Bring back multiple device pairing

[zomgugoff]

I use several devices through the day. I need to be able to quickly switch between them like the old Pebble watches allowed. I can’t be expected to remove pairings and re-pair every time I switch devices. There’s no good reason the watch firmware can’t retain pairings from several devices. Bring multi-device pairing back.

[Fouz]

From what I’ve seen from other users, you can pair multiple? just need to connect one at a time?

[zomgugoff]

The current firmware for the Pebble Time 2 has text on the pairing screen that says to remove the current pairing before adding another. I tried to pair a 2nd device, but the watch was not showing up in the available Bluetooth device list.

[pbhgl]

Pebble Android app stuck on NEGOTIATING has more info about that:

@steve

Basically, you cannot have multiple phones paired to the same watch over BLE because that was never implemented in watch firmware. Those watches never used BLE on android previously, which is why it used to work (multiple BT classic pairings do work).

We disabled adding multiple pairings on the watch itself on the new watches (to prevent it being very annoying and randomly working sometimes), but on old watches like Time Steel, you might find that it works if you enable BT classic mode in settings.

@steve

I’ll be honest, for the new watches (which don’t support BT classic) it would take some re-architecting how BLE works with Pebbles to make it work reliably with multiple pairings, and we just haven’t had enough people ask us about that for it to make sense putting in that effort.

I used that feature regularly with my old Pebbles and will of course miss it on my PR2.

But maybe if enough people ask for it …

[cagusch]

It’s really a pain that this feature is gone and that it’s nowhere mentioned. Lots of talk in Eric’s posts about everything the new watches CAN do, but it would be honest to also mention what was dropped. I’m actually worried what else there might be that won’t work anymore.

Besides, being able to connect to multiple phones was a real USP for Pebble, as most smartwatches are unable to do that. Yet quite a lot of people have multiple devices, the standard case being separate work/employer and private phones. There are many other use cases, like people having a separate old or smaller phone for sports, and so on.