You can't get a hackable watch for a fraction of the price, though.

I'd pay more for being able to fumble about in the codebase and add exactly what I want.

I wouldn't put in the same league as pebble, but it definitely ticks the boxes:

https://banglejs.com/

Battery life is real.

Ticks the boxes, but not the buttons. :-(

https://pine64.org/devices/pinetime/ is $27, which is a small fraction of the cost of a Pebble.