Garmin Fenix 7 (and potentially Garmin Fenix 8 Solar) are reasonably button-y and kindof work "right" from a pebble fan.
The biggest miss for most smartwatches is "buttons", "battery life" and "sunlight-readable screen".
Buttons work without sight, buttons work in the shower (next track, volume, scrolling a notification, declining a phone call, stopping a timer), buttons can be "memorized", you can navigate buttons while riding a bike, and "button-centric" means you're focused on _only the essential_ capabilities. Ok. Next/Prev. Cancel/Back. Long-Press for shortcuts or confirmations. The discipline of designing for small, focused, essential interactions is so much better (when done well) than attempting to stab react components shifting around on your wrist or swiping in random directions on a slow-to-respond screen.
Charging "every other week" means I can go on a weeks vacation, charge the watch before going, and not need to worry about or bring another charger.
Sunlight-readable (non-lighted, non-distracting) screen means I can glance down and see the current time [with no wrist movement], and I don't have a bright light turning on and off (most of the time).
The biggest miss for the Fenix compared to Pebble is/was "The Timeline" from Pebble. On the home screen, you could basically scroll through your upcoming calendar events to kindof keep you on track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYZoWS0QxI8
The biggest opportunity for "Pebble2.0" is the hybrid button/scroll feature from Garmin Fenix. Fenix has an option to "pinch" opposing buttons for ~3 seconds to enable/disable the touch screen. Additionally, the touch screen can be used for (eg) scrolling a map around. To me, this is great as I _very rarely_ want to accidentally brush the screen (or have a toddler poking at it) and messing with things... but being able to "opt-in" to touch-screen under specific apps or circumstances is actually a really cool compromise!
Needless to say, I'm an insta-buy for Pebble, and very hopeful (especially since the O.S. is open source?!?!) that they'll steward us functionality-based watch nerds in the right direction!
I finally found a used 7 for $300 on FB marketplace, only 2-3 months ago. I still swallowed real hard before buying it, but I'm satisfied enough with it that even with the 7, I've been nosing around to see if any 8-solar (presumably transflective, not OLED) are around in the ~$500 price range.
Pebble Time Steel debuted at $250 in 2015, ~$350 in todays dollars, and the Fenix is much more capable not just the hardware but also health tracking.
That's why a comeback pebble is worth supporting (for me). Fenix has decent/"fun" SDK apps, but their core UX is only moderately good. I still get confused about which button to use to get to apps vs quicklooks vs data widgets vs shortcuts, and setting a 15 minute timer is way more confusing than it should be.
Apple: max 3 days battery life, and that's in the $800+ price range
AmazFit: maybe? but never enough to risk over $100-200 and no great "has buttons" option
BangleJS: no buttons.
PineTime: no buttons.
YadaYadaYada: no battery, oled screen, no buttons, or no customization
Getting another Pebble for $300 retail or $200 used with full backwards compat, their SDK and emulator, and a path forward? Sign me up!
I can also strongly recommend the Timex Expedition (analog) with easy-set alarm, and the Casio WV-58 styles.
The easyset alarm is described here: https://youtu.be/v6Fdt5y3p9A ...and it's super useful! I have like 4 versions now since supplementing and band-replacing my original from actual 1999... unfortunately you've got to chase eBay on those nowadays.
The waveceptor isn't that expensive and I use it as my "reference watch" when setting my other watches since it's atomic.
Ha, I actually did the same, albeit after using a succession of disappointing Fitbits. In the end I realised that what I mainly cared about was having the time on my wrist, and I could leave everything else. So I ended up with the steel strap, EL-illuminated version of the F-91W.
The biggest miss for most smartwatches is "buttons", "battery life" and "sunlight-readable screen".
Buttons work without sight, buttons work in the shower (next track, volume, scrolling a notification, declining a phone call, stopping a timer), buttons can be "memorized", you can navigate buttons while riding a bike, and "button-centric" means you're focused on _only the essential_ capabilities. Ok. Next/Prev. Cancel/Back. Long-Press for shortcuts or confirmations. The discipline of designing for small, focused, essential interactions is so much better (when done well) than attempting to stab react components shifting around on your wrist or swiping in random directions on a slow-to-respond screen.
Charging "every other week" means I can go on a weeks vacation, charge the watch before going, and not need to worry about or bring another charger.
Sunlight-readable (non-lighted, non-distracting) screen means I can glance down and see the current time [with no wrist movement], and I don't have a bright light turning on and off (most of the time).
The biggest miss for the Fenix compared to Pebble is/was "The Timeline" from Pebble. On the home screen, you could basically scroll through your upcoming calendar events to kindof keep you on track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYZoWS0QxI8
The biggest opportunity for "Pebble2.0" is the hybrid button/scroll feature from Garmin Fenix. Fenix has an option to "pinch" opposing buttons for ~3 seconds to enable/disable the touch screen. Additionally, the touch screen can be used for (eg) scrolling a map around. To me, this is great as I _very rarely_ want to accidentally brush the screen (or have a toddler poking at it) and messing with things... but being able to "opt-in" to touch-screen under specific apps or circumstances is actually a really cool compromise!
Needless to say, I'm an insta-buy for Pebble, and very hopeful (especially since the O.S. is open source?!?!) that they'll steward us functionality-based watch nerds in the right direction!