|
| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +layout: post |
| 3 | +title: Introducing Bobby, our new Pebble assistant |
| 4 | +date: 2025-03-24 12:30:00 |
| 5 | +author: Katharine Berry |
| 6 | +--- |
| 7 | + |
| 8 | +I'm excited to announce a new Rebble service for our paying Rebble subscribers: **Bobby**, a voice assistant app for |
| 9 | +your Pebble! |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +[][bobby appstore] |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +Bobby is [available from the Rebble Appstore][bobby appstore] now! You can also check out |
| 14 | +[its webpage](https://bobby.rebble.io). |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +Bobby is a new voice assistant for your Pebble. It's inspired by [Snowy][snowy appstore], but powered by modern AI |
| 17 | +technology (specifically, Google's Gemini LLM). This makes Bobby both easier to use and more powerful than Snowy: no |
| 18 | +longer do you need to phrase your requests exactly. |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +## Features |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +### Weather |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +You can ask Bobby for the weather! |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +### Timers |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +Bobby can set timers for you! |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +You can even have multiple timers at once, with different names! |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +### Alarms |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +Bobby can do alarms, too! |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +As with timers, you can have multiple alarms set at once, and you can name them individually if you like. |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +### Reminders |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +Bobby can remind you to do something in the future by putting a pin on your Pebble's timeline (as well as keeping a |
| 53 | +list in the app). |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | +### Calculations and Conversions |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | +Need some numbers numbered? Bobby can help with that! |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +### Trivia |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | +Bobby can answer many different types of question: |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | + |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | +Bobby doesn't have a knowledge cutoff date - in most cases, Bobby can look up current information to a answer your |
| 75 | +questions. |
| 76 | + |
| 77 | +## Feedback |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +Bobby is a new project, and we're excited to hear what you think! If you have any feedback, please let us know. You can |
| 80 | +contact us [on Discord](/discord), or directly through the app. The app gives you three ways to send feedback: |
| 81 | + |
| 82 | +- From the main menu you can dictate feedback at any time |
| 83 | +- From the conversation view, you can long-press to bring up a menu with a "Report" option to respond bad responses |
| 84 | +- You can ask Bobby to send feedback to the developers (or any similar wording) - it'll send feedback automatically |
| 85 | + |
| 86 | +We'd love to hear what you think, how Bobby works for you, and any suggestions you have for improvements or new |
| 87 | +features! |
| 88 | + |
| 89 | +## Compatibility |
| 90 | + |
| 91 | +Bobby is currently available for **Pebble Time**, **Pebble Time Steel**, and **Pebble 2**. Bobby will presumably also work on the |
| 92 | +upcoming Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2, but we'll find that out in the future. Maybe Bobby will even gain the (optional!) |
| 93 | +ability to speak aloud! |
| 94 | + |
| 95 | +The **Pebble Time Round is not supported** (but may be in the future - especially if there is demand!). |
| 96 | +The original Pebble and Pebble Steel don't have microphones, so cannot be supported. |
| 97 | + |
| 98 | +Bobby also currently **does not support Cobble**, Rebble's work-in-progress replacement for the Pebble mobile app. |
| 99 | +Please don't try to use it - bugs in Cobble cause many features of Bobby to misbehave. For the time being, Bobby works |
| 100 | +best with the official Pebble mobile apps. |
| 101 | + |
| 102 | +## Bonus: a dictation update for Pebble! |
| 103 | + |
| 104 | +Alongside the launch of Bobby, we are introducing an experimental new feature for all Pebble dictation: you can now set |
| 105 | +your language to **auto** in the Pebble app's voice language settings. This enables you to switch between dictation |
| 106 | +languages without on the fly without needing to change settings all the time - handy for the multilingual among you! |
| 107 | +We also expect that dictation accuracy should be improved across the board. |
| 108 | + |
| 109 | +Do note that, for short utterances (only a syllable or two), the "auto" setting may guess the _wrong_ language. If |
| 110 | +you can't see "auto" in your language list yet, it should show up eventually - or you can |
| 111 | +[rerun boot](https://boot.rebble.io) to speed it along. As always, dictation requires a Rebble subscription. |
| 112 | + |
| 113 | +We also now have a way to hear what your watch microphone sounds like, if you're curious (or having problems) - if you |
| 114 | +have a Rebble subscription, turn on Audio Debug Mode on [your account page](https://auth.rebble.io/account/) and then |
| 115 | +visit the [Audio Debug page](https://audio-debug.rebble.io) to see your recorded audio. Audio debug mode will |
| 116 | +automatically turn off after 24 hours, and the recordings are deleted 24 hours after they're taken. When audio debug |
| 117 | +mode is disabled (as it is by default), Rebble does not store either recordings or transcripts of your dictation |
| 118 | +requests. |
| 119 | + |
| 120 | +## Privacy |
| 121 | + |
| 122 | +Every request you make to Bobby is passed to us, and then passed on to Google (twice, actually - first for speech |
| 123 | +recognition, and then for the LLM). Additional details are passed to other parties for certain requests. |
| 124 | + |
| 125 | +We don't store your requests long-term - they are deleted after a short period of time, currently ten minutes. We use |
| 126 | +the versions of Google's APIs that do not store your data for training, and we don't pass them any unique identifiers |
| 127 | +for you. Similarly, for other APIs, no context is provided as to who is making the request, and all requests are made |
| 128 | +via our servers. |
| 129 | + |
| 130 | +There is an exception to this: if you report a thread (either from the long-press menu in the conversation view, or by |
| 131 | +asking Bobby to send feedback to us), that conversation will be stored and made available to the Rebble team for review. |
| 132 | + |
| 133 | +## Pricing |
| 134 | + |
| 135 | +Bobby is included as part of your Rebble subscription! Why isn't it free? Two reasons: |
| 136 | + |
| 137 | +- You need to be a Rebble subscriber for dictation to work, and Bobby isn't very useful without that |
| 138 | +- Bobby uses a number of expensive APIs (for the LLM, weather, geolocation, POIs, etc.), which cost us money on each use. |
| 139 | + |
| 140 | +Bobby imposes a monthly limit on usage to ensure a single user can't force us to run up a huge bill. We don't expect |
| 141 | +most users to hit this, but you can see how close you are to your monthly limit in the "Quota" screen in Bobby's menu |
| 142 | +(hit ⋯ on the main screen to get there). |
| 143 | + |
| 144 | +[snowy appstore]: https://apps.rebble.io/application/561960c8a1dd2652af00000d |
| 145 | +[bobby appstore]: https://apps.rebble.io/application/67c3afe7d2acb30009a3c7c2 |
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