Vibrations
A face built on the framework can buzz the wrist at the top of each hour, when the phone connects, and when it drops. The wearer picks the buzz for each on the settings page from the same choices, None, Short, Long, or Double. Every buzz the framework plays stays silent during Quiet Time, so a phone dropping in and out overnight never buzzes through it.
It lives in vibe.h and vibe.c under src/c/pebble/system/vibe/.
The Choices
The settings page offers each vibration as a select with the values 0 to 3, and the watch reads the same numbers:
| Choice | Value | What It Plays |
|---|---|---|
| None | 0 | nothing |
| Short | 1 | the watch's short pulse, about 250 ms |
| Long | 2 | the watch's long pulse, about 500 ms |
| Double | 3 | the watch's double pulse, two buzzes of about 100 ms |
Each one is the watch's own pulse rather than a pattern of the framework's, so it matches the buzzes the rest of the watch makes.
vibe_choice plays the pattern for a value, and anything other than 1 to 3 is silent. Every vibration setting starts at None on a fresh install, so a face only buzzes once the wearer asks it to. A value out of range from the phone goes back to the default when it lands (see Settings on the Watch), which is None again. A face whose settings leave a vibration setting out reads it as None too.
Quiet Time
The watch's firmware does not silence an app's buzz during Quiet Time. It plays whatever the app asks for. So vibe_pulse and vibe_custom check quiet_time_is_active first and return without a sound while it is on. Every buzz the framework plays goes through one of them.
The cost is that a face cannot use these calls for a buzz that has to get through, such as an alarm. A face that needs one calls the SDK's vibes_ functions directly.
A Buzz While Another Plays. The firmware drops a pattern asked for while another is still playing rather than queueing it behind. An hourly buzz landing in the same moment as a disconnect gives one buzz, not two.
Phone Connect and Disconnect
The system store watches the link to the Pebble app on the phone and calls the face's buzz policy on a real change, never on its first reading at launch (see The System Store). vibe_bt_transition is the framework's own policy:
system_store_init((SystemConfig){.live = true, .vibe = vibe_bt_transition}, NULL);It reads Vibrate on Connect or Vibrate on Disconnect, whichever fits, and plays it through vibe_choice. Both rows sit in the Bluetooth section that every settings page built with buildConfig carries. It reads the setting at the moment it buzzes, so a change on the settings page takes effect without telling the store. Like every buzz here, it stays silent in Quiet Time, so a phone drifting in and out of range at night never buzzes the wearer awake.
On the Hour
The time store calls the face on every tick (see The Time Store), and vibe_hourly turns those ticks into one buzz at the top of each hour. The settings page shows an Hourly Vibration row in the Clock section when the face passes hourlyVibe to buildConfig, and the watch side is the KNOWN_HOURLY_VIBE entry in settings_catalog.h. The face hands every tick to vibe_hourly with the setting:
static void on_time_changed(void)
{
vibe_hourly(time_store_tm(), settings_u8(SETTING_HOURLY_VIBE));
engine_mark_dirty();
}Once per Hour. The time callback runs on the minute tick or the hour tick, and on each beat as well when the face shows .beats (see .beats), so more than one tick can land in minute 0. vibe_hourly remembers the hour that buzzed and buzzes each hour once. It remembers when the local hour began rather than tm_hour, since two different real hours never share a start, and the hour the clocks repeat when they fall back has the same tm_hour as the one before it. The decision lives in hour_latch.h in the core, with host specs.
Opening the Face in Minute 0. Subscribing to a tick sends one tick straight away, so a face opened in minute 0 would buzz an hour that already buzzed before the wearer left it. The first call to vibe_hourly after launch only remembers its hour, so the hour the face opens in counts as done. A face that was not running at the top of the hour, such as one closed for an app, then stays silent until the next hour.
Wake on the Hour. A face that turns the minute tick off and runs only the beat timer is called every 86.4 seconds, so it only gets a call during minute 0 when a beat happens to turn over in it. In a time zone a whole number of hours from UTC that happens every hour. In one that sits half an hour or 45 minutes off, such as India or Nepal, one hour in three has no beat in its first minute and passes without a buzz. Such a face sets hourly in its TimeConfig whenever the buzz is on, so the time store wakes it at the top of every hour without running the minute tick, as the time_config in The Time Store does. The SDK's hour tick fires only when the hour number changes, so the hour the clocks repeat in autumn gets no hour tick, and on the beat timer alone it buzzes only when a beat lands in its minute 0.
Playing Your Own Rhythm
vibe_custom plays a face's own pattern, a list of milliseconds that starts with a buzz and then switches between pause and buzz. It stays silent in Quiet Time like the rest. A face can use it for something the choices do not cover, such as a little celebration when a step goal is met. The firmware caps each step at 10 seconds.