Two years ago I bought a Pebble smart watch. For the first week or two I wore it constantly, to get the sleep tracking data. That was cool, but not cool enough to keep it up, and it was uncomfortable to sleep with, so I started taking it off at night.

I kept putting it on every morning for maybe eight months, using it for step and heart rate tracking, alerts, music control, and of course time. Plus the kid loved using the app to change the appearance of the watch face. People had come up with some really whimsical designs!

The watch kept working after the company went under. Fitbit bought what was left and agreed to keep the cloud services up for a year or so, and they updated the firmware and phone app to reduce the watch’s dependency on those services when they finally shut them down.

After a while, though, I got out of the habit of putting the watch on in the morning. I misplaced the Pebble, found it again, wore it for a few days, and forgot it again. Repeat.

What Do I Miss?

I do miss having the time available at a glance, but I can dig out a plain watch for that. The calendar reminders were helpful too. But I don’t miss having other alerts on my wrist, even after paring them down to the essentials, and the fitness tracking was really only a curiosity for me. Then outside of its core functionality, it was too clunky to use for, say, to-do lists or games.

Only a narrow range of the watch’s capabilities really appealed to me, and it turns out they weren’t enough to keep me using it.

Repurposed

Every once in a while, the kiddo would ask about the Pebble. I finally found it again and charged it, and decided to pair it with an old phone and give it to him instead of wearing it myself. He’s been wearing it 24/7 for a week now.

It’s basically a watch and fitness tracker only right now. Fitbit shut down the Pebble services over the summer, and I haven’t been able to get it working with Rebble (the volunteer group that’s put together a replacement server), so the marketplace with apps and watch faces aren’t available. And I only put limited apps on that phone, so there’s not much in the way of alerts. But he likes the step/heartrate tracking, and having a buzzing alarm that he can set.

Though he’s somehow learned to sleep through the tactile version of “Reveille” already! 🤦‍♂️

Update: I did eventually get it connected to Rebble. The first thing he wanted to do afterward: A round of random watch faces, for old time’s sake.