someone who's doing some things
Another interest that’s starting to grow. Things like the lillypad and similar. Arduino stuff too to a degree.
I haven’t used the Pebble Time music app that much to be honest, but the other day when I did I found it to be really useful, almost like a tiny second screen for my iPhone. It was funny to see my own name and track on there though.
It makes me think that I should really explore what the Pebble could do a bit more.
Now things are going to get interesting for Pebble Time, or at least that’s what I’m hoping will happen. There’s already been an app for Pebble using the dictation SDK, but I hope that they’ll be a lot more soon. What I’d really be looking for is something like an audio recording app that allows you to stream the audio into the host device.
That would be cool.
Before you ask, no, I don’t have one of each. I was having dinner with a friend and he had an Apple Watch. I really wanted to compare the two physically. The Apple Watch is bigger. It has a larger footprint, but, more importantly it is a thicker watch, and, whilst it is only a little thicker, I think it is just too much for my liking.
This just confirmed what I’d already thought about the Apple Watch. My view now is that I doubt I’d get one until the revise the hardware. I’ve no idea how long that might be, but I’m sure that this version won’t be the only one. I’m guessing that the Apple Watch 2 will be slimmer and it’ll do more etc.
I think I’ll wait for that.
So, modular smartwatches are a thing now. They’re here on Kickstarter and doing well already. It’s very impressive. I’ll be interested to see how to does and, more importantly, when it delivers. The engineering for this is going to be very complex indeed.
Whilst it is a nice looking device I have to say I was a little disappointed in a way. I’d sort of hoped that they’d do something more around their software. Something that could help developers get their apps into the Pebble world and in so doing get it to compete more with the Apple Watch.
I’m guessing that’s not going to happen though.
I noticed it on the Pebble Time store the other day and installed it. It seems easier to use than the other one I have, which only seems to work intermittently. Also, this one has three slots to trigger different recipes, all using the IFTTT maker channel, which is expected.
I haven’t had any time to try it out as yet, mainly because I have thought of three things I want to automate via the IFTTT maker channel. Perhaps I will, and then I’ll tell you how it works out.
I thought I’d take a look at the stuff that was made at this event to see if there was anything of interest. There was, and this was the most interesting of all. As I’m both a littleBits user and a Pebble Time owner this is of especial interest to me. I hope that they do release their app to the Pebble store as I’d really like to tinker with this. However, even if they don’t I’ll be looking at their videos to see what they’ve done and how.
My guess would be that it’s something along the lines of bringing the timeline to the original Pebble smartwatches. I hope it’s more though, a lot more. There’s quite a few things that I’d like to see come to Pebble. It’s got a lot of potential, but I don’t think it’s been properly exploited as yet.
I’d love it to be more about smart straps too, that would be great. I think that’s one of the few areas they could really get an edge over the mass market that the Apple Watch has developed.
Anyway, I’m hoping for something interesting from them on Wednesday.
It looks like a really neat solution as a combination stand and charger. Quite cheap too on Shapeways.
What I really wanted to do was to be able to use my Pebble Time with two devices simultaneously. However, it appears that this is just not possible at all. The reason? Simple really, but the smart watch uses bluetooth LE in slave mode and not in host mode. Host mode would allow you to connect to up to 7 other devices. However, it doesn’t look like you can do that easily with an iPhone, and, the Pebble doesn’t have that enabled as yet, and it appears that there is little or no demand for it. Trust me to be looking for something that no one else wants.
So, why did I want it? Well, I thought it would be useful to be able to get it to have notifications from both my iPhone and my Nexus tablet at the same time. Android has a few things that iOS doesn’t, and whilst the same is true in the other direction, from my perspective that’s quite minimal.
However, it isn’t the end of the world at all. I can live without it, but perhaps I may have to think of a different way of doing things in order to achieve what I wanted.
I’ll give that some thought.
I am Ashley Elsdon 