I’m pretty excited about this; my Pebble Time was the best watch I’ve even owned - smart or otherwise.
That said, I don’t think I’m going to be preordering this given how badly the last Pebble Kickstarter went. For those who weren’t around at the time, Pebble (whose CEO is behind this venture) built his whole business around Kickstarter. The first 2 generations were wildly successful, but for the third generation they massively overextended themselves trying to get hardware into mainstream retailers, prioritised building stock for retail channels (because contracts) and ran out of cash before shipping for the majority of backers who had bankrolled this whole thing. Eventually everyone who hadn’t had their orders fulfilled got a refund, but that was only because FitBit decided to buy them. Eric seems like a nice guy and great at the technology - and I’m not saying that I could run a business any better - but I think I’ll wait until there is stock on hand for me to buy outright before I hand over my cash
You need a perfectly polished smartwatch. This project is a labour of love rather than a startup trying to sell millions of watches. There may be some rough edges (literally). Things will get delayed. Some features will not be ready at launch. Things could break. Things could not last as long as you’d like. The only thing we can guarantee is that it will be awesome and a lot of fun! Every time you look down at your watch, you will smile
So yeah, I’d say your take is pretty accurate. At least they’re honest lol
Honestly that is something I’ve always been ok with on Kickstarter. But it’s 50% scams now of people who never intended to deliver anything in the first place and Kickstarter is taking a lot of steps to protect the scammers in this. The only reason I ever back anything on there anymore is because of campaigns by companies I trust will at least try. I trust Pebble will try, so I personally am very tempted.
Understandable, which is why I’m choosing to not preorder. However, they also have a full refund policy that’s good until your unit is being prepared to ship, and several notifications leading up to that point. One of the best ways to handle preorders I’ve encountered.
He also screwed a lot of the employees on the way out from Pebble, and he also bailed on Beeper the minute it got complicated. Sold it to Matt Mullenweg a year or two after getting pimp-slapped by Apple because he had no real plan for what to do if Apple started banning the devices he was using as Matrix bridges. He gave up after like three days, it was honestly genuinely pathetic. This was a paid service and he fucked it all up for anyone using iMessage on it.
I have personal experiences with Beeper that make me less than trust Eric Migicovsky, and I really don’t think he seems like a “nice guy.” He actively sucks, doesn’t have plans for sustainability and then sells it all off to someone else at a personal profit while the people doing the actual work get fucked out of a job.
Beeper is an instant messenger software that enables using a variety of chat services and protocols all from the same application. It was created in 2020 by Eric Migicovsky, Brad Murray and Tulir Asokan
On December 5, 2023, the company released Beeper Mini, an Android app that can send messages through Apple’s iMessage instant messaging service.
Beeper Mini was downloaded more than 100,000 times within two days of launch. After the release, Apple repeatedly blocked Beeper Mini from sending messages through iMessage, and Beeper updated the app multiple times to circumvent Apple’s blocks.[18] On December 21, 2023, Beeper issued its last update to Beeper Mini, which requires users to access an iOS or macOS device to enable the app to send messages through iMessage.[20]
That timeline is crazy. It’s a chat app for years. It breaks into iMessage and gets crazy downloads. Then 16 days later they’ve given up. Four months later he sells the whole thing.
Yeah, he seems to have a bad habit of bailing on his pet projects once they become “difficult” partially because he never seems to have an actual plan to get them to financial stability. It’s why I’m so hesitant to have any hopes for this reboot of Pebble after he bailed on it the first time around.
I was very excited when Beeper was first announced and I got on the wait list.
I finally got onboarded, and this was when you still had be walked through the setup by one of the Beeper employees.
I got into the Zoom meeting, and got a warning that it was going to be recorded. I had not, up to that point, had ever been disclosed that it was going to be recorded. I declined to join the meeting and sent a follow-up email with some pertinent privacy related questions, especially since in the case of some of the Bridges that were being used for this service essentially meant Beeper would have access to my credentials. They would later create a more secure system, but it was not very secure early on.
My main question regarded Micigovsky’s past in selling Pebble and I asked what gaurantees of the privacy policy were being made in regard to a potential sale of the company (considering it eventually got sold, I guess a good question to ask), and what, if any, promises were being made for the privacy policy to stay unchanged through a sale.
I never got a response to my questions. Not being told I was going to be recorded, and not ever getting an answer to reasonable privacy policy questions led me to never signing up for the service.
I always feel nervous preordering anything. I got a new Fitbit so I think I have some time before it fails so I can see how this rePebble works out. If it is as good as it looks I might just get it. 30 day estimated battery life is amazing
I’m pretty excited about this; my Pebble Time was the best watch I’ve even owned - smart or otherwise.
That said, I don’t think I’m going to be preordering this given how badly the last Pebble Kickstarter went. For those who weren’t around at the time, Pebble (whose CEO is behind this venture) built his whole business around Kickstarter. The first 2 generations were wildly successful, but for the third generation they massively overextended themselves trying to get hardware into mainstream retailers, prioritised building stock for retail channels (because contracts) and ran out of cash before shipping for the majority of backers who had bankrolled this whole thing. Eventually everyone who hadn’t had their orders fulfilled got a refund, but that was only because FitBit decided to buy them. Eric seems like a nice guy and great at the technology - and I’m not saying that I could run a business any better - but I think I’ll wait until there is stock on hand for me to buy outright before I hand over my cash
From their FAQ, emphasis mine:
So yeah, I’d say your take is pretty accurate. At least they’re honest lol
My concern isn’t that things will get delayed, it’s that I’ll give them my money and get nothing in return
That’s. Uh… the entire idea of a kickstarter.
It may crash and burn. Don’t want that, don’t back anything on kickstarter.
Honestly that is something I’ve always been ok with on Kickstarter. But it’s 50% scams now of people who never intended to deliver anything in the first place and Kickstarter is taking a lot of steps to protect the scammers in this. The only reason I ever back anything on there anymore is because of campaigns by companies I trust will at least try. I trust Pebble will try, so I personally am very tempted.
The idea is that you judge each Kickstarter venture on its likelihood of doing that vs actually delivering.
Understandable, which is why I’m choosing to not preorder. However, they also have a full refund policy that’s good until your unit is being prepared to ship, and several notifications leading up to that point. One of the best ways to handle preorders I’ve encountered.
He also screwed a lot of the employees on the way out from Pebble, and he also bailed on Beeper the minute it got complicated. Sold it to Matt Mullenweg a year or two after getting pimp-slapped by Apple because he had no real plan for what to do if Apple started banning the devices he was using as Matrix bridges. He gave up after like three days, it was honestly genuinely pathetic. This was a paid service and he fucked it all up for anyone using iMessage on it.
I have personal experiences with Beeper that make me less than trust Eric Migicovsky, and I really don’t think he seems like a “nice guy.” He actively sucks, doesn’t have plans for sustainability and then sells it all off to someone else at a personal profit while the people doing the actual work get fucked out of a job.
That timeline is crazy. It’s a chat app for years. It breaks into iMessage and gets crazy downloads. Then 16 days later they’ve given up. Four months later he sells the whole thing.
Yeah, he seems to have a bad habit of bailing on his pet projects once they become “difficult” partially because he never seems to have an actual plan to get them to financial stability. It’s why I’m so hesitant to have any hopes for this reboot of Pebble after he bailed on it the first time around.
What’s the gist of your “personal experiences with Beeper”?
I was very excited when Beeper was first announced and I got on the wait list.
I finally got onboarded, and this was when you still had be walked through the setup by one of the Beeper employees.
I got into the Zoom meeting, and got a warning that it was going to be recorded. I had not, up to that point, had ever been disclosed that it was going to be recorded. I declined to join the meeting and sent a follow-up email with some pertinent privacy related questions, especially since in the case of some of the Bridges that were being used for this service essentially meant Beeper would have access to my credentials. They would later create a more secure system, but it was not very secure early on.
My main question regarded Micigovsky’s past in selling Pebble and I asked what gaurantees of the privacy policy were being made in regard to a potential sale of the company (considering it eventually got sold, I guess a good question to ask), and what, if any, promises were being made for the privacy policy to stay unchanged through a sale.
I never got a response to my questions. Not being told I was going to be recorded, and not ever getting an answer to reasonable privacy policy questions led me to never signing up for the service.
Yep im also going to wait til its out to make a judgement call.
Ditto, even though I’m in the market to replace my smartwatch since the buttons fell off.
I always feel nervous preordering anything. I got a new Fitbit so I think I have some time before it fails so I can see how this rePebble works out. If it is as good as it looks I might just get it. 30 day estimated battery life is amazing