Smartwatch - Pebble or other?

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hairy1

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Topic # 120767 12-Jun-2013 17:52

Hi Folks,

I am looking at a smartwatch for the upcoming birthday and thought a Pebble might be quite cool. Does anyone with a Pebble have an opinion on them? Good, bad? Any other options? I'm Watch is a bit out of the budget and the Sony smartwatch seems to be a bit of a failure.

Cheers, Matt.

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Reply # 836053 12-Jun-2013 20:42

There just doesn't seem to be the perfect device - I have just got a Nike + watch - the style is great but its pretty limited in what it can do. I mainly want to use it for GPS tracking of my bike rides and runs but it's still missing some much needed features.

I like the idea of the pebble and would also be interested in feedback from those with one.

hairy1

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Reply # 836056 12-Jun-2013 20:46

Yeah. You are right. All the devices out there at the moment just miss a little in implementation. The Pebble seems to fit my requirements the best but it still seems to have some issues....

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kyhwana2

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Reply # 836065 12-Jun-2013 21:22

If you "pre-order" the pebble now, you're probably going to be waiting 2-3 months before they ship to you..
I pre-ordered a month ago and I havn't even gotten a "you can pay now!" email..

hairy1

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Reply # 836066 12-Jun-2013 21:27

Yeah. I see that the pre-order line is looong....

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GBristow

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Reply # 836097 12-Jun-2013 23:36

It might be a bit far off but Apple is bringing out a watch some time this year. Looks very interesting. One of my customers has been trialling one.

gehenna

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Reply # 836149 13-Jun-2013 09:04

I like the look of the Cookoo and Martian Victory watches. They do everything I'd need in a smart watch, which is basically notify me of messages and calls so I don't need to have my phone on me every waking moment.

gehenna

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Reply # 836150 13-Jun-2013 09:04

4 people support this post

GBristow: It might be a bit far off but Apple is bringing out a watch some time this year. Looks very interesting. One of my customers has been trialling one.

That's hard to believe.

hairy1

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Reply # 836186 13-Jun-2013 10:16

I am sure the Apple watch is going to be something to behold, however I am all Android here and I can't imagine that Apple will make it a priority for it to work with Android. GBristow you must have a very important client given that no-one has seen these in the wild....

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ubergeeknz

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Reply # 836191 13-Jun-2013 10:34

That cookoo actually looks kind of cool. Like it does enough to stop you having to get your phone out every five seconds. Although if it connects by BT to your phone it's probably going to kill the phone battery anyway.

gehenna

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Reply # 836197 13-Jun-2013 10:44

It uses the Low Energy Bluetooth so it should last very well. At least a full day of usage.

sonyxperiageek

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Reply # 836259 13-Jun-2013 12:01

The Sonostar watch looks look, but isn't out yet..

Matthew

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GBristow

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Reply # 836607 13-Jun-2013 23:35

hairy1: I am sure the Apple watch is going to be something to behold, however I am all Android here and I can't imagine that Apple will make it a priority for it to work with Android. GBristow you must have a very important client given that no-one has seen these in the wild....

I'm getting the feeling I shouldn't have said anything. I don't want to cause them any problems and I didn't consider an NDA. All I will say is their business is very relevant to the product.

apocalypso

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Reply # 836639 14-Jun-2013 03:58

I have a pebble from the Kickstarter Campaign and I love it, wouldn't be without it, it took close to 11 months to arrive which due to the anticipation was a painfully long wait, but worth it, have had it for about 6 weeks now.
I previously could not ignore the curiosity of wanting to know why my phone had vibrated and would be pulling my phone out of my pocket all day to see if it was something I needed/wanted to respond to right away, also having to pull my phone out to see if an incoming call was from someone i wanted to talk to at that time, now I just glance at my watch, I have also found it handy/safer when driving to be able to just glance at my wrist that is already relatively in my line of sight by being on the steering wheel, I have found the iPhone 4S vibration to be rather weak so I often used to miss calls when my phone was in my pocket, this is not a Problem anymore, I have also found it handy when if I have left my phone on vibrate on my desk in my office but I am elsewhere in my office I previously would not have know I was getting a call, or when I have left my phone at the other end of the house silent or not I would have missed the call, but the Bluetooth range seems to be excellent so now I can choose whether it's a call or msg I want to miss or not.

Although you probably didnt want to hear the advantages of a smart watch just what the Pebble's like, So.. I really like the look of it and have been pleasantly surprised by the compliments I have had on it from non techie people, when I get excited and tell them that's it's a smart watch and what it can do their eyes kind of glaze over but some of my younger friends have been impressed by its features. a couple of different people (older) were actually concerned that others could read the messages that would show up on it, not something I had considered nor have I had a problem with though, it would be pretty obvious if someone was trying to read a txt on your watch!
It does have a couple of bugs working with iOS, the one where you have to go into notifications and turn an app notification off and back on to have that apps notificatons be pushed to the watch if the phone and watch get out of each others range, I can't be bothered/forget to do this so for the most part it's just txt messages and incoming call notifications that show up on mine now as these don't need to be reset and always come through to the phone, but when notifications are set for other apps to show up they work well. The other bug and one that annoys me the most is that caller ID name doesn't always show on the watch sometimes it just show the persons number instead, which for numbers you recognize isn't such a problem but its still annoying and I look foward to it being fixed, that particular problem doesn't seem to affect all people on iOS but the fixes I have tried from the forums havnt worked for me, I am confident the issues will be fixed, there have been reasonably regular phone app and watch firmware updates coming through,
I have tried loading a few different watch faces on but seem to stick with default one most of the time as I like it the most, it is pleasantly easy to change simply one press on the up or down button will scroll either way through the different faces. There has been no noticeable decrease in battery life on my phone from having Bluetooth on all the time, the battery in the pebble seems to last near exactly 7 days for me. The music controls, skipping tracks etc from it work well but is not something I use as I rarely listen to music on my phone, but it's a handy feature to have there

I am very excited for the future of this tech area, being able to select a canned response to a txt or email from the watch or being able to dictate and send a message 'Siri' style from your watch would be amazing

Hope this helps, let me know if you've got any queries I might be able to answer for you, as you can see I am always keen to talk about it!

freitasm

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Reply # 836671 14-Jun-2013 08:59

Sony has opened up their platform for other OS and systems now.

I saw a few of of the Sony Smartwatches on Amazon starting from under US$100 but still think the Pebble looks better - shame is three of four times more expensive.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

gehenna

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Reply # 836672 14-Jun-2013 09:04

I'm just not attracted to the Pebble at all. I feel like its display is awful. Maybe in a few revisions...

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