My Garmin Forerunner has everything the author claims doesn't exist except the hackability: Long (10 day) battery life, reflective screen (plus background light), physical buttons, all the features (step count, notifications, music control, weather, etc. plus lots of additional sport functions and even a pulse and oxygen sensor.
However, I still get the point of having a hackable device.
They are nice, but they are no Pebble.
Garmin feel like a gadget you bought and are stuck with what you got.
Pebble started ok, it was the first attempt. The first UI basically scrolled through watch faces which I wasn't a fan of, but it was the first real Smart watch so experiments were required.
Then they put out the new UI that is used today, it's fast, cool playful animations, easy to navigate, had calendar, steps, sleep tracking and heart rate right at your finger tips (still better than today's watches). The navigation buttons blow away any other watch, long press customization is amazing, app store, etc.
Garmin, once you pull it out of the box, you got what you got. Pebble, everything the newest watch got, the old one did too (as long as the required sensor existed) and GAINED performance through the years. Not to mention the 10's of thousands of apps that gave you so much functionality.
I still think the Rebble store gives Google and Apple a run for their money... After 9 years of Pebble being "dead"
That's cool, they must be investing more in their watches lately, the couple I had right after Pebble died were very basic. The stuff they did worked well, but they were similar to how you bought a GPS back in the day, what it came with was what you got and there were minor updates and you could get new maps but not much else
However, I still get the point of having a hackable device.