My Pebble (smart watch) is here!!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I first learned about the Pebble back in March, via an MIT Technology Review article: I’m not usually an early adopter for things like this, but for some reason the idea really struck a chord with me and as soon as I finished the article I pre-ordered one. I finally got the “you can order one for real now” email on Thursday, it shipped on Friday, and it arrived on Monday!

As I expected, it’s masculine and Dick Tracy-like on my not-very-feminine-to-begin-with wrist. I might try to find a replacement 22m watch strap that tapers and looks less ridiculous, but that might not really help much. In the meantime, it’s a good thing that I own my dorkiness. :wink:

I’m using Pebble with a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, running Android 4.2.2. Connecting it for the first time took some doing: on Monday evening I could get it to pair but not connect, and after spending more than an hour with the online help and unpairing/re-pairing the Pebble I finally sent an email to tech support. The auto-reply said that they were very busy but would get to me as soon as possible.

I took it to work with me yesterday, just in case inspiration struck, and I managed to get it to work: I unpaired everything (both the phone from the watch and the watch from the phone), uninstalled the Pebble app, reset the watch to factory settings and turned it off, and shut down my phone. When I turned everything back on and installed a fresh copy of the Pebble app, it connected right away! SUCCESS! I was even able to download some custom watch faces (the default analog face is ok, but the one I downloaded is nicer – plus, I like to have the date displayed). I sent a “never mind” email to tech support. grin

Here are a few pictures, if you’re interested.

I’ve now been using it for almost 20 hours, and so far the only hiccup came this morning when I walked the dog and took my phone but not the watch: when it got out of Bluetooth range it disconnected, and I had to reinstall the Pebble app (again) to get it to reconnect. I need to do some research on that, and see if there’s a trick for easier reconnecting; it seems to be a known issue, because the release notes for the current version of the Pebble app include something about improved reconnections on Android 4.2.

Connection headaches and goofy appearance aside, so far I love this thing. I went out last night, and it was very cool to be able to leave my phone in my pocket (instead of keeping it out on the bar) and get “stealth” notifications of emails, text messages, and phone calls.

Does anyone else have one? :slight_smile:

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My wife and I got the kickstarter edition (mine is black, hers is orange). We both love 'em. Yes, there are connection issues- I generally find that I just need to unpair in bluetooth, re-pair, then reconnect in the app. I only have to do it about once every week or so, though. It’s gotten a lot better.

Take a look at Canvas for Pebble. It allows you to make your own watchface, and it’s the primary one I use now.

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I will definitely check that out; thanks! Are there any other apps you recommend?

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I was just reading about these and I’m intrigued. But one article mentioned that it has limited capabilities with iPhone (e.g. you can read texts and screen phone calls but not much else) and it’s really better for use with Android. Any experiences with the two platforms for comparison?

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I’ve had one for about a month, using it with an iPhone 4.

Android has a lot more applications at the moment but word is that will change with the release of iOS7. Apparently now only one application can access the bluetooth communication stack at a time which will change with 7. You can get most sorts of notifications from iPhone to Pebble but at the moment you have to do the ‘finger dance’ if you lose bluetooth connection.

There are a few apps that will let you get twitter feeds, view calenders, control music players etc on iphones and there are some nice watchfaces with local weather feeds.

http://www.mypebblefaces.com/ is probably the best place to get an idea of what people are making.

http://watchface-generator.de/ will let you make your own watchface with a custom image/text. (I have a ‘Planet Express’ logo watchface I made on there).

There are some apps for jailbroken iphones that get around the current iOS limitations if you want to go down that road.

I swapped the watchband out for a black “NATO” one and it works nicely.

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Until I started quoting this I didn’t see that you already heard back from tech support, otherwise I was going to tell you that you should really let them know the steps you took to fix the problem. There’s probably a ton of other people having the same issue and maybe you figured out exactly what it takes to fix it.

I remember seeing this watch somewhere a while back and I can’t help but thinking that ‘hello’ logo looks just like the ‘hello’ on the the Boxed Water you can buy in some stores.

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Intrigued, but bluetooth is so flaky even after all these years I really don’t trust a gadget that relies on it for data transfer.

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On course you realize that your hotness level just went up one? :slight_smile:

I’m starting to think that it might be time for me to return to the ranks of the watch-wearers via one of these.

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You know your name and address are visible in that first picture, right?

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The Pebble did that for me. I hadn’t regularly worn a watch for years, but now I wear my Pebble all the time.

Augmented Smartwatch Pro is another useful app- it allows you to send a ton of other notifications to the Pebble (and other smartwatches).

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That’s where I got my current watch faces. I’m finding that I like the idea of changing it every now and then. :slight_smile:

Have you also tried the Canvas for Pebble app that Lightnin’ mentioned? I wonder how the two compare.

That didn’t even cross my mind: I use Bluetooth in the car all of the time with no problem, and I also use a Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad all of the time with no problem.

LOL!

I didn’t, but I do now (and have cropped that photo).

:smack:

:smack:

Someone reported it to twickster, who gave me a heads up on Facebook. I’m usually very careful about things like that…oh well. If any of y’all wrote it down, you’re welcome to Google me and/or come visit. :smiley:

Oooh, I like the idea of the “Can respond to SMS+Incoming messages with 6 stored replies” capability…that alone might be worth the $6 for me!

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That was me, thinking “holy crap! I don’t want anything terrible to happen here!” Sorry if I was a busybody.

I did consider writing down your address and sending cookies or something! :cool:

And now my husband and both sons want that watch. Santa’s list just got easier!

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IIRC Canvas is Android only. If the release of iOS7 dosen’t improve things on Pebble my next phone will probably be a 'droid. I’ve had and android phone and a Nexus 7 tablet so shifting between the two is no issue.

My current faces are:
Chunk weather 1.4
Planet Express (custom from watchface generator)
Big Watch
Simplicity Plus
Hobbit time (my own version with a more Tolkien-ish font and a few more hour –> meal notes :smiley: ) If you haven’t seen this one its a face that changes on the hour:

5am – Almost Breakfast
6am – Breakfast
7am – Sevenish
8am – Almost Second breakfast
9am - Second breakfast
10am - Almost Elevenses

etc, etc until

10pm – Tennish
11pm – Nightcap
12am – Midnight snack

I’m messing around with the code to try and add a small time/date field as well.

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On the contrary: THANK YOU! :slight_smile:

LOL!

Awesome… :cool:

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I see the cyber monday deal for this is knocking off $20 off. I’m strongly contemplating it. Does anyone else have anything to add? I have an iphone. I’m thinking of getting the White one.

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FYI, three months later I’m not wearing the Pebble as often; in fact, for the past week or two I haven’t worn it at all.

I still love it, and I miss the wrist-top notifications (which were pretty awesome and which I got used to very quickly), but the connection problems have me frustrated: it will disconnect for (apparently) no reason at all but will still show as being connected, and reconnecting requires unpairing it – on both the watch and phone side – and then rebooting my phone. And even after all of that, it usually won’t connect on the first try. Sometimes my phone won’t even discover the watch, even though I’m usually wearing it on the same hand that I’m holding the phone with. Lately I’d been spending way more time trying to get it to connect than actually using it, so I’ve put it aside for the time being.

I don’t regret buying it, though, and I do plan to start using it again at some point. Maybe Pebble will release an update that will help with the connection headaches (though I have no idea whether the problem is with the watch or with Bluetooth).

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I’m also considering a jawbone up. The sync issues are a little worrisome but I’m buying it more for a fashion statement than a tech gadget. I currently have a victorinox as my day-to-day watch but wanted to mix it up a little without dipping into the more… elite watches in my collection and thought this would be fun.

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*(Not sure if six months is zombie territory…oh well!)
*
Pebble did finally release an update that fixed the connection issues I was having, and for the past 3-4 months I’ve been happily wearing my smartwatch whenever/wherever I could (unfortunately I haven’t been able to wear it much during the week, due to security issues at work, but I wear the hell out of it on weekends). I’ve been so happy with it, in fact, that on Friday I ordered a Pebble Steel (with the brushed stainless band). It arrived on Monday. :smiley:

It finally looks/feels like a real watch! I’m not crazy about the addition of the logo – I kind of liked having a “stealth” smartwatch – but I can definitely live with it. I need to take it to a jeweler to have a few links removed, but I can’t wait to start wearing it this weekend.

So, pancakes3: what did you wind up getting?

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already in the works a more stylish Pebble Steel.

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[ul]
[li]Thank you[/li][li]See you soon[/li][li]I’ll do it right now[/li][li]I’m driving[/li][li]I’m away from the office, I’ll have it for you by the end of today[/li][li]Have you tried turning it off and on again :D[/li][/ul]