I have huge respect for the folks who spent countless hours freeing devices like the PSP from the control of the corporations that wanted them locked down. I think we'll need a lot more of that spirit in the years ahead...

I've read about plenty of other Chromebooks that can do that, but I can't find any info on booting Linux on this one.

ChromeOS would be so much more compelling if it could be degoogled... An Ungoogled-ChromiumOS would be amazing.

> massive growth in Chinese renewables while the US opens up national parks for drilling and cancels solar/wind projects

The protectees in this case are fossil fuel interests.

I tried a 2025 Ford Maverick for a year before I traded it for the Tacoma. All the AC/Heat/Etc controls were on the screen. Couldn't stand it. Put me off of ever considering a new Ford again.

Not only am I pursuing this because I want long-range emergency comms in case cell networks go down (like what happened with Verizon recently), but also because I see a very notable contraction on what communication is allowed to be done on the internet, especially in the last year. Censorial regimes around the world seem to be accelerating and I don't want to be cut off from communications because I am not of an "accepted" identity.

And yes, I'm aware that states police the amateur airwaves too. But I see it more like how getting a driver's license doesn't mean I can't flee a country with my car... Learning to drive, or operate a radio, is still a valuable skill to learn and practice.

I run GrapheneOS and use several US-based banking apps. I'll not name them since I don't really want my HN account associated with my financials in any way, but I've got a mix of well-known national bank apps and smaller local credit union apps working.

I'll admit there is a single institution's app I've found that doesn't work, but that is just one of several that I use.

If it can't be unlocked, it can't be sold. That should be the law.

Most of my banking apps work fine on GrapheneOS, but I've adopted this because I'm confident they'll eventually break. And access to Apple Pay is nice.

Carrying two phones is annoying, but, agency over my main computing device is worth the price.

> Hard to say this is true when Garmin watches are far more successful than Pebble.

A company's success != UX efficacy. That's like saying Apple's products had terrible UX in 1997 because they were flailing up against their Microsoft counterparts of the same era, despite the fact that Apple's UX guidelines of the nineties are regularly raised here as a rubric for UX evaluation, even against Apple's own modern products!

> The better Garmin comparison is the Venu series which only have two buttons

I'm not sure you've ever used a Pebble, but Pebble OS is entirely button-driven with four buttons, whereas the Forerunner and Instinct have five. I've never used a Venu, but isn't it primarily touchscreen-driven?

(yes, the upcoming pebble watches do have touchscreens, but I believe that's just for use in apps and watchfaces, not navigating the system)

Separately, it baffles me that Garmin, despite them having also built a watch OS from the ground up, never understood watch/limited-button UX. Their Instinct and Forerunner watches have all sorts of wonky, hidden and arcane interactions with buttons (long press this to X, press this here to Y). Pebble proves that a simple, shallow, and linear menu system works great!

Call it anec-data but all my banking apps work in GrapheneOS, and I have several installed. There is one that reduces functionality if SafetyNet fails (have to do the 2fa flow every time I restart the app, can't set as a trusted device and notifications don't work) but it still works to access my account.

That said... I haven't tried to use NFC payments and do carry around a secondary iPhone 15 as my "business phone" these days that pretty much just has payment/banking apps on it, just in case one bank or another decides to suddenly nuke their app on my main phone...

And the ability to choose app repos is also a wonderful development. Nothing against Rebble at all, but more choices and more openness is always better!

I know it's not your focus, but what's your take on the Core app frontend being closed source? I know libpebble3 is open and has the important bits, but it still feels bad to be unable to build an APK or grab that from F-Droid.

I had initially assumed it was because of some kind of dependency redistribution issue, but I think I read somewhere it was to stymie clones being developed and using the app. But that's part of an open ecosystem, no? That anyone can integrate into it?

Rebble has valid concerns about the ecosystem surviving beyond Core. Their concerns about the closed-source parts of what Core has developed is valid (WRT the Core app frontend) and Eric positioning himself as a "benevolent dictator" is a reasonable red flag to raise. The next dictator (in case of acquisition) may not be so benevolent.

But while their stewardship of the app store and continuance of services is laudable, they can't really justifiably cry foul when someone "scrapes" their archive of mostly-scraped (from the original store) content.

Hopefully this teaches both sides that an open ecosystem means operating in the open. Which means making all source available not hiding vital components, and also not squawking about someone scraping the store.