Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Splizwarf
Jun 15, 2007
It's like there's a soup can in front of me!
This poo poo right here, this is why I don't look at sunsets.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Maneki Neko
Oct 27, 2000

If wearing white earbuds carried an increased risk of being mugged, what about walking around with a goddamn computer on your head?

Verizian
Dec 18, 2004
The spiky one.
A computer with a built in GPS, some form of voice recognition, probably semi-constant monitoring of your viewpoint for next-gen streetview and god knows what else.

Yeah that's going to be a great target for muggers when the wearer can take a photo in seconds and instantly share it to god knows how many social networks or send it straight to the local police station with brand new Security app 2014!

Silly Burrito
Nov 27, 2007

Whoo! My Pebble finally arrived. I'm a bit surprised by how few watch faces you can download now. I would've thought there would be a few more (I could've sworn I saw more during demos), but I'm sure as more are shipped, more will come. I've missed having a watch, and it doesn't look too bad. I am curious as to how much this will drain my phone's battery since I normally only use bluetooth on the ride to and from work.

The charging port is nice, but no matter how water resistant it is, I'm just too hesitant to let it get close to water.

Edit: Well no wonder. The watchface SDK isn't coming out until April. Makes sense. I see someone already made an app that integrates Tasker support, so that's pretty cool already.

Silly Burrito fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Mar 21, 2013

BennyGsGhost
Jun 27, 2002

Low P/B or Bust
Pillbug
How is the battery life?

Silly Burrito
Nov 27, 2007

Spasticthinker posted:

How is the battery life?

Don't know just yet. I've fully charged it overnight last night and will wear it until it stops. I've read estimates of 7 days, though.

BennyGsGhost
Jun 27, 2002

Low P/B or Bust
Pillbug
That's a pretty good amount of battery life for a watch, even 5 days to get through the work week would be great. Years ago (maybe someone else remembers these) I had a Microsoft Smart Watch (it used FM radio to download weather and news), and it would last 6-8 hours at best, so it was poo poo.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

I wonder if the second iteration of the Pebble could have wireless charging so you could charge with a lot less effort than having to plug it into a wall charger.

The Pebble looks too bulky to me and from the iFixit teardown it looks like a lot of the space is taken by the battery. I would be willing to accept shorter battery life and a smaller battery if it meant I could toss the watch on a wireless charging pad on my nightstand.

Silly Burrito
Nov 27, 2007

Spasticthinker posted:

That's a pretty good amount of battery life for a watch, even 5 days to get through the work week would be great. Years ago (maybe someone else remembers these) I had a Microsoft Smart Watch (it used FM radio to download weather and news), and it would last 6-8 hours at best, so it was poo poo.

Seven days was spot on. I unplugged it from the charger last Friday morning, and it lasted until Thursday at 10 pm. The only catch is that there is no indication of the battery level unless you go into the menu. If you just leave the watchface on, you won't know that you're about to run out. It would be nice if they'd have some sort of adjustable notification for power levels.

Other than that, I really can't complain. It lost the Bluetooth signal a couple of times, but that also might just be my phone being wonky. It's nice to feel the phone ringing in your pocket and a quick glance at your wrist tells you that you can ignore that telemarketer and leave the phone alone.

bobfather
Sep 20, 2001

I will analyze your nervous system for beer money
I have a MotoACTV.

It works extremely well in a few key areas, namely as a music player, as a GPS watch, and as a time-keeper.

It has a lot of different wireless capabilities, from Bluetooth, to ANT+, to WiFi.

I use it for running by pairing it with a Bluetooth headphone dongle. The GPS syncs quickly (more quickly than my wife's Garmin), the music sounds good and it keeps pretty detailed data on your run AND the music you listen to on the run. It also syncs my workouts automatically when I get home, and all of your data is uploaded and viewable on the MotoACTV website.

As for shortcomings, it's a large watch. I don't mind the bulkiness of it, but it might look dumb if you are super skinny or a girl. It only gets about 4 days of battery life between charges if I'm not using any of the BT/WiFi/GPS modes. I calculated that it would have enough juice for me to just finish a marathon, if I were so inclined. Finally, it can pair up with and broadcast notifications from Android phones, but has no such capability for iDevices. A pity, since I use an iPhone. Unfortunately, the fate of it is uncertain since Motorola's recent acquisition, and I have no idea how long the MotoACTV website will be usable for. I bought a SquareTrade warranty on it for about $30 just in case I had any technical issues that Motorola refused to support.

It can be rooted, and anyone interested in rooting should install DPRom 8.1. There's a thread for it on XDA. I don't use, nor do I care to use any of the Android-functions of it, but it does make for a pretty badass Calculator watch.

I highly recommend it if you do some of the same things I do with it!

unlawfulsoup
May 12, 2001

Welcome home boys!

Al-Saqr posted:

Call me a curmodgeon, while google glasses is cool and all but I really dont look forward to having am HUD for my actual life and things that I see.

Imagine, you're watching a beautiful sunset and soaking it in and getting lost in time, then suddenly "HEY CHECK IT OUT IT'S 6:49 PM LOOKEE THERE THAT'S A COOL SUNSET WANNA LIVESTREAM/TWEET IT? dont forget your doctors appointment tommorow! also mom tried calling you by skype!"

*looks at iphone hypocritically to check the time and twitter*

What bothers me more is that someone wearing it can be recording everything they see. Not to say people cannot do it already if they really wanted to, but the idea of tons of most people constantly recording things kind of unsettles me. Probably me being a luddite, but one way or another I guess this is where things are going.

Splizwarf
Jun 15, 2007
It's like there's a soup can in front of me!

unlawfulsoup posted:

What bothers me more is that someone wearing it can be recording everything they see. Not to say people cannot do it already if they really wanted to, but the idea of tons of most people constantly recording things kind of unsettles me. Probably me being a luddite, but one way or another I guess this is where things are going.

I see this as an anti-Glass reason a lot, but video-recording wearables have been around for at least thirty years. I've wanted a Looxie for a while (their prototype debuted in 2008) and that just looks like a Bluetooth earpiece.



At least Glass is obvious and visible to people who are concerned about being recorded, most of the other types are trying to be unseen or actively concealed.

Splizwarf fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Mar 29, 2013

Nybble
Jun 28, 2008

praise chuck, raise heck
Just got the message from Project Glass that I'm one of the lucky 8000 people. It seems like they picked them at random (they definitely selected some people with joke tweets.) I'm kinda hesitant about dropping the $1500 for it (that would be a new laptop for me, and I may need one soon), but if they allow access to the SDK, I'm definitely in. Even if Project Glass doesn't succeed in it's current form, I have to think it will in other forms and may be worth trying it out if only to develop ideas for other future wearable tech.

I don't have any other details yet about when I can get it, they are still sending out the notifications, but I'll update this thread when I learn more.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Nybble posted:

Just got the message from Project Glass that I'm one of the lucky 8000 people. It seems like they picked them at random (they definitely selected some people with joke tweets.) I'm kinda hesitant about dropping the $1500 for it (that would be a new laptop for me, and I may need one soon), but if they allow access to the SDK, I'm definitely in. Even if Project Glass doesn't succeed in it's current form, I have to think it will in other forms and may be worth trying it out if only to develop ideas for other future wearable tech.

I don't have any other details yet about when I can get it, they are still sending out the notifications, but I'll update this thread when I learn more.

I preordered at I/O last year. I'm pumped to get it, whenever it ships.

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Splizwarf posted:

I see this as an anti-Glass reason a lot, but video-recording wearables have been around for at least thirty years. I've wanted a Looxie for a while (their prototype debuted in 2008) and that just looks like a Bluetooth earpiece.



At least Glass is obvious and visible to people who are concerned about being recorded, most of the other types are trying to be unseen or actively concealed.

I think the issue is more that Glass is a device they want to make ubiquitous, which is also capable of recording. It's not like walking around with a dedicated camera attached to you, obviously for the purposes of recording video, it's just a general device they want everyone to have. You wouldn't assume every time you see someone messing with their phone that they're surreptitiously recording video, and with Glass you wouldn't even be able to tell if they're using it at all. In terms of voyeurism or whatever it'll definitely be hiding it in plain sight

Verizian
Dec 18, 2004
The spiky one.
Pretty sure that taking photos or recording videos with glass causes an LED to light up and requires voice commands like "Ok glass, take a picture."

Sure that could probably be changed by rooting it and a piece of tape could easily hide the LED but it'll give you an indication when the average creep on the street is trying to be creepy.

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

I think you can do all the controlling by touch too, or most of the basic stuff, and yeah people will get around the LED if they want to. It's not really about Glass itself though, more that this is kind of a big shift in what will be normal for people to have, and how it will change privacy and public space. When cameraphones got popular it meant that there was always someone, somewhere, ready and able to document what was going on, which changes people's behaviour. Social networking meant it could be shared with the world instead of just the photographer's immediate friends, which makes people even more guarded (or can have consequences if they're not guarded enough).

If these become popular, potentially every public space could become documented by default. Like CCTV and microphones everywhere, ubiquitous and accepted. How's that going to affect people psychologically, or society in general?

Also has anyone ever read Accelerando? It might be a common concept, but part of it involves people in the future using these kinds of wearables, not just for recording but also as a kind of mental augmentation - having the device perform tasks like research and analysis, like virtual assistants, keeping track of relevant info and notifying the user when something important happens, all hooked into the mind to the point where it becomes a part of who the person is, they're so used to using it constantly. So if they can't use the device for whatever reason, it's like a huge part of them is missing, they feel slow and stupid and they're unable to function 'normally'. Meanwhile Google is developing Google Now...

Verizian
Dec 18, 2004
The spiky one.
You see I'm not too worried about that although I do acknowledge that it will be abused I see the benefits far outweighing the costs. It was only a couple months back when Google Now automatically woke me up for a medical appointment I'd forgotten about. It even shifted the time to take traffic into account and provided a one click card to open up real time navigation.

As for Glass itself, it can be thought of as an external mental augmentation similar to the physical augmentation of a Cyberdyne HAL suit. I'd like to get my hands on both of those as I've suffered from chronic pain and impaired mobility for most of my life. Pain/fatigue make it difficult to focus at times while I as well as thousands of others put up with daily abuse from members of the public and government employees trying to "get the filthy cripples off welfare!".



Sadly first gen Glasses look like they'll be prohibitively expensive just like the HAL suits otherwise I'd happily use one to film my next ATOS assessment. That's one thing where this kind of technology can be a great bonus, minorities with access to Glass will be posting a lot of videos showing the abuse they receive from bigots in first person format.

A recording of someone who looks different being threatened and insulted has a lot less psychological impact than a POV shot of someone getting up in your face while screaming slurs. I'm pretty sure that will cause rapid societal change.

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT



Yeah that's a good point too - I wasn't saying the shift is necessarily bad, just that it will probably have a major effect, even if it's outwardly a subtle one. And the general accessibility stuff is fantastic as well. That's what I was talking about with the novel really - people so used to having all this additional knowledge and capability that it's a shock when they're back to their normal naked state. A lot of people already rely heavily on computers and phones for their day to day lives, being able to quickly look things up or be informed of things they need to remember, so I can totally see this ramping up as wearables become this ubiquitous presence. Not necessarily a bad thing, and for some people it could transform their lives, yeah

Although you can guarantee when these get well-known groups like ATOS will be making drat sure people can't use them in interviews. Confidentiality and all that, it's for your own good sir! But by then the government will probably have made sure that anyone who'd want to do this couldn't afford a pair anyway

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

One thing to remember about expense is that the Glass kit they're offering now is basically a limited run prototype and a dev kit. Dev kits just plain cost more. The PS3 developer kit cost $10,000 out of the gates (and was later dropped to $2,000), but obviously that's not what anyone paid for a PS3 when it went to market.

baka kaba
Jul 19, 2003

PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Oh that was more of a 'the British government are actively demonising the vulnerable and driving people into poverty' comment. But that's for the UK thread.

Yeah honestly I see Glass having a high-end-smartphone price point, especially if they manage to mass produce it. And developer kits always come at a premium anyway, even if the hardware has been released generally. Guess we won't have to wait long to find out though!

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Honestly I don't really see this tech becoming the sort of ubiquitous "wear it everywhere all the time" sort of thing for a long time.

With a proper SDK, in a lot of niches it'd be pretty awesome. It'd be handy for automotive stuff, put a tech manual in your eye with voice recognition ("OK glass, show me the location of the front oxygen sensor"). See distance to the pin and course map while golfing. If they offered the opportunity to run paid YouTube streaming channels, it would open up a cottage industry of people running their own first-person filmed cooking shows, DIY instructions, etc and making money doing it.

And maybe it will bleed into "well this works great on the golf course, so why don't I wear it every day." Maybe not.

But the niche use cases seem like promising enough opportunities that I will give it a go and try to make something for it.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Reportedly, the Glass pre-orders will ship within the next month:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/10/glass-explorer-edition-to-ship-within-next-month-google-confirms/

PirateDentist
Mar 28, 2006

Sailing The Seven Seas Searching For Scurvy

Another Pebble user checking in. :toot: I've had mine for about a month now, I really like it.

I turned off the backlight, since there's no way to disable just the wrist-flick that lights it up, and I got 12 days of battery life before the charging indicator turned on. Now I just charge it once a week and don't think about it otherwise. It's paired up to my Note 2, and works well with it. I leave Bluetooth on all the time since I use my phone with BT headphones a lot. (S305s)

Hopefully the full SDK gets out soon, since it'd be nice to have a bit more functionality, but the watchface one is going to be nice. That one is supposed to be out next week I think. I already have some ideas.

I find myself pulling my phone out WAY less, since I don't have that "oh man, did I miss a message?" feeling. After checking for a week and realizing I already knew and dismissed everything that came in, I started to relax and not check anymore. I KNOW when I get a message, and odds are it's not that important. I dismiss the alert and continue with what I was doing. Hopefully they crack the dismissing phone calls from the watch at some point. I think that's more on the android side of things rather than the Pebble team.

It's nice enough getting call alerts, with it strapped to your wrist it's about impossible to miss, whereas if I'm at a noisy part of work I might not hear my phone ring or even notice the vibration if it's sitting in my pocket wrong.

Silly Burrito
Nov 27, 2007

PirateDentist posted:

Another Pebble user checking in. :toot: I've had mine for about a month now, I really like it.

I turned off the backlight, since there's no way to disable just the wrist-flick that lights it up, and I got 12 days of battery life before the charging indicator turned on. Now I just charge it once a week and don't think about it otherwise. It's paired up to my Note 2, and works well with it. I leave Bluetooth on all the time since I use my phone with BT headphones a lot. (S305s)

Hopefully the full SDK gets out soon, since it'd be nice to have a bit more functionality, but the watchface one is going to be nice. That one is supposed to be out next week I think. I already have some ideas.

I find myself pulling my phone out WAY less, since I don't have that "oh man, did I miss a message?" feeling. After checking for a week and realizing I already knew and dismissed everything that came in, I started to relax and not check anymore. I KNOW when I get a message, and odds are it's not that important. I dismiss the alert and continue with what I was doing. Hopefully they crack the dismissing phone calls from the watch at some point. I think that's more on the android side of things rather than the Pebble team.

It's nice enough getting call alerts, with it strapped to your wrist it's about impossible to miss, whereas if I'm at a noisy part of work I might not hear my phone ring or even notice the vibration if it's sitting in my pocket wrong.

Do you find that yours loses Bluetooth connectivity with the phone a bit? I'm thinking that my phone's Bluetooth is a bit screwy (I'm running a nightly CM10.1 on my Note) because a reboot will usually reestablish connections.

PirateDentist
Mar 28, 2006

Sailing The Seven Seas Searching For Scurvy

Silly Burrito posted:

Do you find that yours loses Bluetooth connectivity with the phone a bit? I'm thinking that my phone's Bluetooth is a bit screwy (I'm running a nightly CM10.1 on my Note) because a reboot will usually reestablish connections.

Not that I've ever noticed. I've had to reconnect it twice, both times I was far away from the phone. Usually it just reconnects. All I had to do was open the pebble app and tap the disconnect/connect button twice.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

The Glass API docs are up: https://developers.google.com/glass/

They're beginning to ship the first wave of devices today, too, apparently. Some number of people (not me yet) have been given the opportunity to pay for their preorders and give shipping info.

edit: even more Glass specs coming out https://support.google.com/glass/answer/3064128?hl=en&ref_topic=3063354

quote:

Display

High resolution display is the equivalent of a 25 inch high definition screen from eight feet away.

Camera

Photos - 5 MP
Videos - 720p
Audio

Bone Conduction Transducer
Connectivity

Wifi - 802.11b/g
Bluetooth
Storage

12 GB of usable memory, synced with Google cloud storage. 16 GB Flash total.

kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Apr 16, 2013

5TonsOfFlax
Aug 31, 2001
I'm disappointed at the web-centric nature of the mirror api. I hope that they open it up to more than just subscribing to and publishing info soon. I want augmented reality apps. I want navigation paths overlaid on the actual road. I want an app that communicates with the phone to unlock it only when I'm actually looking at it. I want an app to detect when I'm too obvious about looking at boobs. There are so many possibilities, it's frustrating to only see bullshit social media notifications on the horizon.

BOOTY-ADE
Aug 30, 2006

BIG KOOL TELLIN' Y'ALL TO KEEP IT TIGHT

5TonsOfFlax posted:

I want an app to detect when I'm too obvious about looking at boobs.

Girls already invented one...the Stop Leering App, aka SLAPP

RiSK
Dec 9, 2006

The Red Rocket Rifle

Silly Burrito posted:

Do you find that yours loses Bluetooth connectivity with the phone a bit? I'm thinking that my phone's Bluetooth is a bit screwy (I'm running a nightly CM10.1 on my Note) because a reboot will usually reestablish connections.

The connectivity on mine is pretty crap. If it disconnects for any reason, it'll never automatically reconnect. Instead, I have to turn off bluetooth, turn it back on, then, it'll connect.

Other than that, I love the thing.

Mr EFord
Apr 30, 2006

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached
Got my Pebble early this week and I'm really digging it so far. Battery life is awesome, recent updates to the OS brought some essentials like better battery indicators (as well as better battery), options to disable the wrist-flick for the backlight, and the watchface API.

I think at this point, from a price perspective you're still buying into 'potential,' but once RunKeeper support comes out for it, it'll be just as good as a GPS watch for my purposes (assuming I can get the right info fed from my phone to the watch).

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

I got Glass on Friday. I had it shipped to me so I did not get to go through the whole special pickup event where they hand you a glass of champagne or whatever and give you a personal setup and a pat on the back out the door.

First impressions:
  • It's really, really light. It also does not feel like the right half (the electronics side) is trying to fall over.
  • It took a little bit of adjustment to fit right, but once you have done so, it's comfortable. This is where the in-person setup probably comes in handy. The frame is strong but bendy and you can/must bend it to fit your head. If it hurts to wear it (mainly if the speaker module is drilling into your head) then you probably have it sitting too low and need to adjust the nosepiece.
  • The angle wake feature seems like it could use some adjustment. The default 30º angle is too high and you look goofy trying to trigger it. 20º is too low and I trigger it just nodding in conversation or the like. I haven't found the sweet spot yet so I just turned it off.
  • Photos look pretty good in daylight or well lit indoor places. It's a little blurry in low light but with no flash and fixed focus, that's probably to be expected.
  • Battery life is nothing marvelous. I spent all weekend goofing around with it so I haven't really figured out what "normal" battery life is like. It got through a workday today without dying.
  • The included sunglass attachments look stunningly goofy and that says a lot considering I'll fully grant that Glass itself looks pretty nerdy.

I've had some fun with the API thus far and I'm looking forward to making some stuff for this.

Splizwarf
Jun 15, 2007
It's like there's a soup can in front of me!
Fingers crossed for realtime Augmented Reality x-ray vision. Also an Underpants Vision mode, and a mode that turns guns into radios and vice versa.

zer0spunk
Nov 6, 2000

devil never even lived

kitten smoothie posted:

I got Glass on Friday. I had it shipped to me so I did not get to go through the whole special pickup event where they hand you a glass of champagne or whatever and give you a personal setup and a pat on the back out the door.

First impressions:
  • It's really, really light. It also does not feel like the right half (the electronics side) is trying to fall over.
  • It took a little bit of adjustment to fit right, but once you have done so, it's comfortable. This is where the in-person setup probably comes in handy. The frame is strong but bendy and you can/must bend it to fit your head. If it hurts to wear it (mainly if the speaker module is drilling into your head) then you probably have it sitting too low and need to adjust the nosepiece.
  • The angle wake feature seems like it could use some adjustment. The default 30º angle is too high and you look goofy trying to trigger it. 20º is too low and I trigger it just nodding in conversation or the like. I haven't found the sweet spot yet so I just turned it off.
  • Photos look pretty good in daylight or well lit indoor places. It's a little blurry in low light but with no flash and fixed focus, that's probably to be expected.
  • Battery life is nothing marvelous. I spent all weekend goofing around with it so I haven't really figured out what "normal" battery life is like. It got through a workday today without dying.
  • The included sunglass attachments look stunningly goofy and that says a lot considering I'll fully grant that Glass itself looks pretty nerdy.

I've had some fun with the API thus far and I'm looking forward to making some stuff for this.

Now you have to post yourself wearing them so we can all mock you.

Do you live in a city or a small town? What's the reaction you've got going out with them?

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

I live in St Louis. I haven't really received any negative reaction so far although I've only had the device for a few days.

I have had people ask me what it can do, or what exactly I am seeing through the screen. The companion app on the phone (which is otherwise used as a GPS/SMS proxy) comes with a simulcast feature so you can show someone what you see, which is kind of handy.

veril
Aug 28, 2004
...
Got my Glass today, in San Diego. My coworkers have been very interested, and I've let them all try it on. Overall positive impressions. It'll be interesting to see how the battery holds up - when I first turned them on, the battery was at ~60%, and it dropped to 12% within 2 hours. But that was also with near continual usage.

Haven't really got any reactions from the public yet, but I've only been out to a restaurant and grocery store.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Glass already has its first OTA update.

kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 23:52 on May 8, 2013

Radbot
Aug 12, 2009
Probation
Can't post for 4 years!
I just received my red Pebble yesterday, and while I'm not still not sure it was worth the ridiculous wait, I'm actually pretty impressed by it. Coupled with the Pebble Notifier app on Android and IFTTT, there's a way to send almost any kind of notification to your watch. I've found the music control and email previews useful, and I was extremely happy to see native Google Voice support in addition to SMS. I'm excited to see the two-way capabilities of the system after developers dig into the new SDK.

I've had the most fun, though, with the new watchfaces. I was pretty disappointed to see the selection in-app, but then I checked out the various Pebble sites like mypebblefaces.com and allpebble.com and I've been geeking out all day. As a small-time watch nerd, it's been pretty fun to download a new watch to my wrist whenever I feel like it. The display is strongly OK - black/white isn't a limitation in my view, but it'd be nice to have slightly higher resolution for some non-8 bit looking watch faces.

Make sure you buy a screen protector for this if you get one, too. There are plenty of stories out there saying this thing is basically guaranteed to scratch if you wear it like a watch and not a wrist computer.

Radbot fucked around with this message at 13:35 on May 18, 2013

waffle
May 12, 2001
HEH
Just saw this Kickstarter for a new e-ink smartwatch (the Agent). I can't really tell what could distinguish it from the Pebble, though (except for the wireless charging). I guess it is considerably more expensive?

waffle fucked around with this message at 03:19 on May 22, 2013

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Maneki Neko
Oct 27, 2000

waffle posted:

Just saw this Kickstarter for a new e-ink smartwatch (the Agent). I can't really tell what could distinguish it from the Pebble, though (except for the wireless charging). I guess it is considerably more expensive?

Seems like they're going also going for more premium materials and wider platform support.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply