.

Sincere thanks for clearing this up, I only saw the big optics on this (pebble 2 successfully crowdfunded, then later Pebble is shutting down while FitBit acquires it).

I loved my Pebble, but it was certainly not cool. Also didn't work as well as my Apple Watch, which I waited until my beloved Pebble finally died before buying.

Apple Watch is 4+ times the price. It still can't do some of the things a Pebble can. For starters, a Pebble can run a week without requiring recharge.

And yet it's still way cooler than the Pebble. Funny how that works.

And the Pebble couldn't reliably tell me the weather outside, for a whole week.

I don't own either but I do know this, I can tell when someone has an Apple Watch at a glance without having owned one and only seen pictures, I cannot say the same for any other smart watch.