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.
Tag: Smartwatch
Like a smart phone but a watch
Thinking about getting one of these for my Pebble
It looks like a really neat solution as a combination stand and charger. Quite cheap too on Shapeways.
One Pebble, two devices, that’s not going to work
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.
Finding the perfect watch face for Pebble Time
So I’ve been looking for just the right watch face for my Pebble Time. I’ve been looking at the faces on the Pebble store and seeing what works for me and what doesn’t. So here’s what I’ve selected so far.
This face is the one I use the most. I keep on coming back to it and it ends up being my default. It works. It’s ok. It functions well and it tells the time. In the end that’s the most important thing I suppose.
There are some quite fun faces on the Pebble store. This is great. It isn’t animated, which is a bit of a shame. It would’ve been nice if perhaps the Doctor could’ve popped his head out of the TARDIS every now and then, but no, it’s static.
As a Star Trek fan I liked this one a lot, although it lacks colour, which is a shame for a colour smart watch. But then I found this one …
Which is in colour and is also very cool. However, I think that faces like these aren’t for me on a daily basis anyway. They’re fun every now and then, but that’s about it.
Following on the theme, the speccy face is also pretty cool and retro, but again probably isn’t that good for daily use. It is however, very good at showing old techie friends who remember the ZX.
Moving on I’ve tried some other faces which I thought would be more functional, such as …
Which, at face value, no pun intended, actually, pun intended, works very well indeed. My only issue with this, it was a little dull. Not that much fun really. I know I’m difficult to please right! So, next I moved on to …
This, which seemed like it might work, but I couldn’t settle to it in the end and went back to my default watch face, as I seem to do quite a lot.
My latest possibility is this face. Which is elegant, simple, has a second hand and the date, and looks very good. I’ll see if this one works out for me.
As an aside I’ve also tried this …
Which is a bit extreme, but, if you can master it, is great way to tell time.
So, where does that leave me? I’m still not quite satisfied with the watch faces I’ve got. I’ve still not settled on something that I’m completely happy with. I might find something eventually. I keep on looking.
When I find just the right one, I’ll let you know.
Problems with the Pebble …
I’ve been noticing that my new Pebble Time has been getting scratches and blemishes on the casing. It’s not encouraging as the thing is only a few weeks old, or rather, I’ve only had it a few weeks, so I’m a little disappointed that it isn’t holding up so well. Of course, it’s not the end of the world, but it’s not great is it.
So I’m considering getting a covering for it to protect it a little better. If I do, I’ll let you know about that.
It might take a while for the Apple Watch to get to the right thickness
Whilst I think that kind of thickness is ok on a phone I’m not sure that it’ll work for me on a smart watch. So I’ll wait until we get to the Apple Watch Air or whatever it gets called.
Can’t help but notice all the Apple Watch apps
It seems that every app update now has something to do with the Apple Watch. There are going to be so many apps that extend to it soon.
It makes me start to wonder about my decision to go for a pebble time. Of course it’s too late to go back on that but it is nagging at me. I still think that the Apple Watch is too fat and I’m sure that within a couple of years there’ll be one much better and much thinner too. My money is on it being called the Apple Watch Air! Who knows.
Pebble Time is now funded
Well that was a very impressive campaign, especially with the Apple Watch right on its heels, it raised even more money than the first Pebble watch too. I’m especially interested in seeing where their smartStraps initiative leads. I think that it’s a great idea to make the watch strap itself a more responsive and useful part of the device.
Considering the Apple Watch
I’m somewhat sceptical about the new Apple Watch. Part of me wants one, but part of me thinks it’s going to be better to wait for the next iteration, just as with the iPhone and the iPad. The first version is ok, but it’s a starting block, something for Apple to build on.
Also, as I’ve backed the Pebble Time I think it’s best that I wait this out. See what comes next. Of course, the one thing that’ll change my mind is a really amazing app or use case for the device. I’m half expecting that to arrive much sooner than I’d like, but we’ll see.
Pretty impressed with Pebble
I have to say I’m impressed with Pebble’s latest announcement. It looks pretty good and I think it’s going to give the Apple Watch a good run for its money. Of course the announcement steals the Apple Watch Thunder, and judging by their astonishing Kickstarter performance in one day, people are loving what Pebble have come up with.
I am Ashley Elsdon 