20 ms·

Pebble 4.0 Apps and Firmware Released

137 points by PetitPrince 10y ago

dstaley 10y ago
I loved my Pebble, but Android Wear offers such a superior experience when it comes to notification management. The only thing I use my watch for is processing incoming notifications (such as liking a tweet, archiving an email, replying to a Slack message, etc.) The 4.0 release notes hint at the power of the Android notification system, and it baffles me that Pebble still doesnt fully integrate with it. I'm afraid that Android Wear watches will improve on the battery life and outdoor visibility front faster than Pebble will improve on the software front.
- mixedCase 10y ago
  I highly doubt Android Wear will improve on battery life to compete with the Pebbles short of a huge scientific breakthrough. A full charge of the Pebble Time lasted me 5-6 days.
  - e_y_ 10y ago
    They can increase battery life by making the watch bigger and heavier. Don't laugh -- okay, do laugh, but it's surprising what people will put up with. We used to think that 6" phones were ridiculous.
    - bcraven 10y ago
      Some of us still do!
    - tdkl 10y ago
      It's ridiculous because they were making them thinner too.
  - TickleSteve 10y ago
    Absolutely right. There is no way that a Cortex-A series processor will be as efficient as the Cortex-M's microcontrollers that are being used by the Pebbles. There is also nothing that needs the power of the Cortex-A's either, the M series are perfectly capable of doing everything a watch needs to.
  - sundvor 10y ago
    Yeah, on the Pebble Time Steel it lasts me 7-8 days. Before I activated health activity tracking, I'd get to the order of 9-10 days on average. I find this highly impressive.
- KJKingJ 10y ago
  Have you given "Notification Center for Pebble" a try? It bypasses Pebble's native notification system by using a custom watchapp and a phone companion app. Compared to Pebble's native notification system, Notification Centre has a ton of different customisation settings globally and/or per app (e.g. font, text size, vibration patterns) and also supports Android Wear actions on notifications. I'd still prefer an Android Wear watch so I can do this natively, but until one comes out with a decent battery life and at a reasonable price point, this works for now.
- aerique 10y ago
  What does Android Wear add? I've only got experience with a Pebble.
- erohead 10y ago
  Pebble can do all the notification actions (replying to slack, archiving an email, etc) that you mentioned! Any action that shows up in the notification shade on Android gets sent to Pebble. Using canned messages or the microphone to respond. We added support for all 'Wear' type actions late in 2015. Are there specific actions that you feel are missing on Android?
spike021 10y ago
I'm really disappointed with Pebble. I had a Pebble Steel (the original Steel) and it was great for a while. But when they introduced version 3.0 (I think?), which brought on the new interface I pretty much stopped wearing it. I'm not a heavy calendar user, except when it comes to work. The 3.0 update was based on the idea that users love using the calendar to schedule their days. That one primary change took away from the simplistic interface that the earlier versions had and made the Pebble more of a chore to keep up with. I didn't want to be bombarded with notifications about tasks/meetings at work, and I certainly didn't want them showing up in the main day view. But then that single today view was mostly unused and empty. It's pretty unfortunate, IMO. I enjoyed using it up till then. I guess I could give it another chance but at this point the Original Steel has likely reached its end of life, at least with respect to new updates.
- frio 10y ago
  It's funny -- I was the exact opposite. I got the original Pebble Kickstarter Edition, and couldn't really find much of a use for it. Having notifications on my wrist was OK, but not mindblowing. The addition of the timeline made _so much_ sense for me. I've barely taken the watch off since (except to upgrade to a Time Steel). It's extremely handy being able to just tap a button on my wrist in order to figure out if I need to be somewhere else. In fact, the biggest frustration has been that I need to press a button; I'd love it if a watch-face permanently showed me my next appointment. As it turns out, this new update does just that, so, awesome. Different strokes for different folks I guess :). I'm sorry that UX change hasn't been as good for you as it has been for me.
- wvenable 10y ago
  I'm not much of a timeline user but the old design of using the up/down buttons to switch watch faces was obviously not the best use of the primary interface. I'm surprised that is what you enjoyed best about it. It's hard to be disappointed with Pebble on the software side -- they've continued to make smart solid improvements with each release and backport as much as possible to the older devices. There have been a few missteps but nothing too ridiculous.
  - 10y ago
NDizzle 10y ago
Starting with the firmware released in July it caused my iphone to lock up for seconds at a time in any other application. It took me a long time to narrow it down to the pebble app, but that was definitely the culprit. Before I figured out that it was the pebble, I thought it was bluetooth itself - because when I turned off the bluetooth, the phone acted normally. Which sucked because I use about 6 bluetooth devices with my phone. Two cars, headphones, and indoor/outdoor home entertainment systems. 6+ with always the latest iOS if any of you pebble people are reading this. It's been a nightmare for the past two months, what was otherwise an absolute brilliant experience up until that point. This is a pebble time kickstarter edition.
- wvenable 10y ago
  The bluetooth stack on iOS isn't terribly stable. I used to blame the Pebble for it's disconnects until I discovered that it corresponds with the whole stack going out. I've never had a problem with my phone locking up and neither has my wife but some people seem to have constant problems and some none at all. Bluetooth has never struck me as a particularly stable technology in general. Pebble has been working on going full Bluetooth LE and dropping the regular Bluetooth connection. I'm not sure what the progress is on this (or if they abandoned it) but it would probably improve stability and battery life.
ozkatz 10y ago
Their continuos lack of support for RTL languages is making me sad. It's 2016.
alec 10y ago
I recently got a Pebble Time Round and love it. Never wanted a watch before. Few watches provide vibrating alarms, but Pebble's helps keep me on track during the day without disturbing everyone around me with beeps. I wrote a tiny app to vibrate at different points of a meeting so I know how much time is left without boorishly checking a clock, and the development experience was smooth. With the Android Light Flow app, I can control which contacts for which apps can send notifications, which helps keep me aware of things I need to be aware of without being a firehose of alerts.
diego_moita 10y ago
Meh, no API for direct access to Bluetooth (they promised for the end of last year on the Pebble Time Kickstarter). I still use a lot my Pebble because, unlike almost everything else, you can swim and sleep with it (because has enough battery life). But the Samsung Gear Fit 2 does look tempting and is the only non-Pebble that can also do both.
- taneq 10y ago
  There's libpebble2 which pretty comprehensively covers the basic features if you want to talk to the watch yourself (https://github.com/pebble/libpebble2/ https://github.com/pebble/libpebble2/) - or is that not what you meant?
  - diego_moita 10y ago
    It comes very close, but still misses. But I was dreaming about a little more, such as rssi measurements from the Pebble itself or scannig Bluetooth tokens proximity.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Just downloaded the update. It managed to crash the first time round (also really first time Pebble watch crashing on me). I'm guessing the watchface wasn't updated to work properly with the new timeline preview ("Glances") - I'll debug it if it crashes again. So far I'm very happy they've updated the Pebble Health watchapp - it's finally usable now (and quite nice), as it display daily stats for last week in nice bar graphs. Also I have an impression that Timeline is a bit more responsive/faster now. I'm pretty happy with what Pebble is doing (though Health interface on the mobile app could use some further rework to provide more/better information). Can't wait for the Time 2 watches to start shipping!
- jefffan241 10y ago
  I had the same issue and rebooting my watch (not hard reset, just reboot [press and hold the back and select (middle button)] for 10 seconds until the pebble logo shows) fixed the problem. Just in case anyone else has this.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Yes, reboot seems to fix the problem in some cases. My watch didn't crash again after the reboot earlier today.
- cordite 10y ago
  Yeah, mine crashes when I press down. After three crashes it seems to have gotten into "factory mode"? Doesn't seem like they put much fault tolerance in. EDIT: Tried the Enigma watchface that came by default, it doesn't crash. I'll use this for now, but that was still quite disappointing. Contacted the developer.
petra 10y ago
With regards to smartwatches , the Chinese have done a great job at reducing the prices(as always). But the software isn't great(unless it's wear). So I'm curious - why does nobody release a decent smartwatch is , that supports apps, and can run well on a cheap($50) watch ? At that price point, many new users might be interested.
- forvelin 10y ago
  xiaomi moves to that space, we will hear more about it probably, considering they are proceeding with huami[0]. [0] http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomibacked_huami_amazfit_smartwatch_is_now_official-blog-20218.php http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomibacked_huami_amazfit_smartwatc...
- therealasdf 10y ago
  The problem with smartwatches today is it's still unclear what type of apps they should run. So you might be able to create super smartwatch that's just as powerful as a smartphone but is that what people want?
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    I was into smartwatches back in their early 80 and 90's versions. There is nothing interesting on this third wave for me personally versus what was already possible. I see it as a solution the vendors are looking for, to sort out the increasingly stagnant sales of smartphones and tablets. Specially in the countries where people don't switch their phones every two years, which is the majority of the world actually.
ohthehugemanate 10y ago
Kudos to Pebble for being the one smartwatch producer who understands their product. A smartwatch is about checking the time, notifications, and other simple information at a glance. It should not require focused attention, it should not require much maintenance (daily charge, anyone?), and it should not be physically obtrusive. It's job is to be a seamless part of the fabric of your daily life. I loved my pebble, but when it died I decided to try something else, one of the fancier watches. I bought the samsung gear because it has the longest battery life of the non-pebble market (2 days), it's waterproof, and it looks unobtrusive. It's fine, if you disable wifi, turn the screen brightness down, and disable most of the builtins. But then I basically have a pebble with a shitty battery. My next watch will be a pebble, because they understand the point of a smart watch.
- fredley 10y ago
  I like that they've staunchly resisted trying to compete with Android Wear / iWatches, but are sticking to their guns, even with their 3rd-gen products (most recent KS). Although a shiny full-colour watch might be an easier sell to the mass market, what Pebble produces is a superior device in almost every way that counts, and most people I know who wear them, myself included, are repeat customers (unlike most wearers of other smartwatches I know of). Long may they continue.
- imaffett 10y ago
  I have a garmin vivoactive smartwatch. It does most of what my pepple could do, but has a lot more. It has built in GPS and an amazing battery life. I get 1 week with daily runs using the gps. I get 2 weeks when im not running. I actually just broke the screen while replacing the siding on my house. Reason being I wear it all the time. No need to charge it every day or so, so I forget about it.
- ozkan 10y ago
  I do charge my Pebble Time Round daily, and it's not waterproof :/ Yet I still backed the Pebble v2.
  - aerique 10y ago
ivoras 10y ago
I somehow think that Pebble is underutilized because of a bad price-performance point, which they are attempting to make up for by positioning it as a high-end watch, not a modern smartwatch. Related to this, are there any other low-end (in terms of hardware; I'm thinking something cheap and Chinese) smart watches, which allow uploading custom apps to the watch itself?
- yangshuo215 10y ago
  I think this is a very interesting idea since now some of the heavy users really want to keep their data to themselves. There might be a market for these
was_boring 10y ago
Do any of these smart watches allow for extended swimming? Most of my workout is swimming laps for an hour a day.
- robbiep 10y ago
  Besides fitness tracking, what's the benefit you find for wearing a watch inn the pool? I used to wear my polar in the pool with my strap, but when I got a Garmin a few years ago it couldn't reliably track my heart rate anyway, and the GPS went wacky from being on the end of my arm when I was out on ocean swims. You want to know the time when you're swimming?
  - te_chris 10y ago
    I'm a competitive (masters) swimmer and I've always thought it would be nice to track average lap times etc., but then realised that without this being correlated to the set being done would actually be a total gimmick as you couldn't derive anything useful from it.
  - was_boring 10y ago
    I just wanted basic fitness tracking (heart rate, active/rest periods, estimated calories burned) that I could use both on traditional workouts like running/walking/biking and swimming. So one platform instead of land-based workouts being tracked and swimming going into a blackhole. I don't do it competitively, just basic maintenance and general wellbeing. Finally, it being a watch is a bonus since I will not have to remember to put it on before starting.
  - tdkl 10y ago
    Stroke count, pool lap times, if devices has indoor swimming support. Of course this is moot for casual swimmers. Regarding outdoor swimming support, the device has to support openwater swimming, because then it contains algorithms to smooth out the GPS signal (it goes off when arm goes inside water). Other option is putting the device below the swimming cap, or a swimming bouy that you drag with you. Heart rate is a different beast. Your Polar worked below water because it used their own proprietary signal that can be recorded under water. Garmin uses ANT+ which doesn't work there. They do have a special HR belt called HR Swim (and HR TRI for outside swimming), that pairs to device, then records HR on its own while swimming. After workout it uploads the recording to the watch which combines both data together. Only top triathlon devices support those.
untog 10y ago
I really hope Pebble is able to stick around for a while. I got an original Pebble and stopped wearing it after a couple of months, but picked up a Pebble Time Round on a whim and have been wearing it solidly. I know it doesn't have all the features of an Android Wear or Apple Watch, but it does most of what I need (notifications and music control) and looks absolutely fantastic - I receive compliments on the watch even before people find out it's a smartwatch, and they're usually blown away when they find out what it can do. The recent health additions make sense - while they don't blow me away, getting a step tracker for free is no bad thing.

137 points by PetitPrince 10y ago

I loved my Pebble, but Android Wear offers such a superior experience when it comes to notification management. The only thing I use my watch for is processing incoming notifications (such as liking a tweet, archiving an email, replying to a Slack message, etc.) The 4.0 release notes hint at the power of the Android notification system, and it baffles me that Pebble still doesnt fully integrate with it. I'm afraid that Android Wear watches will improve on the battery life and outdoor visibility front faster than Pebble will improve on the software front.

mixedCase 10y ago
I highly doubt Android Wear will improve on battery life to compete with the Pebbles short of a huge scientific breakthrough. A full charge of the Pebble Time lasted me 5-6 days.
- e_y_ 10y ago
  They can increase battery life by making the watch bigger and heavier. Don't laugh -- okay, do laugh, but it's surprising what people will put up with. We used to think that 6" phones were ridiculous.
  - bcraven 10y ago
    Some of us still do!
  - tdkl 10y ago
    It's ridiculous because they were making them thinner too.
- TickleSteve 10y ago
  Absolutely right. There is no way that a Cortex-A series processor will be as efficient as the Cortex-M's microcontrollers that are being used by the Pebbles. There is also nothing that needs the power of the Cortex-A's either, the M series are perfectly capable of doing everything a watch needs to.
- sundvor 10y ago
  Yeah, on the Pebble Time Steel it lasts me 7-8 days. Before I activated health activity tracking, I'd get to the order of 9-10 days on average. I find this highly impressive.
KJKingJ 10y ago
Have you given "Notification Center for Pebble" a try? It bypasses Pebble's native notification system by using a custom watchapp and a phone companion app. Compared to Pebble's native notification system, Notification Centre has a ton of different customisation settings globally and/or per app (e.g. font, text size, vibration patterns) and also supports Android Wear actions on notifications. I'd still prefer an Android Wear watch so I can do this natively, but until one comes out with a decent battery life and at a reasonable price point, this works for now.
aerique 10y ago
What does Android Wear add? I've only got experience with a Pebble.
erohead 10y ago
Pebble can do all the notification actions (replying to slack, archiving an email, etc) that you mentioned! Any action that shows up in the notification shade on Android gets sent to Pebble. Using canned messages or the microphone to respond. We added support for all 'Wear' type actions late in 2015. Are there specific actions that you feel are missing on Android?

spike021 10y ago

I'm really disappointed with Pebble. I had a Pebble Steel (the original Steel) and it was great for a while. But when they introduced version 3.0 (I think?), which brought on the new interface I pretty much stopped wearing it. I'm not a heavy calendar user, except when it comes to work. The 3.0 update was based on the idea that users love using the calendar to schedule their days. That one primary change took away from the simplistic interface that the earlier versions had and made the Pebble more of a chore to keep up with. I didn't want to be bombarded with notifications about tasks/meetings at work, and I certainly didn't want them showing up in the main day view. But then that single today view was mostly unused and empty. It's pretty unfortunate, IMO. I enjoyed using it up till then. I guess I could give it another chance but at this point the Original Steel has likely reached its end of life, at least with respect to new updates.

frio 10y ago
It's funny -- I was the exact opposite. I got the original Pebble Kickstarter Edition, and couldn't really find much of a use for it. Having notifications on my wrist was OK, but not mindblowing. The addition of the timeline made _so much_ sense for me. I've barely taken the watch off since (except to upgrade to a Time Steel). It's extremely handy being able to just tap a button on my wrist in order to figure out if I need to be somewhere else. In fact, the biggest frustration has been that I need to press a button; I'd love it if a watch-face permanently showed me my next appointment. As it turns out, this new update does just that, so, awesome. Different strokes for different folks I guess :). I'm sorry that UX change hasn't been as good for you as it has been for me.
wvenable 10y ago
I'm not much of a timeline user but the old design of using the up/down buttons to switch watch faces was obviously not the best use of the primary interface. I'm surprised that is what you enjoyed best about it. It's hard to be disappointed with Pebble on the software side -- they've continued to make smart solid improvements with each release and backport as much as possible to the older devices. There have been a few missteps but nothing too ridiculous.
- 10y ago

NDizzle 10y ago

Starting with the firmware released in July it caused my iphone to lock up for seconds at a time in any other application. It took me a long time to narrow it down to the pebble app, but that was definitely the culprit. Before I figured out that it was the pebble, I thought it was bluetooth itself - because when I turned off the bluetooth, the phone acted normally. Which sucked because I use about 6 bluetooth devices with my phone. Two cars, headphones, and indoor/outdoor home entertainment systems. 6+ with always the latest iOS if any of you pebble people are reading this. It's been a nightmare for the past two months, what was otherwise an absolute brilliant experience up until that point. This is a pebble time kickstarter edition.

wvenable 10y ago
The bluetooth stack on iOS isn't terribly stable. I used to blame the Pebble for it's disconnects until I discovered that it corresponds with the whole stack going out. I've never had a problem with my phone locking up and neither has my wife but some people seem to have constant problems and some none at all. Bluetooth has never struck me as a particularly stable technology in general. Pebble has been working on going full Bluetooth LE and dropping the regular Bluetooth connection. I'm not sure what the progress is on this (or if they abandoned it) but it would probably improve stability and battery life.

ozkatz 10y ago

Their continuos lack of support for RTL languages is making me sad. It's 2016.

alec 10y ago

I recently got a Pebble Time Round and love it. Never wanted a watch before. Few watches provide vibrating alarms, but Pebble's helps keep me on track during the day without disturbing everyone around me with beeps. I wrote a tiny app to vibrate at different points of a meeting so I know how much time is left without boorishly checking a clock, and the development experience was smooth. With the Android Light Flow app, I can control which contacts for which apps can send notifications, which helps keep me aware of things I need to be aware of without being a firehose of alerts.

diego_moita 10y ago

Meh, no API for direct access to Bluetooth (they promised for the end of last year on the Pebble Time Kickstarter). I still use a lot my Pebble because, unlike almost everything else, you can swim and sleep with it (because has enough battery life). But the Samsung Gear Fit 2 does look tempting and is the only non-Pebble that can also do both.

taneq 10y ago
There's libpebble2 which pretty comprehensively covers the basic features if you want to talk to the watch yourself (https://github.com/pebble/libpebble2/ https://github.com/pebble/libpebble2/) - or is that not what you meant?
- diego_moita 10y ago
  It comes very close, but still misses. But I was dreaming about a little more, such as rssi measurements from the Pebble itself or scannig Bluetooth tokens proximity.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

Just downloaded the update. It managed to crash the first time round (also really first time Pebble watch crashing on me). I'm guessing the watchface wasn't updated to work properly with the new timeline preview ("Glances") - I'll debug it if it crashes again. So far I'm very happy they've updated the Pebble Health watchapp - it's finally usable now (and quite nice), as it display daily stats for last week in nice bar graphs. Also I have an impression that Timeline is a bit more responsive/faster now. I'm pretty happy with what Pebble is doing (though Health interface on the mobile app could use some further rework to provide more/better information). Can't wait for the Time 2 watches to start shipping!

jefffan241 10y ago
I had the same issue and rebooting my watch (not hard reset, just reboot [press and hold the back and select (middle button)] for 10 seconds until the pebble logo shows) fixed the problem. Just in case anyone else has this.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Yes, reboot seems to fix the problem in some cases. My watch didn't crash again after the reboot earlier today.
cordite 10y ago
Yeah, mine crashes when I press down. After three crashes it seems to have gotten into "factory mode"? Doesn't seem like they put much fault tolerance in. EDIT: Tried the Enigma watchface that came by default, it doesn't crash. I'll use this for now, but that was still quite disappointing. Contacted the developer.

petra 10y ago

With regards to smartwatches , the Chinese have done a great job at reducing the prices(as always). But the software isn't great(unless it's wear). So I'm curious - why does nobody release a decent smartwatch is , that supports apps, and can run well on a cheap($50) watch ? At that price point, many new users might be interested.

forvelin 10y ago
xiaomi moves to that space, we will hear more about it probably, considering they are proceeding with huami[0]. [0] http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomibacked_huami_amazfit_smartwatch_is_now_official-blog-20218.php http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomibacked_huami_amazfit_smartwatc...
therealasdf 10y ago
The problem with smartwatches today is it's still unclear what type of apps they should run. So you might be able to create super smartwatch that's just as powerful as a smartphone but is that what people want?
- pjmlp 10y ago
  I was into smartwatches back in their early 80 and 90's versions. There is nothing interesting on this third wave for me personally versus what was already possible. I see it as a solution the vendors are looking for, to sort out the increasingly stagnant sales of smartphones and tablets. Specially in the countries where people don't switch their phones every two years, which is the majority of the world actually.

ohthehugemanate 10y ago

Kudos to Pebble for being the one smartwatch producer who understands their product. A smartwatch is about checking the time, notifications, and other simple information at a glance. It should not require focused attention, it should not require much maintenance (daily charge, anyone?), and it should not be physically obtrusive. It's job is to be a seamless part of the fabric of your daily life. I loved my pebble, but when it died I decided to try something else, one of the fancier watches. I bought the samsung gear because it has the longest battery life of the non-pebble market (2 days), it's waterproof, and it looks unobtrusive. It's fine, if you disable wifi, turn the screen brightness down, and disable most of the builtins. But then I basically have a pebble with a shitty battery. My next watch will be a pebble, because they understand the point of a smart watch.

fredley 10y ago
I like that they've staunchly resisted trying to compete with Android Wear / iWatches, but are sticking to their guns, even with their 3rd-gen products (most recent KS). Although a shiny full-colour watch might be an easier sell to the mass market, what Pebble produces is a superior device in almost every way that counts, and most people I know who wear them, myself included, are repeat customers (unlike most wearers of other smartwatches I know of). Long may they continue.
imaffett 10y ago
I have a garmin vivoactive smartwatch. It does most of what my pepple could do, but has a lot more. It has built in GPS and an amazing battery life. I get 1 week with daily runs using the gps. I get 2 weeks when im not running. I actually just broke the screen while replacing the siding on my house. Reason being I wear it all the time. No need to charge it every day or so, so I forget about it.
ozkan 10y ago
I do charge my Pebble Time Round daily, and it's not waterproof :/ Yet I still backed the Pebble v2.
- aerique 10y ago

ivoras 10y ago

I somehow think that Pebble is underutilized because of a bad price-performance point, which they are attempting to make up for by positioning it as a high-end watch, not a modern smartwatch. Related to this, are there any other low-end (in terms of hardware; I'm thinking something cheap and Chinese) smart watches, which allow uploading custom apps to the watch itself?

yangshuo215 10y ago
I think this is a very interesting idea since now some of the heavy users really want to keep their data to themselves. There might be a market for these

was_boring 10y ago

Do any of these smart watches allow for extended swimming? Most of my workout is swimming laps for an hour a day.

robbiep 10y ago
Besides fitness tracking, what's the benefit you find for wearing a watch inn the pool? I used to wear my polar in the pool with my strap, but when I got a Garmin a few years ago it couldn't reliably track my heart rate anyway, and the GPS went wacky from being on the end of my arm when I was out on ocean swims. You want to know the time when you're swimming?
- te_chris 10y ago
  I'm a competitive (masters) swimmer and I've always thought it would be nice to track average lap times etc., but then realised that without this being correlated to the set being done would actually be a total gimmick as you couldn't derive anything useful from it.
- was_boring 10y ago
  I just wanted basic fitness tracking (heart rate, active/rest periods, estimated calories burned) that I could use both on traditional workouts like running/walking/biking and swimming. So one platform instead of land-based workouts being tracked and swimming going into a blackhole. I don't do it competitively, just basic maintenance and general wellbeing. Finally, it being a watch is a bonus since I will not have to remember to put it on before starting.
- tdkl 10y ago
  Stroke count, pool lap times, if devices has indoor swimming support. Of course this is moot for casual swimmers. Regarding outdoor swimming support, the device has to support openwater swimming, because then it contains algorithms to smooth out the GPS signal (it goes off when arm goes inside water). Other option is putting the device below the swimming cap, or a swimming bouy that you drag with you. Heart rate is a different beast. Your Polar worked below water because it used their own proprietary signal that can be recorded under water. Garmin uses ANT+ which doesn't work there. They do have a special HR belt called HR Swim (and HR TRI for outside swimming), that pairs to device, then records HR on its own while swimming. After workout it uploads the recording to the watch which combines both data together. Only top triathlon devices support those.

untog 10y ago

I really hope Pebble is able to stick around for a while. I got an original Pebble and stopped wearing it after a couple of months, but picked up a Pebble Time Round on a whim and have been wearing it solidly. I know it doesn't have all the features of an Android Wear or Apple Watch, but it does most of what I need (notifications and music control) and looks absolutely fantastic - I receive compliments on the watch even before people find out it's a smartwatch, and they're usually blown away when they find out what it can do. The recent health additions make sense - while they don't blow me away, getting a step tracker for free is no bad thing.