Developers Rolling Out Pebble Smartwatch Apps 64
itwbennett writes "When it first launched, the Pebble smartwatch was a nifty, if pricey, way to get notifications from your phone without having to go to the effort of pulling your phone out of your pocket. As previously posted on Slashdot, the real promise of the watch wouldn't be realized until developers got their hands on the SDK. Now, a few months after launch the apps are starting to roll in and Pebble wearer Kevin Purdy has rounded up some of the best apps and projects — and also where to find them."
Having seen the picture (Score:1)
Re: Having seen the picture (Score:1)
I don't (Score:3)
Recharge a watch every day? No thanks.
Try to use apps on that tiny little screen? No thanks.
Have to connect it to a smartphone to do anything useful? Wtf??
I'm sorry, how much does it cost?? $150??
If you want a gimmick watch Casio will do you a nice one for about $30 but I have to warn you that the days of digital watches being cool ended in about 1980 so you won't be getting any Hipsters putting down their skinny lattes in shock and envy by buying a Pebble either.
Re:I don't (Score:5, Informative)
Mostly, yeah most apps are silly on that screen*. However for what it is designed to do (which is basically act as a second display for notifications from your phone) it is fine.
$150 for a device that means I don't miss calls / txts when out because I didn't hear it go off / was listening to music at the time? Easily worth it. If you don't need that functionality? Then no; but then again that is true of any device.
Oh, and actually yeah, the hipsters do rather like the pebble, from the ones I've met. Heck, they (and a few geeks) are the only ones who know what it is when they see it.
*The one app I have installed is the google authenticator which is ideal for the form factor. I've not found / thought of another one.
Re:I don't (Score:4, Insightful)
"$150 for a device that means I don't miss calls / txts when out because I didn't hear it go off / was listening to music at the time?"
Except that it doesn't do this unless you use it in a way that enables those notifications...which you could simply do with the phone itself. The phone has a means of notifying silently already. You could also ignore the notifications from the watch thereby justifying the need for the next gadget that costs another $150.
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notifications...which you could simply do with the phone itself. The phone has a means of notifying silently already.
Yes, and usually those notifications are missed. Obviously you don't have a girlfriend or wife with her phone inside a pouch instead a bag which is a few meters away.
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"I'm a Crossfit coach."
Wooo! Go for it Mr Jack of All Trades!
"from *ANYWHERE* in the gym (~5000 sqft of open space)"
Wow, 5000 square ft. Thats ... er 70 foot by 70 foot (assuming its one single room). BFD. Not much of an example to your students if you couldn't be bothered run your lazy ass across that in a few seconds.
"should a bad song start playing."
Perhaps you should choose better songs to start with.
"and more importantly safely, reach over and touch one button one my watch to skip a song"
Oddly enough y
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I regularly miss phone calls, either my phone was silenced, or I'm biking and it's in a bag, or I'm just talking to a co-worker 50' away and my phone is sitting on my desk. My Pebble is always on my wrist, so I know when I'm getting a phone call now.
It has a 50' bluetooth range? That's better than I thought, the same thing happens to me a lot.
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If you want a gimmick watch Casio will do you a nice one for about $30 but I have to warn you that the days of digital watches being cool ended in about 1980 so you won't be getting any Hipsters putting down their skinny lattes in shock and envy by buying a Pebble either.
"The days of the digital [watch] are numbered"
- Tom Stoppard, the original script of The Real Thing
(he dropped the line in later revisions)
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"The days of the digital [watch] are numbered"
It's so funny when people say things everyone knows is wrong...
No the funny thing is that while at the obvious level it is wrong, taken literally its true ,,, at least if the watch has a date function!
low Android sex drive (Score:2)
I'm also getting closer to ten days per charge mainly running the low power Big Time watchface and not receiving too many notifications.
First win: I've programmed my own watchface with a non-standard time coordinate that matters to me.
Second win: I used to take a medication daily that had to be taken at a precise time in the mid-afternoon for optimum effect. Even after more than a year of practice, I still missed one audible watch alarm every ten days to two weeks. I don't wear my phone on my belt (it get
But... (Score:2)
But but now it has a stopwatch!!!!
Douglas Adams was correct⦠(Score:5, Informative)
Re: Douglas Adams was correct⦠(Score:4, Funny)
Re:Douglas Adams was correct (Score:2)
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Too wordy. How 'bout just "harmless".
Too brief. How 'bout now "mostly harmless".
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Thank you, Miracle Max!
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Uhhh...unproven theories stated as fact? The world must still be flat for some people. The earth IS the most significant planet in the solar system, and we haven't heard of a single person pop into an ape, or a human into an amphibious form, for thousands of years. Crazy how some THEORIES make some people deceive themselves into believing they have something smart to say.
The sound you're hearing is commonly referred to as the "Epic Woosh." It is similar to the sound of a Boeing 747 flying approximately six inches over your head.
The other sound you're hearing, or will hear once you've recovered from the Epic Woosh, is the sound of millions of geeks around world rolling their eyes at your colossal ignorance of science fiction canon.
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Here's something for you to read [wikipedia.org] in your spare time once you've recovered from your "Epic Woosh".
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As opposed to seeing it on your phone, where the UI helpfully displays the first line of text, in any message, for anyone to see?
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Well if she accidentaly and without targetting you just so happens to have a full copy of all your communications and can reasonably believe you're hiding something from her, she's practically duty-bound to check, right?
Re: Dumbwatches (Score:1)
Citizen Eco-Drive watches are great. They charge themselves with sunlight, office light, etc.
I love mine. It helps that mine has an aviator slide rule built in.
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Re:Dumbwatches (Score:5, Interesting)
Are there watchmakers out there with good accuracy/price ratios?
Borrow a pen and write 5pm on your wrist. Now you have a timepiece that is accurate once per day, and costs you nothing. Assuming your desired time granularity is a millisecond, this watch is accurate for 0.000001% of the day. That's actually better than most watches, and when you divide by price the ratio becomes very attractive.
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Shut up and take my money!
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Nah, he should stick to an analog watch. Draw a circle on your wrist, with the big hand upwards and the little hand at 5 o'clock. It may not have the precision of your watch, but at least it's +/-5 minutes for 1.4% of the time.
For that steampunk feel, draw a fob watch on your nipple.
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Borrow a pen and write 5pm on your wrist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tjHlFPTwVk [youtube.com]
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Leave out the "pm", and you double the accuracy while saving ink!
Hell, leave out the 5 instead and "pm" will be accurate half the day!
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Leave out the pm, and it becomes accurate TWICE per day. Boom, double the performance, and a 66% reduction in ink.
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Are there watchmakers out there with good accuracy/price ratios?
Borrow a pen and write 5pm on your wrist. Now you have a timepiece that is accurate once per day, and costs you nothing. Assuming your desired time granularity is a millisecond, this watch is accurate for 0.000001% of the day. That's actually better than most watches, and when you divide by price the ratio becomes very attractive.
People keep on talking about a stopped watch being correct once (or twice, if you go analog) a day, but that's no good if you don't know *when* it is accurate.
Re:Dumbwatches (Score:5, Funny)
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... are there any really good 'normal' watches out there these days? I'm looking for a thing I can wear on my wrist and (almost) never have to recharge or change batteries ....
I've been looking at various automatic watches...
I have an oldish Citizen ProMaster. It is an automatic diver's watch (being water-proof is another feature I wanted in addition to the telling time and no changing of batteries - and it displays date/day of week too. The mechanism is also still mechanical, no charging of some internal storage device to power some electronics - so should still run after that EMP event :-) ). Admittedly, it is a bit more pricey than the cheap chinese digitals (about $300 when I bought it).
Over the years, I have never been a
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Since this seems to be as good a place and time as any to ask, are there any really good 'normal' watches out there these days? I'm looking for a thing I can wear on my wrist and (almost) never have to recharge or change batteries for, that will do exactly two things: tell me the time accurately, and not be awkward to wear.
With most Casios you'll only have to change the battery a few times in your lifetime. Hardly a drag.
If you want to splash out you can get them with built-in solar panels and radio sync for atomic-clock accuracy.
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The Casio F-91W goes beyond mere timekeeping and is virtually guaranteed to enhance your lifestyle in ways you never expected.
http://gizmodo.com/5795554/people-wearing-this-casio-watch-might-be-terrorists [gizmodo.com]
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My watch is 1. Analog for easy reading, 2. Solar powered so it will never run out of power, 3. radio synchronised so it is always more accurate than I need. It has day/date, but rather hard to read. The only extra feature I would add is an alarm, plus make the day/date more reasonable. It cost me GBP40 from a magazine special offer.
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Fossil makes good watches. Price point is ~$150 but there's a variety of styles. http://www.fossil.com/ [fossil.com]
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There are decent, reasonably priced (for certain values of reasonable) automatic watches out there, particularly by Hamilton and Tissot. They're not terribly expensive ($300-1000 range), and generally not too ostentatious. The down-side of the automatics, though, is that they're not as accurate or reliable as a quartz-based watch. You also trade off battery replacements for cleaning/servicing every few years, which runs $75+ per service last I knew.
The Citizen Eco line of watches is very nice. They're quart
It would be nice if you could actually BUY one (Score:1)
I have been waiting to buy a pebble since Christmas. http://getpebble.com/ has been a static page for the whole year so far. Yes I have signed up for updates but not a peep out of them.
When are they coming!!
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I backed Pebble on Kickstarter and my grey one's only recently moved to the "processing shipment" stage. So you might want to not hold your breath if you want to order right now :)
The last Kickstarter update was sent out at the end of May, but that might only go to backers; the update list you signed up to might not fire up until all the Kickstarter watches are sent out.
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Ok (Score:4, Insightful)
was a nifty, if pricey, way to get notifications from your phone without having to go to the effort of pulling your phone out of your pocket.
Everything wrong with America and humanity in 27 words.
going backwards (Score:3)
Motoactv (Score:1)
Is there an app (Score:2, Funny)
that answers you in the voice of KITT?
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And the car is commanded by you?