Privacy’s important to me, and the fact that I can’t lock my Pebble with a passcode, encrypt its contents, and that it shows a stream of my notifications I have to turn off one by one is not something I’d like. I want to be able to fully disable its ability to show notifications. I want to ensure it never stores notifications. I want more control over my privacy with Pebble.
In the Pebble app on your phone, under Settings → Notifications, is there not a Mute All button?
You can also disable Calendar events showing up on the timeline, disable health tracking, keep dictation to local only, or just disconnect the watch from your phone entirely when you don’t need any phone-connected features.
What control exactly are you looking for?
Ah, I see, it’s under filter. Although I do still wonder if they’re being sent from my phone and ignored or if it breaks that link entirely.
I’d also love some kind of password system for if the watch is taken off. I don’t like the idea that someone could just pick up my watch and turn it on and then get those notifications. I want to be able to lock it down, or at least block notifications from the app.
it does seem that, even with them muted, you can still see the notifications that come in in the notifications view. So it’s definitely not enough. I want to cut that link to my phones notifications completely.
This may help, at least for peace of mind:
Button Lock for Pebble - Pebble Appstore
Assign this to a quick-launch button from the watchface, and ensure notifications are all muted, and then the only way someone can see your notifs is if they know to long-press the back button to close the app.
It’s certainly better than nothing, but optimally, we’d have at least one of two things:
- The ability to shut off all notifications on the device so the watch receives nothing
- The ability to encrypt the entire contents of the Pebble watch and unlock it with a pin
Preferably, I’d like both. No one should be able to grab my watch out of a box or off my desk and gain access to my notifications.
Just posting here that I agree with the above. More security with regards to notifications would be ideal.
Related: FBI Extracts Suspect’s Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database
It seems to me that, while this lax view of security was perhaps misguided in 2014, anything digital not being encrypted and lockable in 2026 is unquestionably wrong. This project is in many ways picking up where it left off, but I think this is the most important change the Pebble needs.
I wouldn’t even mind notifications on my watch if I could lock it when it’s off my wrist, though I would still prefer a way to turn it off from my phone and default to off for all apps.
I noticed today that, despite not being on my wrist overnight and just sitting on my coffee table, my Pebble still was connected to my iPhone, and still had music controls available for something I started playing before I even picked up my watch. It just made me realize how bad this is. There’s zero security on the Pebble. I can’t recommend anyone buy one of these when it’s like this, it’s a backdoor into your phone, always open.
You can control music from the lockscreen of your phone too (unless you have disabled that).
How often will you be leaving your watch out in a public space without you being nearby? If a bad actor has physical access to your device - phone, watch, laptop, wifi router, whatever - then the cat is out of the bag.
The “backdoor” is only as open as you make it. You can always turn off bluetooth or turn the watch off entirely when it’s not on your wrist, if it’s a concern for you. But I think you’ll find that it won’t leave your wrist or sightline outside of the safety of your own home.
Exactly! My phone has those privacy options. My phone can be that secure. A person could just turn on my Bluetooth for full access to my notifications and even some health data. That’s why this has to be something we can lock down like every other smartwatch. Security and privacy are more important now than ever. My phone is encrypted. My laptop is encrypted. But my Pebble offers bad actors a backdoor, and that’s not a compromise we should ask of users.
I also believe that a lock screen is necessary these days. It might not be the end of the world but it should be like a modern smart watch and at least have an option to lock when the watch is off your body.
By the way, I’ve created a feature request on GitHub. Hopefully that’ll get more traction than the forum post.
Hi! I want to +1 this.
I was surprised to learn there is no way to hide the content of the notifications. Or lock the phone screen.
You can clear the notifications. You can even set up a quick launch to go right there.
oh no someone can control music, the horror.
I dont understand this at all. What are you worried about?
Should your bluetooth speaker have a pin? Should your earbuds have a pin? This doesnt make sense.
The worst someone can do right now with a pebble is (which has to be near your phone):
1.) control music, (if your music app wasnt closed)
2.) respond to a text. A new one. Not one you already responded to.
3.) see your notifications you got. And you can choose which apps do it.
You can clear the notifications. So the only thing left is control music.
What about that is dangerous? Your phone has to be near the watch since its over bluetooth. You can easily disable or disconnect the watch from your phone.
What are the actual concerns here? The watch has no payment information, no 2fa codes etc.
What makes you concerned?
If this was a pixel watch, a garmin, apple watch etc sure I see the concerns. Because you can open the messages app in its entirety and see everything. Payment info is on there and able to make payments etc. Lots more to do there.
I think the issue is that notifications will appear and are able to be actioned on the watch regardless of if the phone is locked. So if both are stolen, someone has some level of access to your phone until you’re able to wipe it.
The workaround is to disconnect Bluetooth or restart the phone before taking them off. However people are asking for something that’s super common in the smartwatch space.
If both your phone and watch are stolen, you have bigger problems then the pebble.
I think people are trying to treat the pebble watches as if they are a replacement of a pixel watch, apple watch, smartwatch like thing. And that is not what this is.
Those devices are essentially a tiny phone. Pebble watches are not that. They are an extension to your phone.
I don’t want the battery, performance, or fun of the watch to be compromised because people want to add unnecessary encryption, pin codes, and firmware bootloader locks.
Because if you add a pin, it’s useless, as you would then need to lock the bootloader down. And then we will have people asking for that, and it will get to the point that the openness of the product is lost.
Again these watches are not powerful like pixel watches and apple watches etc.
It’s a whole different playing field. I understand wanting the options, but I feel implementing it goes against the spirit of the product.
If we start locking something like this down, it becomes unfun.
Just my opinion. If they can do it without compromising the openness of the product and key features such as battery, performance, and fun then I am all for it for the people that want it. But to me this is a slippery slope.
Its making the product for the masses, instead of the tinkers.
I don’t think anyone is making the argument that encryption needs to be mandatory for everyone. Just like an option to have a PIN at boot would be plenty and it would negatively impact no one. Full encryption is probably not feasible on this hardware, but if you could stop a casual thief from seeing your notifications then you’d be covered for the majority of situations a person could find themselves in. Even if you found someone who was inclined enough to hack the watch you really just need to buy enough time to lock/wipe the phone.
I get what your saying. But hear me out:
Pebble adds a pin to the watch at boot as an option.
Article or something gets posted saying it’s easily bypassed. This would be more likely to happen because of the openness of the watch and the spirit of the product as a whole is to mess with it. And places love to post bad news and ragebait.
Now people call for the bootloader to be locked down.
So then that gets implemented. Guess what? The watch is now less open and more annoying to mess with. Then people ask for encryption, oh wait it chokes the watch performance and degrades battery life…
And then the people that ruined it decide to leave and get something else anyway.
And all that happened was people came in, wished the product did something it doesn’t do, cripples it for the people who enjoyed it for what it was and then they left.
Leaving people like me extremely annoyed. Hence me saying the slippery slope.
Now you could argue that the same article could get posted about someone complaining that their pebble was stolen and someone was able to access all their notifications and such. But what is more likely?
Community as a whole pushing for something that attracts attention? Thus creating articles, clicks, rage bait etc.
Or the random chance that someone with a pebble had it stolen and an article was published? Statistically very low considering the amount of watches out there compared to anything else.
To sum up:
Buy a product for what it does now, not what you wished it did. I say that all the time.
The warnings were there when people bought it.
And again, I am all for the option if they can make it work without sacrificing the core spirit of the product. This is not me saying never implement security.