5 ms·

With 5000 apps, Pebble is winning the smartwatch developer war, at least for now

74 points by technologizer 12y ago

Rygu 12y ago
Well if "Pebble" is a platform and iOS is a platform, my bet is that Apple already won this.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  Yes it would be worthwhile for anyone planning on supporting the big 3 "smart" watches to check this product out and the apps for. Simply to see what is popular, what works, what doesn't, and so on. I do not expect them to have the big numbers of the others, but there should be room for entry level "smart" watch makers. the prices bandied about by Apple and others are simply appalling for a device which is slaved to another for some functions, at these prices it should be a phone on its own
- Someone 12y ago
  Apple Watch does not run iOS apps (at the moment). https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/WatchKitProgrammingGuide/index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documenta...: "Apple Watch requires the presence of an iPhone to run third-party apps. Creation of a third-party app requires two separate bundles: a WatchKit app that runs on Apple Watch and a WatchKit extension that runs on the user’s iPhone. The WatchKit app contains only the storyboards and resource files associated with your app’s user interface. The WatchKit extension contains the code for managing the WatchKit app’s user interface and for responding to user interactions." On the other hand, the 5000 is a bit inflated. It is more like 1000 apps and 4000 watch faces. And of course, the race is still very much on. I would think sales numbers will be more important than app counts because they will drive app counts up. In that sense, the "over 400.000 sold" (http://fortune.com/2014/03/20/pebble-sold-400000-smartwatches-last-year-on-track-to-double-revenues-in-2014/ http://fortune.com/2014/03/20/pebble-sold-400000-smartwatche...) from last march is better news for Pebble than that 1000 apps.
commandar 12y ago
>(The split is 1,100 native apps, 4,300 watch faces, and 100 apps that rely on a companion iOS or Android app, CEO Eric Migicovsky tells Fast Company.) Read: about 100 apps that actually do anything useful. I say that as someone that owns and rather likes their Pebble.
- phlyingpenguin 12y ago
  I really enjoyed the next paragraph comparing Pebble's "5,500" apps to Samsung's 1,000 apps when the truth was just given. Not that it's bad to have 1,000 apps, just that it shows some of the hyperbole that smart watches have behind them right now.
  - jarek 12y ago
    No different from numbers of apps in smartphone app stores a couple of years back. It's the next hyped thing
  - ThePimpOfSound 12y ago
    I'm glad someone brought this up. (I'm the author of the FastCo piece.) I wasn't sure if Samsung's claim of 1,000 apps included watchfaces, so I went through the Galaxy store and counted them by hand. The results (sections may be off by a few numbers as I was counting kind of quickly): 108 clocks 11 health 21 finance 211 lifestyle 17 social networking 129 entertainment 171 utilities TOTAL = 668 Note that the actual number is lower, since several apps were repeated across multiple sections and I didn't subtract them from the total. So, Samsung does include watch faces, but the ratio of apps:faces is much greater. As for the actual number not being 1,000 apps, I'm guessing Samsung is counting apps for different languages that wouldn't appear in the US store. I wasn't sure whether to get into this level of hair-splitting in the piece, but ultimately figured I could get into it more if someone brought it up. Anyway, I wouldn't really discount the importance of watch faces, especially on Pebble since they're key to customizing the look of your device. And I think they'll get more useful with time; Jawbone's app is technically a watch face, for instance, and some faces can display the weather, battery and calendars. I agree that bragging about app count stops being instructive at some point, but in this case I think they show Pebble has done a fine job of establishing itself. Thanks for reading!
turshija 12y ago
Interesting thing to note about Pebble apps is they made JavaScript framework. So if you are good with JS, you can get used to PebbleJS quite fast and make yourself a basic app in few hours! Quite useful if you need something specific which doesn't exist yet. http://developer.getpebble.com/guides/js-apps/pebblekit-js/ http://developer.getpebble.com/guides/js-apps/pebblekit-js/
- rlevy 12y ago
  That's not entirely correct - you also must write C code. You can write JS that runs on the phone and can do stuff like call web services, store data, and communicate with the watch. But it's old fashioned C code that you need to have running on the watch in order to render stuff, get sensor data, or exchange messages with the JS running on the phone.
  - IanCal 12y ago
    That's not true, you can write a basic app with a UI entirely in JS. I have done this to have control over some home automation bits and bobs.
    - bostonvaulter2 12y ago
      Can we get some links to resources?
      - IanCal 12y ago
        There should be plenty on the pebble dev site, but here's the start to a tutorial that'll build a weather app entirely in js http://developer.getpebble.com/getting-started/pebble-js-tutorial/part1/ http://developer.getpebble.com/getting-started/pebble-js-tut...
whoisthemachine 12y ago
The pebble team have done a great job, but I think increasing the 8 apps limit would really help. It would also make things very interesting if they could release a color version that achieved similar battery life.
post_break 12y ago
I don't care how many apps it has. I can ask my android wear device what my calendar is like, or send a text, or ask to see the weather. I think a lot of people see more functionality out of android wear.
- rmxt 12y ago
  Maybe functionality is in the eyes of the beholder... but Pebble can most definitely do all of those things with the proper app: view calendars/agendas, send canned SMS responses, and view upcoming weather. You don't have to "ask" your device to do it, just press the right buttons. Despite the "coolness" factor, I find it preferable and more discreet to press buttons, rather than using a microphone or swiping a touchscreen. Depending on the app, you can literally cycle through the three things you've mentioned in three button clicks. [1] Also, if Pebble has a killer feature, it's that its battery life crushes anything else I've seen thus far, regularly lasting through 5 to 7 days of 24/7 wear and bluetooth connectivity...I don't think any Android Wear device can do that yet, but I would be really interested in looking at them if they could. [1] http://www.finebyte.co.uk/?page_id=9 http://www.finebyte.co.uk/?page_id=9 EDIT: FWIW, I don't use Google Now on my phone itself, so I admit that some of the novelty or utility of what it can do from your Android Wear device might be lost on me.
  - sourdesi 12y ago
    I have a Pebble Smartwatch and it definitely does not have 5-7 days of battery life. More like 1.5 days (2 if your lucky). Also, I do think the fact that Android wear makes so much functionality so easily accessible is a huge deal for smartwatches. You just say "Ok Google". The whole point of a smartwatch is to seamlessly integrate technology in your life. That means our interactions on them need to be quick. You can't get that if you have to poke around the Pebble watch UI for 15 seconds before getting to your app and THEN sending out the text, or checking your calendar etc.
    - whoisthemachine 12y ago
      You must be doing some very intensive things with your Pebble. I have the automatic backlight turned on (turn on when I shake it), and mine regularly lasts 3-5 days, even when I go running regularly, which happens to trip the automatic backlight for most of the run. I also use it to track yards I go swimming, Runkeeper for tracking my runs, and miscellaneous things like the music app and the Swarm app.
rab_oof 12y ago
Eric showed off their mobile-based "app store" before it was released. The cool part is it could download a new watch personality over BT without internet access. So it could operate with cached watch apps if you're out of cell reception. (I still have my Alerta that was hand-delivered.)
valvar 12y ago
Does HN think they will release a new version soon, or is it safe to order one now?
serve_yay 12y ago
The title gave me a good chuckle - thanks.
ccozan 12y ago
Number of apps is not a measure of usefulness or enough for a buy decision. I have with my Moto 360 a, let say, small number of apps, but quite useful ( Google Now extension, navigation, remote photo trigger, fitness tools, to name a few). I know that more and more developers will add their wear-enabled apps and this will increase the functionality. The battery point is a good one, but while I sleep I have to take any watch off my hand so the point in my case is kind of moot. Besides that, who would wear a kids like looking watch? Ok maybe some of us, but with some good leather straps, the Moto 360 looks really good and somehow unnoticed, like a normal watch. This gives me some real value, but also I am not a very young person too ;).
- krakensden 12y ago
  So... you want a Pebble Steel?
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  Fellow 360 owner. The way this is tied to google services is really the value here. I don't need nor want to launch a dozen apps like some mini-smartphone. I want pushed updates, voice commands that actually do stuff, etc. I don't think people yet appreciate how clever AW is. It really is more of an unobtrusive yet helpful accessory for all the things on my phone than anything else. Which is exactly what a smartwatch should be. All this talk about how Tizen on watches will beat AW and how watches will have their own 4G connection is really off the mark. Its just more mindless 'featuritis.' People want a good experience, not a checklist of features that suck to use in the real world. The pebble reminds me of the Treo smartphones before the iphone came out. Sure it could do stuff, but it wasn't very pleasant and you had to be something of a techie expert to really make use of it. I'm surprised the pebble people haven't made an AW watch yet. They have the branding and the know-how. AW is going to steamroll them if they don't contemporize.
- bcraven 12y ago
  > who would wear a kids like looking watch? If all Pebble Steel owners could channel their anger into comments below mine it may save us some space...
programminggeek 12y ago
So far the Moto 360 is the only smart watch for sale that I think I'd want on my wrist. It looks like a cool watch. I don't think I'd use the apps or anything a whole lot, but I think that it'd be a nice enough looking watch to wear around. I think that tech people are overestimating the potential of wearables as useful tech. There isn't much a smart watch does for you that you couldn't pull out your phone and do. However, the whole reason smart watches exist is to increase the LTV of a customer. When you are selling a $200-600 phone, selling a $200+ watch is a nice bump in LTV. Apple's interchangeable bands is not just to make the manufacturing process cheaper and more efficient, it's also to make it so you can buy multiple bands to match different outfits. I know some people who own tons of Chuck Taylor shoes of different colors to match every outfit they own. Same kind of deal. In many ways, wearable tech is less about tech and more about fashion businesses. Fashion is a great business because it's disposable. Disposable things get repurchased. Phones are disposable, laptops are disposable, all of it is disposable and that is almost like a form of recurring revenue. Devices as a service in a way. The push for all of this is driven by profit, not by much else.
lectrick 12y ago
It would be great if it had a heartrate monitor built-in
hsshah 12y ago
Yeah. I really like Pebble. YMMV but for my needs its perfect. I want important notifications 'on my wrist'; so I can put the phone away during family time (when daughter is around). And the basic screen (no bright colors or touch sensitive) works great as daughter lost interest in it after 2 mins! I just wish they develop true wireless/cordless charging using something like ambient light, hand motion or whatever so I don't have to charge it every few days!

74 points by technologizer 12y ago

Rygu 12y ago

Well if "Pebble" is a platform and iOS is a platform, my bet is that Apple already won this.

Shivetya 12y ago
Yes it would be worthwhile for anyone planning on supporting the big 3 "smart" watches to check this product out and the apps for. Simply to see what is popular, what works, what doesn't, and so on. I do not expect them to have the big numbers of the others, but there should be room for entry level "smart" watch makers. the prices bandied about by Apple and others are simply appalling for a device which is slaved to another for some functions, at these prices it should be a phone on its own
Someone 12y ago
Apple Watch does not run iOS apps (at the moment). https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/WatchKitProgrammingGuide/index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documenta...: "Apple Watch requires the presence of an iPhone to run third-party apps. Creation of a third-party app requires two separate bundles: a WatchKit app that runs on Apple Watch and a WatchKit extension that runs on the user’s iPhone. The WatchKit app contains only the storyboards and resource files associated with your app’s user interface. The WatchKit extension contains the code for managing the WatchKit app’s user interface and for responding to user interactions." On the other hand, the 5000 is a bit inflated. It is more like 1000 apps and 4000 watch faces. And of course, the race is still very much on. I would think sales numbers will be more important than app counts because they will drive app counts up. In that sense, the "over 400.000 sold" (http://fortune.com/2014/03/20/pebble-sold-400000-smartwatches-last-year-on-track-to-double-revenues-in-2014/ http://fortune.com/2014/03/20/pebble-sold-400000-smartwatche...) from last march is better news for Pebble than that 1000 apps.

commandar 12y ago

>(The split is 1,100 native apps, 4,300 watch faces, and 100 apps that rely on a companion iOS or Android app, CEO Eric Migicovsky tells Fast Company.) Read: about 100 apps that actually do anything useful. I say that as someone that owns and rather likes their Pebble.

phlyingpenguin 12y ago
I really enjoyed the next paragraph comparing Pebble's "5,500" apps to Samsung's 1,000 apps when the truth was just given. Not that it's bad to have 1,000 apps, just that it shows some of the hyperbole that smart watches have behind them right now.
- jarek 12y ago
  No different from numbers of apps in smartphone app stores a couple of years back. It's the next hyped thing
- ThePimpOfSound 12y ago
  I'm glad someone brought this up. (I'm the author of the FastCo piece.) I wasn't sure if Samsung's claim of 1,000 apps included watchfaces, so I went through the Galaxy store and counted them by hand. The results (sections may be off by a few numbers as I was counting kind of quickly): 108 clocks 11 health 21 finance 211 lifestyle 17 social networking 129 entertainment 171 utilities TOTAL = 668 Note that the actual number is lower, since several apps were repeated across multiple sections and I didn't subtract them from the total. So, Samsung does include watch faces, but the ratio of apps:faces is much greater. As for the actual number not being 1,000 apps, I'm guessing Samsung is counting apps for different languages that wouldn't appear in the US store. I wasn't sure whether to get into this level of hair-splitting in the piece, but ultimately figured I could get into it more if someone brought it up. Anyway, I wouldn't really discount the importance of watch faces, especially on Pebble since they're key to customizing the look of your device. And I think they'll get more useful with time; Jawbone's app is technically a watch face, for instance, and some faces can display the weather, battery and calendars. I agree that bragging about app count stops being instructive at some point, but in this case I think they show Pebble has done a fine job of establishing itself. Thanks for reading!

turshija 12y ago

Interesting thing to note about Pebble apps is they made JavaScript framework. So if you are good with JS, you can get used to PebbleJS quite fast and make yourself a basic app in few hours! Quite useful if you need something specific which doesn't exist yet. http://developer.getpebble.com/guides/js-apps/pebblekit-js/ http://developer.getpebble.com/guides/js-apps/pebblekit-js/

rlevy 12y ago
That's not entirely correct - you also must write C code. You can write JS that runs on the phone and can do stuff like call web services, store data, and communicate with the watch. But it's old fashioned C code that you need to have running on the watch in order to render stuff, get sensor data, or exchange messages with the JS running on the phone.
- IanCal 12y ago
  That's not true, you can write a basic app with a UI entirely in JS. I have done this to have control over some home automation bits and bobs.
  - bostonvaulter2 12y ago
    Can we get some links to resources?
    - IanCal 12y ago
      There should be plenty on the pebble dev site, but here's the start to a tutorial that'll build a weather app entirely in js http://developer.getpebble.com/getting-started/pebble-js-tutorial/part1/ http://developer.getpebble.com/getting-started/pebble-js-tut...

whoisthemachine 12y ago

The pebble team have done a great job, but I think increasing the 8 apps limit would really help. It would also make things very interesting if they could release a color version that achieved similar battery life.

post_break 12y ago

I don't care how many apps it has. I can ask my android wear device what my calendar is like, or send a text, or ask to see the weather. I think a lot of people see more functionality out of android wear.

rmxt 12y ago
Maybe functionality is in the eyes of the beholder... but Pebble can most definitely do all of those things with the proper app: view calendars/agendas, send canned SMS responses, and view upcoming weather. You don't have to "ask" your device to do it, just press the right buttons. Despite the "coolness" factor, I find it preferable and more discreet to press buttons, rather than using a microphone or swiping a touchscreen. Depending on the app, you can literally cycle through the three things you've mentioned in three button clicks. [1] Also, if Pebble has a killer feature, it's that its battery life crushes anything else I've seen thus far, regularly lasting through 5 to 7 days of 24/7 wear and bluetooth connectivity...I don't think any Android Wear device can do that yet, but I would be really interested in looking at them if they could. [1] http://www.finebyte.co.uk/?page_id=9 http://www.finebyte.co.uk/?page_id=9 EDIT: FWIW, I don't use Google Now on my phone itself, so I admit that some of the novelty or utility of what it can do from your Android Wear device might be lost on me.
- sourdesi 12y ago
  I have a Pebble Smartwatch and it definitely does not have 5-7 days of battery life. More like 1.5 days (2 if your lucky). Also, I do think the fact that Android wear makes so much functionality so easily accessible is a huge deal for smartwatches. You just say "Ok Google". The whole point of a smartwatch is to seamlessly integrate technology in your life. That means our interactions on them need to be quick. You can't get that if you have to poke around the Pebble watch UI for 15 seconds before getting to your app and THEN sending out the text, or checking your calendar etc.
  - whoisthemachine 12y ago
    You must be doing some very intensive things with your Pebble. I have the automatic backlight turned on (turn on when I shake it), and mine regularly lasts 3-5 days, even when I go running regularly, which happens to trip the automatic backlight for most of the run. I also use it to track yards I go swimming, Runkeeper for tracking my runs, and miscellaneous things like the music app and the Swarm app.

rab_oof 12y ago

Eric showed off their mobile-based "app store" before it was released. The cool part is it could download a new watch personality over BT without internet access. So it could operate with cached watch apps if you're out of cell reception. (I still have my Alerta that was hand-delivered.)

valvar 12y ago

Does HN think they will release a new version soon, or is it safe to order one now?

serve_yay 12y ago

The title gave me a good chuckle - thanks.

ccozan 12y ago

Number of apps is not a measure of usefulness or enough for a buy decision. I have with my Moto 360 a, let say, small number of apps, but quite useful ( Google Now extension, navigation, remote photo trigger, fitness tools, to name a few). I know that more and more developers will add their wear-enabled apps and this will increase the functionality. The battery point is a good one, but while I sleep I have to take any watch off my hand so the point in my case is kind of moot. Besides that, who would wear a kids like looking watch? Ok maybe some of us, but with some good leather straps, the Moto 360 looks really good and somehow unnoticed, like a normal watch. This gives me some real value, but also I am not a very young person too ;).

krakensden 12y ago
So... you want a Pebble Steel?
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
Fellow 360 owner. The way this is tied to google services is really the value here. I don't need nor want to launch a dozen apps like some mini-smartphone. I want pushed updates, voice commands that actually do stuff, etc. I don't think people yet appreciate how clever AW is. It really is more of an unobtrusive yet helpful accessory for all the things on my phone than anything else. Which is exactly what a smartwatch should be. All this talk about how Tizen on watches will beat AW and how watches will have their own 4G connection is really off the mark. Its just more mindless 'featuritis.' People want a good experience, not a checklist of features that suck to use in the real world. The pebble reminds me of the Treo smartphones before the iphone came out. Sure it could do stuff, but it wasn't very pleasant and you had to be something of a techie expert to really make use of it. I'm surprised the pebble people haven't made an AW watch yet. They have the branding and the know-how. AW is going to steamroll them if they don't contemporize.
bcraven 12y ago
> who would wear a kids like looking watch? If all Pebble Steel owners could channel their anger into comments below mine it may save us some space...

programminggeek 12y ago

So far the Moto 360 is the only smart watch for sale that I think I'd want on my wrist. It looks like a cool watch. I don't think I'd use the apps or anything a whole lot, but I think that it'd be a nice enough looking watch to wear around. I think that tech people are overestimating the potential of wearables as useful tech. There isn't much a smart watch does for you that you couldn't pull out your phone and do. However, the whole reason smart watches exist is to increase the LTV of a customer. When you are selling a $200-600 phone, selling a $200+ watch is a nice bump in LTV. Apple's interchangeable bands is not just to make the manufacturing process cheaper and more efficient, it's also to make it so you can buy multiple bands to match different outfits. I know some people who own tons of Chuck Taylor shoes of different colors to match every outfit they own. Same kind of deal. In many ways, wearable tech is less about tech and more about fashion businesses. Fashion is a great business because it's disposable. Disposable things get repurchased. Phones are disposable, laptops are disposable, all of it is disposable and that is almost like a form of recurring revenue. Devices as a service in a way. The push for all of this is driven by profit, not by much else.

lectrick 12y ago

It would be great if it had a heartrate monitor built-in

hsshah 12y ago

Yeah. I really like Pebble. YMMV but for my needs its perfect. I want important notifications 'on my wrist'; so I can put the phone away during family time (when daughter is around). And the basic screen (no bright colors or touch sensitive) works great as daughter lost interest in it after 2 mins! I just wish they develop true wireless/cordless charging using something like ambient light, hand motion or whatever so I don't have to charge it every few days!