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sub supau
Aug 28, 2007

mcpringles posted:

What apps were you expecting? Runkeeper and Golfcaddie were both released and there are a few games and other 3rd party apps.
I don't know about apps, but how about the weather functionality they show on a watchface on the Kickstarter video? Or the "watchapp store" they claimed would exist in that same video? (And no, half a dozen watchfaces and snake in a list that hasn't been updated since launch doesn't count.) Or apps that can "transmit data to the Internet" (also from the pitch video)? Or the IFTTT service they showed off at CES seven months ago? Or the ability to actually read messages in Unicode so that those of us who live in non-English-speaking countries can actually read notifications without having to channel them through a third-party app?

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SirSigma
Mar 21, 2013

Aspiring Polymath

TetsuoTW posted:

I don't know about apps, but how about the weather functionality they show on a watchface on the Kickstarter video? Or the "watchapp store" they claimed would exist in that same video? (And no, half a dozen watchfaces and snake in a list that hasn't been updated since launch doesn't count.) Or apps that can "transmit data to the Internet" (also from the pitch video)? Or the IFTTT service they showed off at CES seven months ago? Or the ability to actually read messages in Unicode so that those of us who live in non-English-speaking countries can actually read notifications without having to channel them through a third-party app?
When you put it that way, the guys behind Pebble sound awfully lazy.

I'm still using my Pebble on a regular basis and have no plans to stop doing so anytime soon because I needed a good wristwatch for the longest time. That said, I remembered always wanting one of those watches in shops that had some kind of animation on the watch face, but I never got around to getting it. The Pebble seems like the closest thing to that, but it's got some uses I really do like. I like not having to take my phone out of my pocket whenever I get an email or text because the notification tells me who it is. I really like some of the apps that work for it, even though there don't seem to be a lot. And I really like custom watch faces for it. In all honesty, the custom watch faces are probably what I still love about this watch so far.

Aside from that, I got a custom strap a few weeks ago from a Fossil store at the mall in my area.

xamphear
Apr 9, 2002

SILK FOR CALDÉ!

mcpringles posted:

What apps were you expecting? Runkeeper and Golfcaddie were both released and there are a few games and other 3rd party apps.

Okay, so we've got runners and golfers and fans of 2-bit/3-button games covered; so really, what else IS there, right? :rolleyes:

The whole upsell was that it was going to have an awesome SDK and that people could just jump in and start building poo poo. If I'd asked you back in 2004 "what apps were you expecting" with regards to phones, you'd probably have said, "My phone can call people, take pictures, and even play solitaire. That's all I need." but here we are, with phones doing poo poo people never asked for or knew they wanted.

I could list the cool poo poo that I think the Pebble watch should be doing, but what I was really looking forward to were all the things people more creative and inventive than I would come up with. At this point, I'd settle for the really obvious poo poo: Weather. A phone dialer. Call ditching w/ SMS reply. Notification history. The ability to send canned SMS replies. Unread item counts.

And please, don't link me to the handful of android apps that can do some of those things. I know they exist. I've installed them. I've tried them. They represent a lot of hard work by their programmers, but they're all disappointingly hacky due to the unfinished nature of the SDK. Last I saw, they haven't even exposed an API for the motion sensor, one of the core user input features of the device.

JFYI: I've downloaded the SDK. I've used it to make an app. It's really painful, and even with HTTPebble, your options for 2-way or even 1-way communications are supremely limited. I tried to make an XBMC remote control and it's literally not possible. HTTPebble's JSON implementation isn't compatible with the XBMC RPC server, and you can't turn off the JSON content/type so that you can pass the call embedded into a GET request. I went into it thinking that a simple play/pause, volume up/down, prev/next app would be super simple, and it ended up being impossible without either writing a companion iOS/Android app or rolling out some sort of proxy server that could translate the HTTPebble JSON calls into ones that XBMC can handle.

xamphear fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Aug 31, 2013

sub supau
Aug 28, 2007

SirSigma posted:

When you put it that way, the guys behind Pebble sound awfully lazy.
Honestly, I don't think they're lazy, I just think their imaginations exceeded their ability. And that they're kind of poo poo at customer relations and expectation management.

I still wear my Pebble (for as long as I can tolerate the strap), and I still dig the caller ID, Facebook notifications, and some of the 3rd party stuff. But it definitely failed to live up to the hype, the pitch, and its potential.

Cerebral Mayhem
Jul 18, 2000

Very useful on the planet Delphon, where they communicate with their eyebrows
So, I've been creating some watchfaces.

It's pretty fun, actually. I just adapted the Spinning Dancer Illusion.

RICKON WALNUTSBANE
Jun 13, 2001


Samsung announced their smart watch yesterday.

Squibbles
Aug 24, 2000

Mwaha ha HA ha!

I liked a couple of the comments from The Verge article about it.

Samsung claims it has 24hr+ battery life. Though most of the watches were completely dead by the end of the press event.

The watch strap apparently felt LESS supple than the pebble one (Is that even possible??).

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/4/4692824/samsung-galaxy-gear-features-specs-release-date-price

Plus it's $300 which just seems crazy to me given that it doesn't even work with all android phones but just a subset of samsung phones/tablets.

Magic Mango
Aug 31, 2006

Only fools are enslaved by time and space.

TetsuoTW posted:

I don't know about apps, but how about the weather functionality they show on a watchface on the Kickstarter video? Or the "watchapp store" they claimed would exist in that same video? (And no, half a dozen watchfaces and snake in a list that hasn't been updated since launch doesn't count.) Or apps that can "transmit data to the Internet" (also from the pitch video)? Or the IFTTT service they showed off at CES seven months ago? Or the ability to actually read messages in Unicode so that those of us who live in non-English-speaking countries can actually read notifications without having to channel them through a third-party app?

I'd also like caller ID to actually work on iOS.

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?

Squibbles posted:

I liked a couple of the comments from The Verge article about it.

Samsung claims it has 24hr+ battery life. Though most of the watches were completely dead by the end of the press event.

The watch strap apparently felt LESS supple than the pebble one (Is that even possible??).

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/4/4692824/samsung-galaxy-gear-features-specs-release-date-price

Plus it's $300 which just seems crazy to me given that it doesn't even work with all android phones but just a subset of samsung phones/tablets.

Qualcomm showed one too that they plan on selling not just the reference designs they are so fond of displaying that we never get a product out of:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/04/qualcomm-toq-smartwatch/

Looks like a much better Pebble than that Samsung monstrosity.

Macichne Leainig
Jul 26, 2012

by VG
The Toq also isn't locked to Samsung devices. The Galaxy Gear is basically overpriced trash.

CaptainCaveman
Apr 16, 2005

Always searching for North.
Has anybody tried SmartWatch Pro? (For iOS.) It sounds neat, and $4 isn't a whole lot of money, but I wanted to check if anybody's tried it and how it works before I go ahead and buy it.

Nnep
Jun 17, 2007

3-2 2-0
Put up my pebble on SAMart if anyone is looking to make the leap.

Magic Mango
Aug 31, 2006

Only fools are enslaved by time and space.
iOS Pebble users: Some big news, an updated version of the Pebble App has been submitted to the App Store and should be made available early next week. It enables Bluetooth 4.0 (low energy) as well as support for Apple Notification Center Service (ANCS), which means all notifications you see in the Notification Centre will get pushed to the Pebble, and I'm guessing/hoping battery life ought to improve. There's also an updated SDK in the works which should enable some fancy apps in the near future. Full details here, but it looks like the Pebble will finally do what it promised!

:toot:

Jet Jaguar
Feb 12, 2006

Don't touch my bags if you please, Mr Customs Man.



Hmmm. Of the 2,200 watchfaces and apps available for Pebble, how many are actually worth having?

I wear mine, I do like having a notification of e-mail and stuff. But the fact that no standard watchface has a battery indicator and Twitter integration involves third-party apps seems a bit silly.

sub supau
Aug 28, 2007

Jet Jaguar posted:

Hmmm. Of the 2,200 watchfaces and apps available for Pebble, how many are actually worth having?
Of the 2,200 watchfaces and apps available, how many are actually apps? Bundling together the numbers of watchfaces and apps like that seems super obfuscatory to me.

Magic Mango posted:

There's also an updated SDK in the works which should enable some fancy apps in the near future. Full details here, but it looks like the Pebble will finally do what it promised!

:toot:
Oh hey, almost six months after most people gave a poo poo, almost a year after they finally started shipping, and almost a year and a half since their almost entirely fictional pitch video they've almost delivered what people expected in the first place!

xamphear
Apr 9, 2002

SILK FOR CALDÉ!
My Pebble has been in the closet, battery dead, for months now. SDK 2.0 sounds like what they originally promised backers would be released ahead of the watches even shipping. If people start putting out interesting poo poo, that might be enough to get me wearing it on a daily basis again. But, I'm not holding my breath.

If I get super loving bored some weekend, I might download the new SDK and see if I can even make that drop-dead simple XBMC remote app (it really just needs to execute 6 HTTP GET requests to work). If that can't even be done, then well...

sirbeefalot
Aug 24, 2004
Fast Learner.
Fun Shoe

xamphear posted:

My Pebble has been in the closet, battery dead, for months now. SDK 2.0 sounds like what they originally promised backers would be released ahead of the watches even shipping. If people start putting out interesting poo poo, that might be enough to get me wearing it on a daily basis again. But, I'm not holding my breath.

If I get super loving bored some weekend, I might download the new SDK and see if I can even make that drop-dead simple XBMC remote app (it really just needs to execute 6 HTTP GET requests to work). If that can't even be done, then well...

Its gonna be tough with your battery wrecked from sitting discharged for months. :v:

xamphear
Apr 9, 2002

SILK FOR CALDÉ!

sirbeefalot posted:

Its gonna be tough with your battery wrecked from sitting discharged for months. :v:

Yeah... That wouldn't break my heart, though. Which I guess is just about the most negative thing I could really say about Pebble. "I don't care if it's broken."

smackfu
Jun 7, 2004

It is what it is. I'd rather they release the SDK and new app than not. They could have just walked away at this point.

Personally, I think the orange is a bit too much to actually wear, but that's my fault, not Pebble's.

Kazy
Oct 23, 2006

0x38: FLOPPY_INTERNAL_ERROR

I wear my orange Pebble every day :colbert: But GadgetWraps is a good place to get some nice skins for it if you want to change the color. Plus free (well, $1 shipping) replacements for life!

I love my Pebble, when I'm out at work I usually have my camera in hand so I can't dig my phone out of my pocket to see who is emailing me. I can't wait for this update, either, since it replaces the need for HTTPebble. Though I am going to have to re-do my custom watchapps I made on watchface-generator. Hopefully the watchface makers will be quick to update theirs to 2.0.

PleasantDilemma
Dec 5, 2006

The Last Hope for Peace
So the other day I installed the Glance for Pebble app and it's pretty awesome. It's pretty much all the stuff that should have been there native to the pebble. Now I can see calendar entries, send pre-config txt messages, and see my pebbles battery percentage. If y'all don't have it you should get it.

SpelledBackwards
Jan 7, 2001

I found this image on the Internet, perhaps you've heard of it? It's been around for a while I hear.

PlesantDilemma posted:

So the other day I installed the Glance for Pebble app and it's pretty awesome. It's pretty much all the stuff that should have been there native to the pebble. Now I can see calendar entries, send pre-config txt messages, and see my pebbles battery percentage. If y'all don't have it you should get it.

Yeah, I tried to screw around with making my own Pebble Canvas watchface for a few months to do what Glance basically does out of the box. Once I got Glance 2 or 3 months back, I stopped using the Canvas face and I have what I want in once glance (gasp!) of the watch using its "SmartWatch" setting: Large time & date, little phone battery % in upper right, current weather below the date, and then unread SMS, missed calls, and unread GMail. And then I can look at the other stuff you mentioned from the submenus off of it. Pretty :coal:

mcpringles
Jan 26, 2004

I don't see why anyone would want to see missed calls, SMS count and email count. You see all of those when they come in through your watch, so whats the point? The other features are neat though.

xamphear
Apr 9, 2002

SILK FOR CALDÉ!

mcpringles posted:

I don't see why anyone would want to see missed calls, SMS count and email count. You see all of those when they come in through your watch, so whats the point? The other features are neat though.

Unless you get so drat many emails/texts/whatever that you don't want them to constantly go to your watch, instead you just want to see the unread count.

Also, my watch booted when I plugged it into the charger, so... yay? I went to update the firmware and it said I was already at the latest. Has this thing seriously not gotten a firmware update since like July?

SpelledBackwards
Jan 7, 2001

I found this image on the Internet, perhaps you've heard of it? It's been around for a while I hear.

mcpringles posted:

I don't see why anyone would want to see missed calls, SMS count and email count. You see all of those when they come in through your watch, so whats the point? The other features are neat though.

If you are away from your watch or it's not paired with the phone at the time, it may be useful to see it once you come back. If a notification comes in and isn't acknowledged on the watch, it times itself out after a minute or two (not sure exactly how long), so if you weren't looking at the phone, the missed items would tell you on the watch.

All that said, you can choose a different view from Glance which disables those readouts, so go wild.

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?
I bit the bullet on Sunday on a Pebble and I have to say I like it. The pricing is perhaps a bit high given it's functionality but it is still in early adopter category but it is not horrible looking and the notifications work great. I wouldn't call it a smart watch but more a basic watch that better meets today's realities of being chained to a smartphone for better or worse.

But seriously, the watchband sucks, I ordered a new one on Sunday but I'm going to the mall tomorrow to find a non-lovely perhaps temporary one .

Kazy
Oct 23, 2006

0x38: FLOPPY_INTERNAL_ERROR

The iOS7 update's finally out.

There's a bit of a delay from watch > Notification, but hopefully that means if you act on the notification on the phone it won't send to your watch. Haven't done much testing to that effect, yet, though.

ShoeFly
Dec 28, 2006

Waiter, there's a fly in my shoe!

Kazy posted:

The iOS7 update's finally out.

There's a bit of a delay from watch > Notification, but hopefully that means if you act on the notification on the phone it won't send to your watch. Haven't done much testing to that effect, yet, though.

Sometimes the notifications don't make it to my watch at all, which is pretty poo poo and makes it useless for the most part.

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?

ShoeFly posted:

Sometimes the notifications don't make it to my watch at all, which is pretty poo poo and makes it useless for the most part.

Yeah, I was very annoyed by that at first. Force quit all Pebble apps including httpebble and relaunch them and everything appears to work great. They are really doing a poo poo job of effectively communicating what works and doesn't after the update and what just needs to be rebooted.

All my notifications were broken after the update until I quit and restarted Httpebble after the update, now everything works fine.

ShoeFly
Dec 28, 2006

Waiter, there's a fly in my shoe!

I've never used httpebble, it just seems that sometimes texts will appear on my watch and sometimes they won't.

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?

ShoeFly posted:

I've never used httpebble, it just seems that sometimes texts will appear on my watch and sometimes they won't.

Are you on an iPhone 4S+ or below because as far as I can tell a lot of the changes relate to Bluetooth 4.0 support.

ShoeFly
Dec 28, 2006

Waiter, there's a fly in my shoe!

Three Olives posted:

Are you on an iPhone 4S+ or below because as far as I can tell a lot of the changes relate to Bluetooth 4.0 support.

5s. I'm assuming it's something to do with BLE and maintaining a connection, but it's a little frustrating. A few people are complaining about it on the Pebble forums, so it's not an isolated problem at least.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Push and notifications in general are a mess on iOS, so that doesn't help either.

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?
Nevermind, my watch and phone were working with some unholy kind of working patchwork of old firmware and new app. Delete everything, factory reset your pebble, restart both and pray for rain.

Edit: I think I have this figured out, there were two releases today, firmware and an app, I downloaded the app but it didn't update the firmware of the watch for some reason which left me with a weirdly working watch with some notifications, with a current app and firmware you should have two bluetooth connections, one regular and one LE, it needs the LE profile active for notifications not to be hosed up.

Delete every Pebble app off your iPhone, factory reset your Pebble, reboot both devices, reinstall the main Pebble App and repeat until your Pebble gets 1.3.x firmware instead of 1.2.x, pair the BT LE connection, then you can reinstall HTTPebble etc. if you don't have an iPhone 4S+ you are just hosed because you need BT LE for notifications to work properly. The BT and BT LE connections are completely separate in the pairing screen and you need the latest firmware for both to show up and yes you apparently can be in a situation where you are running old firmware and the new app leaving you with a hosed up situation without any obvious notice where you have a now optional and screwy BT connection and not a working BT LE connection essential for proper notifications.

Three Olives fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Nov 12, 2013

sub supau
Aug 28, 2007

So iPhone users, does your Pebble actually stay consistently connected to your phone? Because mine and my Android phone seem to just completely forget about each other all the loving time for no apparent reason and with no notification. Thankfully Augmented Smartwatch will usually work to reconnect it but it seems hosed that basic functionality needs a third-party app to unfuck it.

SpelledBackwards
Jan 7, 2001

I found this image on the Internet, perhaps you've heard of it? It's been around for a while I hear.

And the frustrating thing is, I don't always notice my phone vibrates but my watch doesn't get the notification. Then I'll hit the Android pulldown and it will say "Pebble is connected". If I tap it or launch the Pebble program, the app says "Not Connected" and (Connecting), and the pulldown will suddenly update to also say not connected as if it wasn't lying to me in the first place.

Sometimes I have to tap connect and disconnect a cycle or two to get it working again. More rarely, I have to re-enable Bluetooth discovery on the watch. No idea how it gets into that state.

mcpringles
Jan 26, 2004

TetsuoTW posted:

So iPhone users, does your Pebble actually stay consistently connected to your phone? Because mine and my Android phone seem to just completely forget about each other all the loving time for no apparent reason and with no notification. Thankfully Augmented Smartwatch will usually work to reconnect it but it seems hosed that basic functionality needs a third-party app to unfuck it.

Not sure what augmented smartwatch is but some watchfaces have a built in disconnect notifier. I haven't really had a problem on my HTC One but I'm probably lucky.

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?
So now that everything is working notifications work really well and it does automatically reconnect if you lose range. Before this update I think I would have returned the watch but since I keep my phone on silent and get a fair number of notifications it's really nice to just have them on my wrist instead of grabbing my phone whenever I hear it buzz for some unknown reason.

ShoeFly
Dec 28, 2006

Waiter, there's a fly in my shoe!

Three Olives posted:

So now that everything is working notifications work really well and it does automatically reconnect if you lose range. Before this update I think I would have returned the watch but since I keep my phone on silent and get a fair number of notifications it's really nice to just have them on my wrist instead of grabbing my phone whenever I hear it buzz for some unknown reason.

Mine's been working perfectly today as well, it hasn't missed a single notification. I haven't changed anything so hopefully it'll keep working.

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Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?

ShoeFly posted:

Mine's been working perfectly today as well, it hasn't missed a single notification. I haven't changed anything so hopefully it'll keep working.

Yeah, it is working great for me, really everything is working great for me. I find myself having a hard time putting a value on the Pebble, it's a basic watch that $150 seems really high for it's capabilities and build quality on paper seem but I get lots of notifications and it is really nice to have have them on my wrist instead of digging out my phone without knowing if it is an unimportant calendar reminder or a SMS from a close friend.

I'm sticking with it, yes, early adopter premium aside it is an $70 watch at best but the reality is that I'm glued to my phone and with iOS notifications I get a lot more freedom to decide if I want to take a call when my phone is on the other side of the house charging and there are zero alternatives besides altering how I prioritize my life.

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