#Connecting to Pebble Steel

68 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

pseudo willow
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I'm having trouble getting it connected to an android phone. I finally managed to get it to pair but it seems the firmware is too old? It's stuck on recovery/connect app screen but it had a v1.14 or v1.12 firmware on it from when I last saw the menu

rain jacinth
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Do you have an old android device laying around that you can use?

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Put the Pebble app on that without Rebble and then try

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Or un Rebble your current Pebble app and try again

pseudo willow
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Would I be able to this this without a firmware update though

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The watch currently doesn't have a battery so it's a bit risky atm

pseudo willow
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ok so new developments

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I was just messing around with the app trying to get it to work

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and it ended updating the firmware

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however now it only opens up to pebble screen

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and then flashes the pairing screen for a split second

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and then shuts off and reboots

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does anyone know if the watch itself is fine

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and is this just a result of it having no battery?

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or is the watch itself bricked

keen abyss
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This is what they do when the battery is completely dead. Hold down one of the buttons until you get an error and let it stay that way while connected to power for 30 mins or so.

pseudo willow
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Oh yeah the battery in this doesn't hold a charge at all

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It's dead dead

keen abyss
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The boot process includes turning on the backlight (and for the steel but not the plastic classics) also turning on the charge led. Those things draw more power than the watch allows coming in through the cable so it boot loops.

pseudo willow
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Ah

keen abyss
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The stuck button error will allow it to charge since it doesn’t turn on those items. So if it can take a charge, that will allow it to.

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If it doesn’t charge after that then yeah the battery is worthless. :)

pseudo willow
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It was working on the old firmware

keen abyss
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These steel classics have sat so long with no charge that a LOT of them just have an unusable battery.

pseudo willow
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I'm assuming that didn't turn the led on

keen abyss
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Good job getting it updated. That is a task in itself.

pseudo willow
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Hopefully the firmware update was all good just don't like the uncertainty

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I do have batteries coming in a few weeks

keen abyss
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I actually killed a steel due to a low battery when trying to update the firmware. Yours looks good though.

pseudo willow
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Is there any salvaging corrupted watches?

keen abyss
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My avatar is from that experience. It gives a code and the sad face when the firmware gets hosed.

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The one fix that I was told to try was to take the board out, connect to a voltage converter and use a programmer through SPI to write the firmware to it.

pseudo willow
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Interesting

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Atleast there's that

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I think worst case scenario I could give that a try if I find out it doesn't work lol

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Thx for the info tho 👍

keen abyss
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You are welcome. I attempted to write firmware back to mine but I think I ended up messing something else up. That was around 2018 I think. The watch was new from Best Buy and I had not even worn it yet. Was a sad day. Good luck with yours. Feel free to yell if you have any more questions. You know about being careful and not ripping the vibration wires when you take the back off? If you use a safety pin to release the cage holding the main board it makes it easier. Oh and release and lift the side opposite of the charge contacts because if you pull that side up first you can rip them.

pseudo willow
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Thanks!

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I've been holding on to my dead pebbles since around 2018 or so

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Looking forward to actually seeing them function again

pseudo willow
keen abyss
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To be honest, I don’t remember. It was so long ago and I’ve done so much with other pebbles and electronics in general, I just don’t remember. I don’t think I ever got it to talk to the computer. I could have damaged something while soldering but I don’t think that was the case. I started buying used steels for cheap and after several of those I sort of lost interest in the dead one. Right after that I started buying new old stock pebbles and then reselling those so there wasn’t a reason to spend the time on that one. I still have it though. Sort of as a reminder to be careful.

cinder cedar
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Thanks for posting this and the replies. I'm in the same boat. Been a pebble user since the Pebble Time series, and decided to experiment with a Steel (for hopefully easier repairability). Bought a for-parts watch off ebay knowing the battery was shot and being prepared to replace it. I was trying to pair it and then saw the reboot issue. As soon as either the Pebble Phone app or GadgetBridge attempts to pair, the watch reboots (and presumably freaks due to low power). Looks like I need to replace battery and charge before attempting to pair. This would be a good addition to the Rebble FAQ. I was holding off on buying a battery until I paired it. The lunar new year is a bad time to buy one from China 🙂 I'll see if there are any posts for US battery sources

keen abyss
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I found some pics of when I was working on the flash. I think the smt chip had to be removed from the board since it one of the leads had to be connected to the back of it. Either that or this was for something else around that time.

AP1GczODPDORPWg-TDuJGuQEp8aYfQB8Fmyh1fyRsgBlk63ALGAc9L3zKMtrw475-h633-s-no-gm.png AP1GczOoYzCPNYpmiSg-Z8h9A7UdHjwsbI0jqVzAxNaH61O3dpnL_VCJMkUpw844-h633-s-no-gm.png AP1GczNJ9jG5920fDnNYRpttXC6mWDmOT55O8CIGYM-neu8I6RodawWH_Uwgw844-h633-s-no-gm.png
pseudo willow
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darn that looks leagues more complicated than i though

keen abyss
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Yeah it wasn't fun, I do remember that. With all the other Steels I was finding for cheap, I remember just giving up on it.

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Here was all the Steels I had about a month later.

AP1GczPPmviqnWGh6cOHNRfR-HYSE_vxM1NBbbxU_uu7FVxXXhwzi3KuU1xTOAw844-h633-s-no-gm.png
pseudo willow
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thats insane

keen abyss
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Haha, that was just the start. I ended up purchasing like 50 new open stock Steels for something like $25 each. The seller had hundreds of them. They all needed new batteries. I ended up reselling them without fixing them for what I paid for the just to get rid of them.

pseudo willow
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makes you really think how much new old stock existed of these things

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by the time i picked up my og

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pebble was already gone but their services were still running

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so they were selling for quite a while

keen abyss
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Yeah I think I remember seeing a lot of old stock around 2018 or maybe 2019. I jumped into Pebble about the Time the Steel came out. Couldn't afford it new, and got a used one a short time later when people started seeing the tearing issues. Then I got the new steel as a clearance item and shortly killed it trying to update the firmware.

civic bone
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I've got a Steel with a new battery that won't connect through the app.

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I can pair it with the phones BT, but the app doesn't like that either

keen abyss
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Looks like you got it figured out based on messages in pebble channel. Sorry, been a busy day.

civic bone
shy breach
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took out my pebble steel for the first time in many many years to get the same symptoms described here. thank you for the confidence that it might be resolved with a battery. i will try to order one now!

fringe forum
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Replacing the battery in mine, what temperature should the iron be at

civic bone
fringe forum
civic bone
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I wouldn't pull the iron away until it looks like the wires are wetted (coated) by the solder, not simply pushing it around.

fringe forum
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I'm buying flux, the battery, and a new zebra connector