8 ms·

Five days with Pebble

129 points by danilocampos 14y ago

harlanlewis 14y ago
Enjoyed the read, thanks for sharing. The 'decorum' bit made me chuckle, though - checking your watch while someone's talking is hardly the height of etiquette! I'm not too familiar with Pebble's interactions and content display - can you really just glance at it after your pocket buzzes, or is there any cycling through display modes to see notifications? If notifications take over display, how long do they persist? What default content gets hidden to show the notification? Or does it work a completely different way? I'm looking forward to playing with one myself but for now am reduced to eager fanboi questions...
- danilocampos 14y ago
  So, when a notification hits your phone, the Pebble immediately buzzes and lights its screen, displaying the content of that notification. It'll sit there for three minutes, then go back to whatever you were doing. So if you were in the Music controller, you would hit the Pebble's back button to dismiss the notification and you'd see your current track again. If you were on a watch app, you'll see the watch. Fair point about manners! The fact that the device rather noticeably lights up gives you a bit of cover though.
  - rufo 14y ago
    As someone who already dreads smartphones coming out at lunch or dinner outings with friends, I already hate the idea of people's wrists lighting up and distracting from conversation. :)
    - danilocampos 14y ago
      Believe me, this is better. The curiosity urge is what gets the phone pulled out of the pocket. From there, it's very low friction to decide to open it up and start screwing around. Separating the two acts has, for me, been an improvement.
      - kefs 14y ago
        ...or you could just set custom notification tones and vibrate patterns/intensity levels for specific apps/contacts/labels/anything (on android)
        danilocampos 14y ago
        It's not the same as reading, though. I've done that in the past and it worked out like this: "Oh, I know exactly who is texting me. They are a high priority person in my life. Let's make sure they're okay... Aaand it's a cat gif." The text display is the game-changer here.
vitno 14y ago
I'm at 4 days with my Pebble. It's great. It's subtle, it looks nice and I like having a watch. My only two caveats, I had to give a presentation the other day and it went off during my presentation. Sure, I was the only one who noticed, but it threw me through a loop for a second. A "Watch mode only" switch would be nice. The other is the watch strap. I ordered a leather strap which I think will make the watch look an order of magnitude better. edit: oh. I would also like notifications I clear on the watch to clear on my smartphone.
- doodyhead 14y ago
  Could you not just disable Bluetooth on your phone for situations like that? Just curious if there's a downside. Would love a Pebble but haven't ordered yet so I'm going to wait until they catch up on the backlog.
  - vitno 14y ago
    yea, I had another presentation today and that's what I did. Nowhere near as convenient though. I'd like a software switch in the menus for the current version and the next version to have a physical switch.
    - doodyhead 14y ago
      Makes sense!
    - erohead 14y ago
      There's a software switch in Pebble to disable notifications. Settings -> Display -> Notifications On/Off
      - vitno 14y ago
        Looks at profile... must know what he is talking about. That's fantastic. In the future though, a physical switch seems like a good idea.
robbiet480 14y ago
Loving my Pebble, especially with Light Flow Plus and Pebble Notifier however, I am really hoping for the IFTTT channel to come out soon, although I heard from rumor that IFTTT isn't playing ball, but I don't know for sure.
- erohead 14y ago
  Right now you can get ifttt alerts sent to pebble via SMS (iOS) or email/SMS (Android). It's 100% in our court to get the final part hooked up, absolutely nothing to do with ifttt!
ryanb 14y ago
I'm really enjoying my Pebble as well. Screening text/calls on my wrist is a lot nicer than I thought it with be. I'm excited to see what kind of apps the developer community is going to come up with now that they have Pebble's in hand.
justjimmy 14y ago
I'm constantly missing calls/texts when I'm on the move/walking about with my phone in my pant pockets - can't feel the buzz, especially during winter season. Having a buzz on my wrist seems like a neat solution and w/o having to fish for my phone constantly. It's definitely going to require some practice to fight the urge to simply glance at my watch (than fishing out the phone) when engaged with something/someone else.
spullara 14y ago
I'm not as happy with mine feature-wise but glad I participated. Build quality-wise it is pretty bad. I've already lost a button and reported it to them. I think of it as taking a cold shower before jumping in the iWatch hot tub.
- saraid216 14y ago
  Should sell yours to this guy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5216938 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5216938
ChuckMcM 14y ago
I've got an inPulse watch^h^h^h^h^hpaperweight. If you want to see the effect of the Langolier spammers go over and look at inPulse's website http://www.getinpulse.com/hack/forum/ http://www.getinpulse.com/hack/forum/ (not recommended). You can also see folks crying in the corner for any information at all. They never followed through and made it work with 64bit versions of Windows, the Linux support was sub par at best, mostly unusable. Just checking they at least have finally turned off the page where they would let you order one. To say this left a 'bad taste' would be an understatement.
- duskwuff 14y ago
  "Langolier spammers"? Never heard that term.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    Stephen King novel "The Langoliers" (made into a bad TV movie) see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langoliers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langoliers They are creatures that come and eat up the world after time has moved past, dead web sites (and dead forum sites in particular) get 'eaten' by spammers in much the same way.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
modeless 14y ago
I'm loving notifications on my wrist, but there are a few rough edges. The worst is that dismissing a notification on your phone does not dismiss it on the watch and vice versa. Messages you received and already read on your phone/computer will remain on the watch face, obscuring the time. This forces you to constantly interact with the watch in addition to your phone/computer. Other problems: There's no generic support for Android notifications, so only a few apps work, not including Google Now or G+. Google Talk notifications are nice but vibrate the watch too often.
6thSigma 14y ago
Ugh, I should have ordered during the Kickstarter. I was literally at the billing info page when I decided to wait until some reviews came out. I was bought one as a gift, and still haven't received a billing notification yet. :(
jaysonelliot 14y ago
I, too, love my Pebble, if only for the convenience of getting text and call notifications on my wrist. I'm surprised at how poorly thought-out the UI is, and particularly surprised at how little control I have over it, at least out of the box. For the moment, there's no way to invert the screen color, no way to view text or call history (even to the point of seeing a notification if you accidentally press the wrong button and dismiss it), not even a battery life indicator that I've been able to find. Eventually, as developers start getting apps on the Pebble, and as Pebble themselves work on the UI, I have faith it will improve. As the author says, this is what it's like in early adopter land. One thing the Pebble has convinced me of is that smart watches will be a popular product category in the near future. There's just too much potential, and even my very basic, very early-stage Pebble has already become one of my favorite gadgets.
- dublinben 14y ago
  If smart watches take off, it will be when Apple releases theirs.
  - laumars 14y ago
    Technology has taken off in the past without Apples influences (netbooks, IPTV, I'd even argue that smartphones and MP3 players too - though Apple did lead the charge in their re-invention which further popularised them). Plus it seems a little presumptuous to make such a definitive statement when given Apple's watch is only a rumour and how unreliable Apple rumours are at the best of times.
    - ocean12 14y ago
      Netbooks? How'd that work out for the industry?
      - DanBC 14y ago
        Pretty good - people got to realise that they didn't need 3.8 GHz machines to browse the web and read email. Something much smaller would do. You don't need cd / dvd rom. You don't need 8 GB of ram. You don't need huge screens. The form factor was lousy, but by the time they realised that they had cranked up smart phones. A big smart phone is really just a smaller netbook.
cpenner461 14y ago
Thanks for the overview of your experience. I'm eagerly waiting for mine to ship. How did the shipping process work? I.e. did it just show up on your doorstep one day or did the Pebble account site tell you when it shipped? I keep checking my account every few days but there's no sign other than I've done all I can do for now. Trying to figure out what the rest of my wait will be like. :-)
- danilocampos 14y ago
  I checked my mailbox and BOOM, there it was. I got a shipping notification the next day, which was cute. But in SF, I'm less than an hour's drive from their fulfillment center, so others will probably be better prepared.
  - geoffpado 14y ago
    I had the same experience in central Missouri, so… probably not. I'm totally okay with them being able to ship faster than sending e-mails, though.
mrcrassic 14y ago
This looks incredibly, incredibly useful. These guys are going to go FAR with this. I just pre-ordered one. Can't wait!
- reiichiroh 14y ago
  Although things are subjective, it looks pretty ugly and flimsy. I'll sit this out until they can be as durable as a simple Casio watch or G-shock.
Apreche 14y ago
I have one, and this is accurate. The only benefit is being able to see notifications on the wrist without having to take the phone out of my pocket. That being said, it is a huge and amazing benefit. I hate watches, and feel they have no purpose, but now it does. The thing is I think this article understated the horribleness of the notification bug that is supposedly Apple's fault. It's a huge pain in the ass. The only feature that matters on the Pebble is seeing notifications on the watch. Sometimes my phone buzzes and the Pebble does not. Unless the Pebble gets 100% of the notifications reliably, it becomes a frustration instead of a boon. If that is fixed, then oh yes. If it's not fixed soon, I'll be trading pebble for the rumored Apple watch. Heck, I might do that anyway. But still.
- dguaraglia 14y ago
  As the guys from The Bugle (a satirical podcast) said while describing this product: "we've definitely come a long way when there's a need to develop a complete new piece of expensive hardware just to avoid having to take your phone from your pocket. Meanwhile, no solution to the global hunger problem." As much as I nerdgasm at how cool this device is, I have to wonder if, as a species, we haven't 'jumped the shark'.
  - Osmium 14y ago
    Some problems are easier to solve than others. Why needlessly halt progress in smaller areas just because the big problems are yet to be solved?
  - laumars 14y ago
    Where do you draw the line between necessity and greed? Do I need a 40" TV? Not really, 14" is big enough to watch, it's just less enjoyable. But then TV is purely there for enjoyment anyway, so perhaps just owning one is jumping the shark when one could equally read the news online. This watch might be excessive, but then so are the phones that this connects to (how many people actually need a smart phone? Even for corporate use, 'dumb' feature phones can send and receive e-mails). And it's greatest use is to check notifications when driving (I don't need to drive, I could get the train) or chatting to friends down the pub (I don't need to drink). Plus lets not forget that progress and technology is generally invented for 1 of 3 reasons: 1) to kill each other 2) to cut costs in companies (usually resulting in job losses as technology replaces human beings) 3) to make our lives more luxurious. Personally I'd rather see more 'pointless' smart watches than job losses and smart bombs.
shurcooL 14y ago
Sounds like this would be a great match with my LTE iPad mini (I keep it in my pocket). But I'll probably still wait until Apple releases their version. Even then, not sure if I'll get it because I prefer to have one device... at least until they start to sync Notification (Interruption?) Center.
just_observing 14y ago
"Sometimes I want to give the people I’m with my undivided attention." and now I can pretend I am.
tsycho 14y ago
For those with Pebbles, does it have any impact on the battery life of the phone? How's the battery life of Pebble itself?
- thechut 14y ago
  I've had my Pebble for 10 days. I charged it once when I got it and once since then, it died on me for the first time while I was wearing it today. I would say the battery life on is great especially compared to the inPulse and definitely usable. I've noticed the battery usage varies a lot. depending on watchfaces, how your notifications are set / how many notifications you get on a daily basis. But my sparse charging since I got it has proven that the battery should easily stand up to 3 or 4 days of use between charges. This was more than enough to satisfy me after the crummy battery life I experience with inPulse.
thechut 14y ago
WHERE IS THE SDK? Why will nobody answer this question? I received my Pebble 10 days ago. I was an early back of a black Pebble. So far I have really loved my Pebble, but it is begging for apps. The Pebble team said during the Kickstarter for their 2m stretch goal that they would release the SDK before the watch. Still no SDK, and not even so much as a mention since they started shipping. Obviously, as with almost all Kickstarter projects (including Pebble), there are delays. That is fine. But why will nobody from the Pebble team comment on the release or what is going on? I have sent emails, posted on the forums, signed up for mailing lists, posted kickstarter comments, and lurked in IRC (and now commented on HN) to try to figure out what the deal with the SDK is. NOBODY KNOWS or nobody will talk about it. There are rumblings that some people, possibly "hacker special" backers, have already been given access to an SDK. I'm not sure if this is true, but it shouldn't prevent the Pebble team from making an announcement about what is going on with the SDK. I'm not trying to put Pebble down or trying to degrade what Pebble is in any way. I own an inPulse and I backed Pebble the second I found out about it. I hope for nothing but success for Pebble and think they could do amazing things. I think they could do even more amazing things if they let developers start making Pebble even better. PEBBLE TEAM, if you are reading this...PLEASSSEEEE just tell us what/when to expect!
- danilocampos 14y ago
  Maybe I'm biased given my background as an iOS guy, but... I'm just happy they got the hardware out and it's working pretty damn well. I want to write code for this new platform more than anyone. But they're a hardware startup! And they're shipping their hardware! That shit is impossible, and frankly, worth prioritizing over any other goal. Getting an SDK right takes time. It took Apple a year for the iPhone, and they had enormous resources and a comparatively luxuriously-appointed platform. How much RAM do you think a little guy like the Pebble is working with? So I can imagine there be dragons in Pebble SDK town. They're going to get there. But be realistic and cut some slack here. As a fellow backer, I'm looking at all of this as having gone infinitely better than expected. Maybe you want a bit more communication on this subject, and that's fair, but keep some perspective. Creating the future takes time. All their incentives are aligned with yours. The better the dev ecosystem for this platform, the more money they get to make over time. It's gonna be fine.
zwegner 14y ago
I think I'll pass--I instinctively check my phone too much as it is, I really don't need another device to feed my dopamine addiction. Reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes strip--if we wanted technology to make our lives more convenient, we'd make computers slower, not faster.
Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
"Sometimes I want to give the people I’m with my undivided attention. That means the phone stays firmly in my pocket. And as long as no calls or notifications come in, that’s fine. But once my pocket starts buzzing, my mind can start to run wild with curiosity. Is someone in trouble, or did a dumb tweet get faved by someone? That game can erode attention after awhile. With the Pebble, I can discreetly glance at my wrist without breaking the flow of conversation." In what way is this giving someone your undivided attention? You're just slightly modifying the division of your attention and making it easier to hide that you're thinking about something else. Personally I find a better solution is to either be honest and put your phone on the desk and explain to people that you might be getting a call you need to take, or put it somewhere you can't see, hear or feel it and genuinely disengage. Not saying I don't like the Pebble, I do, just that I don't think this is a great use case for it.
- laumars 14y ago
  This is also where the argument for different notification tones comes into its own.
- risratorn 14y ago
  It gets your mind off of the thing without getting your phone out of your pocket ... one glare at your watch and you know if it's worth interrupting your conversation or not. If not, it's just a 2 second interruption at max which should not interfere with your "undivided attention" to the person you are speaking with. This is at least how my "attention" works :)
- unwind 14y ago
  It should probably be read as "sometimes I want to give the impression I'm giving someone my undivided attention". Or something like that. I don't particularly want to sound like I'm bashing the original poster, although I did find the argument of his "mind running wild" slighltly worrying; turn off the phone entierly then, or at least the vibrations.
mattbarrie 14y ago
Apple is about to eat their lunch.

129 points by danilocampos 14y ago

Enjoyed the read, thanks for sharing. The 'decorum' bit made me chuckle, though - checking your watch while someone's talking is hardly the height of etiquette! I'm not too familiar with Pebble's interactions and content display - can you really just glance at it after your pocket buzzes, or is there any cycling through display modes to see notifications? If notifications take over display, how long do they persist? What default content gets hidden to show the notification? Or does it work a completely different way? I'm looking forward to playing with one myself but for now am reduced to eager fanboi questions...

danilocampos 14y ago
So, when a notification hits your phone, the Pebble immediately buzzes and lights its screen, displaying the content of that notification. It'll sit there for three minutes, then go back to whatever you were doing. So if you were in the Music controller, you would hit the Pebble's back button to dismiss the notification and you'd see your current track again. If you were on a watch app, you'll see the watch. Fair point about manners! The fact that the device rather noticeably lights up gives you a bit of cover though.
- rufo 14y ago
  As someone who already dreads smartphones coming out at lunch or dinner outings with friends, I already hate the idea of people's wrists lighting up and distracting from conversation. :)
  - danilocampos 14y ago
    Believe me, this is better. The curiosity urge is what gets the phone pulled out of the pocket. From there, it's very low friction to decide to open it up and start screwing around. Separating the two acts has, for me, been an improvement.
    - kefs 14y ago
      ...or you could just set custom notification tones and vibrate patterns/intensity levels for specific apps/contacts/labels/anything (on android)
      - danilocampos 14y ago
        It's not the same as reading, though. I've done that in the past and it worked out like this: "Oh, I know exactly who is texting me. They are a high priority person in my life. Let's make sure they're okay... Aaand it's a cat gif." The text display is the game-changer here.

vitno 14y ago

I'm at 4 days with my Pebble. It's great. It's subtle, it looks nice and I like having a watch. My only two caveats, I had to give a presentation the other day and it went off during my presentation. Sure, I was the only one who noticed, but it threw me through a loop for a second. A "Watch mode only" switch would be nice. The other is the watch strap. I ordered a leather strap which I think will make the watch look an order of magnitude better. edit: oh. I would also like notifications I clear on the watch to clear on my smartphone.

doodyhead 14y ago
Could you not just disable Bluetooth on your phone for situations like that? Just curious if there's a downside. Would love a Pebble but haven't ordered yet so I'm going to wait until they catch up on the backlog.
- vitno 14y ago
  yea, I had another presentation today and that's what I did. Nowhere near as convenient though. I'd like a software switch in the menus for the current version and the next version to have a physical switch.
  - doodyhead 14y ago
    Makes sense!
  - erohead 14y ago
    There's a software switch in Pebble to disable notifications. Settings -> Display -> Notifications On/Off
    - vitno 14y ago
      Looks at profile... must know what he is talking about. That's fantastic. In the future though, a physical switch seems like a good idea.

robbiet480 14y ago

Loving my Pebble, especially with Light Flow Plus and Pebble Notifier however, I am really hoping for the IFTTT channel to come out soon, although I heard from rumor that IFTTT isn't playing ball, but I don't know for sure.

erohead 14y ago
Right now you can get ifttt alerts sent to pebble via SMS (iOS) or email/SMS (Android). It's 100% in our court to get the final part hooked up, absolutely nothing to do with ifttt!

ryanb 14y ago

I'm really enjoying my Pebble as well. Screening text/calls on my wrist is a lot nicer than I thought it with be. I'm excited to see what kind of apps the developer community is going to come up with now that they have Pebble's in hand.

justjimmy 14y ago

I'm constantly missing calls/texts when I'm on the move/walking about with my phone in my pant pockets - can't feel the buzz, especially during winter season. Having a buzz on my wrist seems like a neat solution and w/o having to fish for my phone constantly. It's definitely going to require some practice to fight the urge to simply glance at my watch (than fishing out the phone) when engaged with something/someone else.

spullara 14y ago

I'm not as happy with mine feature-wise but glad I participated. Build quality-wise it is pretty bad. I've already lost a button and reported it to them. I think of it as taking a cold shower before jumping in the iWatch hot tub.

saraid216 14y ago
Should sell yours to this guy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5216938 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5216938

ChuckMcM 14y ago

I've got an inPulse watch^h^h^h^h^hpaperweight. If you want to see the effect of the Langolier spammers go over and look at inPulse's website http://www.getinpulse.com/hack/forum/ http://www.getinpulse.com/hack/forum/ (not recommended). You can also see folks crying in the corner for any information at all. They never followed through and made it work with 64bit versions of Windows, the Linux support was sub par at best, mostly unusable. Just checking they at least have finally turned off the page where they would let you order one. To say this left a 'bad taste' would be an understatement.

duskwuff 14y ago
"Langolier spammers"? Never heard that term.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Stephen King novel "The Langoliers" (made into a bad TV movie) see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langoliers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langoliers They are creatures that come and eat up the world after time has moved past, dead web sites (and dead forum sites in particular) get 'eaten' by spammers in much the same way.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

modeless 14y ago

I'm loving notifications on my wrist, but there are a few rough edges. The worst is that dismissing a notification on your phone does not dismiss it on the watch and vice versa. Messages you received and already read on your phone/computer will remain on the watch face, obscuring the time. This forces you to constantly interact with the watch in addition to your phone/computer. Other problems: There's no generic support for Android notifications, so only a few apps work, not including Google Now or G+. Google Talk notifications are nice but vibrate the watch too often.

6thSigma 14y ago

Ugh, I should have ordered during the Kickstarter. I was literally at the billing info page when I decided to wait until some reviews came out. I was bought one as a gift, and still haven't received a billing notification yet. :(

jaysonelliot 14y ago

I, too, love my Pebble, if only for the convenience of getting text and call notifications on my wrist. I'm surprised at how poorly thought-out the UI is, and particularly surprised at how little control I have over it, at least out of the box. For the moment, there's no way to invert the screen color, no way to view text or call history (even to the point of seeing a notification if you accidentally press the wrong button and dismiss it), not even a battery life indicator that I've been able to find. Eventually, as developers start getting apps on the Pebble, and as Pebble themselves work on the UI, I have faith it will improve. As the author says, this is what it's like in early adopter land. One thing the Pebble has convinced me of is that smart watches will be a popular product category in the near future. There's just too much potential, and even my very basic, very early-stage Pebble has already become one of my favorite gadgets.

dublinben 14y ago
If smart watches take off, it will be when Apple releases theirs.
- laumars 14y ago
  Technology has taken off in the past without Apples influences (netbooks, IPTV, I'd even argue that smartphones and MP3 players too - though Apple did lead the charge in their re-invention which further popularised them). Plus it seems a little presumptuous to make such a definitive statement when given Apple's watch is only a rumour and how unreliable Apple rumours are at the best of times.
  - ocean12 14y ago
    Netbooks? How'd that work out for the industry?
    - DanBC 14y ago
      Pretty good - people got to realise that they didn't need 3.8 GHz machines to browse the web and read email. Something much smaller would do. You don't need cd / dvd rom. You don't need 8 GB of ram. You don't need huge screens. The form factor was lousy, but by the time they realised that they had cranked up smart phones. A big smart phone is really just a smaller netbook.

cpenner461 14y ago

Thanks for the overview of your experience. I'm eagerly waiting for mine to ship. How did the shipping process work? I.e. did it just show up on your doorstep one day or did the Pebble account site tell you when it shipped? I keep checking my account every few days but there's no sign other than I've done all I can do for now. Trying to figure out what the rest of my wait will be like. :-)

danilocampos 14y ago
I checked my mailbox and BOOM, there it was. I got a shipping notification the next day, which was cute. But in SF, I'm less than an hour's drive from their fulfillment center, so others will probably be better prepared.
- geoffpado 14y ago
  I had the same experience in central Missouri, so… probably not. I'm totally okay with them being able to ship faster than sending e-mails, though.

mrcrassic 14y ago

This looks incredibly, incredibly useful. These guys are going to go FAR with this. I just pre-ordered one. Can't wait!

reiichiroh 14y ago
Although things are subjective, it looks pretty ugly and flimsy. I'll sit this out until they can be as durable as a simple Casio watch or G-shock.

Apreche 14y ago

I have one, and this is accurate. The only benefit is being able to see notifications on the wrist without having to take the phone out of my pocket. That being said, it is a huge and amazing benefit. I hate watches, and feel they have no purpose, but now it does. The thing is I think this article understated the horribleness of the notification bug that is supposedly Apple's fault. It's a huge pain in the ass. The only feature that matters on the Pebble is seeing notifications on the watch. Sometimes my phone buzzes and the Pebble does not. Unless the Pebble gets 100% of the notifications reliably, it becomes a frustration instead of a boon. If that is fixed, then oh yes. If it's not fixed soon, I'll be trading pebble for the rumored Apple watch. Heck, I might do that anyway. But still.

dguaraglia 14y ago
As the guys from The Bugle (a satirical podcast) said while describing this product: "we've definitely come a long way when there's a need to develop a complete new piece of expensive hardware just to avoid having to take your phone from your pocket. Meanwhile, no solution to the global hunger problem." As much as I nerdgasm at how cool this device is, I have to wonder if, as a species, we haven't 'jumped the shark'.
- Osmium 14y ago
  Some problems are easier to solve than others. Why needlessly halt progress in smaller areas just because the big problems are yet to be solved?
- laumars 14y ago
  Where do you draw the line between necessity and greed? Do I need a 40" TV? Not really, 14" is big enough to watch, it's just less enjoyable. But then TV is purely there for enjoyment anyway, so perhaps just owning one is jumping the shark when one could equally read the news online. This watch might be excessive, but then so are the phones that this connects to (how many people actually need a smart phone? Even for corporate use, 'dumb' feature phones can send and receive e-mails). And it's greatest use is to check notifications when driving (I don't need to drive, I could get the train) or chatting to friends down the pub (I don't need to drink). Plus lets not forget that progress and technology is generally invented for 1 of 3 reasons: 1) to kill each other 2) to cut costs in companies (usually resulting in job losses as technology replaces human beings) 3) to make our lives more luxurious. Personally I'd rather see more 'pointless' smart watches than job losses and smart bombs.

shurcooL 14y ago

Sounds like this would be a great match with my LTE iPad mini (I keep it in my pocket). But I'll probably still wait until Apple releases their version. Even then, not sure if I'll get it because I prefer to have one device... at least until they start to sync Notification (Interruption?) Center.

just_observing 14y ago

"Sometimes I want to give the people I’m with my undivided attention." and now I can pretend I am.

tsycho 14y ago

For those with Pebbles, does it have any impact on the battery life of the phone? How's the battery life of Pebble itself?

thechut 14y ago
I've had my Pebble for 10 days. I charged it once when I got it and once since then, it died on me for the first time while I was wearing it today. I would say the battery life on is great especially compared to the inPulse and definitely usable. I've noticed the battery usage varies a lot. depending on watchfaces, how your notifications are set / how many notifications you get on a daily basis. But my sparse charging since I got it has proven that the battery should easily stand up to 3 or 4 days of use between charges. This was more than enough to satisfy me after the crummy battery life I experience with inPulse.

thechut 14y ago

WHERE IS THE SDK? Why will nobody answer this question? I received my Pebble 10 days ago. I was an early back of a black Pebble. So far I have really loved my Pebble, but it is begging for apps. The Pebble team said during the Kickstarter for their 2m stretch goal that they would release the SDK before the watch. Still no SDK, and not even so much as a mention since they started shipping. Obviously, as with almost all Kickstarter projects (including Pebble), there are delays. That is fine. But why will nobody from the Pebble team comment on the release or what is going on? I have sent emails, posted on the forums, signed up for mailing lists, posted kickstarter comments, and lurked in IRC (and now commented on HN) to try to figure out what the deal with the SDK is. NOBODY KNOWS or nobody will talk about it. There are rumblings that some people, possibly "hacker special" backers, have already been given access to an SDK. I'm not sure if this is true, but it shouldn't prevent the Pebble team from making an announcement about what is going on with the SDK. I'm not trying to put Pebble down or trying to degrade what Pebble is in any way. I own an inPulse and I backed Pebble the second I found out about it. I hope for nothing but success for Pebble and think they could do amazing things. I think they could do even more amazing things if they let developers start making Pebble even better. PEBBLE TEAM, if you are reading this...PLEASSSEEEE just tell us what/when to expect!

danilocampos 14y ago
Maybe I'm biased given my background as an iOS guy, but... I'm just happy they got the hardware out and it's working pretty damn well. I want to write code for this new platform more than anyone. But they're a hardware startup! And they're shipping their hardware! That shit is impossible, and frankly, worth prioritizing over any other goal. Getting an SDK right takes time. It took Apple a year for the iPhone, and they had enormous resources and a comparatively luxuriously-appointed platform. How much RAM do you think a little guy like the Pebble is working with? So I can imagine there be dragons in Pebble SDK town. They're going to get there. But be realistic and cut some slack here. As a fellow backer, I'm looking at all of this as having gone infinitely better than expected. Maybe you want a bit more communication on this subject, and that's fair, but keep some perspective. Creating the future takes time. All their incentives are aligned with yours. The better the dev ecosystem for this platform, the more money they get to make over time. It's gonna be fine.

zwegner 14y ago

I think I'll pass--I instinctively check my phone too much as it is, I really don't need another device to feed my dopamine addiction. Reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes strip--if we wanted technology to make our lives more convenient, we'd make computers slower, not faster.

Tyrannosaurs 14y ago

"Sometimes I want to give the people I’m with my undivided attention. That means the phone stays firmly in my pocket. And as long as no calls or notifications come in, that’s fine. But once my pocket starts buzzing, my mind can start to run wild with curiosity. Is someone in trouble, or did a dumb tweet get faved by someone? That game can erode attention after awhile. With the Pebble, I can discreetly glance at my wrist without breaking the flow of conversation." In what way is this giving someone your undivided attention? You're just slightly modifying the division of your attention and making it easier to hide that you're thinking about something else. Personally I find a better solution is to either be honest and put your phone on the desk and explain to people that you might be getting a call you need to take, or put it somewhere you can't see, hear or feel it and genuinely disengage. Not saying I don't like the Pebble, I do, just that I don't think this is a great use case for it.

laumars 14y ago
This is also where the argument for different notification tones comes into its own.
risratorn 14y ago
It gets your mind off of the thing without getting your phone out of your pocket ... one glare at your watch and you know if it's worth interrupting your conversation or not. If not, it's just a 2 second interruption at max which should not interfere with your "undivided attention" to the person you are speaking with. This is at least how my "attention" works :)
unwind 14y ago
It should probably be read as "sometimes I want to give the impression I'm giving someone my undivided attention". Or something like that. I don't particularly want to sound like I'm bashing the original poster, although I did find the argument of his "mind running wild" slighltly worrying; turn off the phone entierly then, or at least the vibrations.

mattbarrie 14y ago

Apple is about to eat their lunch.