Feature Suggestion: Touch-Enabled UI Option for Pebble (Gesture Mapping)

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Hey everyone,

First of all, I want to say a huge thank you to the devs and community for keeping this dream alive. I absolutely love what you all are doing and have nothing but respect for this product.

I really love my Pebble, but I’m coming from a background of using touch-enabled smartwatches. I’ve owned and tried a lot of them, including the original Amazfit Bip, which has a very similar screen and specs but relies entirely on a touchscreen.

Since the hardware capabilities are there, I think having a total touch-enabled UI option would be incredible for users like me.

The Idea: 4 Gestures for 4 Buttons

Implementing this could actually be fairly straightforward and completely backwards compatible. The core idea is to simply register 4 distinct swipe gestures to mimic the functionality of the 4 original hardware buttons and wire them together.

While I completely understand and respect that many people prefer hardware buttons, touch controls offer a few distinct advantages:

  • Easier on the move: You don’t need to tightly grasp the watch body to get leverage.

  • Ergonomics: It removes the struggle of trying to press tactile buttons with bigger fingers while active.

  • Physical button breakdown OCD.

Alternative Idea: Open-Source App Swapping

If a native, system-wide touch UI isn’t in the cards, what about adding an option to switch out original system apps? Since the ecosystem is open-source, the community could independently implement touch-enabled versions of standard apps.

Note: While custom firmware is always an option to achieve this, it would be much harder for the community to maintain in the long run compared to an official implementation.

What do you all think? Would anyone else utilize a gesture-based touch UI if it were available?

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Yes we need this and as fast as possible.

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I’ve never had a smartwatch with touch input before so I don’t know what has been standardised on. Perhaps more than 4 gestures would be wanted on a pebble?

  • press back
  • press up
  • press select
  • press down
  • hold modifier prefix
  • release modifier suffix
  • combine-buttons modifier prefix (cf. long-press hold+back)
  • enable(disable?) touch input (cf. backlight double-tap)

With just simple swipes, there’s an obvious left/up/right/down mapping for the first four. (Or right/up/left/down for lefthand mode?) And there are 4 diagonal options that might work as modifiers.

Can the pebble detect if multiple fingers are used for a swipe/tap?

I wonder how much memory implementing something like Palm Graffiti
would need? I have fond memories of being able to write notes on my TRGpro while walking without needing to look at its screen. I suppose it might be slightly tricky to use on the pebble as I’d be using finger(s) of the wrong hand but it might work quite well.

Random thought: Would the inertial detection mechanism used for step/sleep-tracking, etc, be practical to use to detect freearm movements with enough precision for gesture input?

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At risk of derailing the conversation, seems the sensor idea is not outrageous: Thumb-to-Finger Gesture Recognition Using COTS Smartwatch Accelerometers

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