Is Bluetooth the only way to get apps onto the watch?
Also, Python is the language to program apps in? They only language?
Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
51–60 of 155 posts
Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
#52I've had this page bookmarked for months, waiting to be able to order it (back when it was just designed as a bluetooth extension to blackberry devices). Petty about US/CA shipping only, seems a pretty dumb move (unless there's some reason, other than shipping costs which you can make customers pay, for limiting who can buy it).
>(unless there's some reason, other than shipping costs which you can make customers pay, for limiting who can buy it) Shipping goods for money internationally is a bureaucratic nightmare. A million possible edge cases to do with tax and so forth. This is why hardware startups often only take orders from their home country for their first batch.
I can't speak to the tax issues, except to say that I've seen so many tiny companies manage to do it that I can't see it's a huge problem.
Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
#53Correct me if I am wrong. I think I have found a way to track sales of both the models on sale.
Depending on how many items you ask for in order screen, it lets you go ahead or displays "stock unavailable".
For the Mettalic Silver, It seems 57 items are available at the time of writing. and for Black Anodized, it is 108. I have to take a reasonable assumption now to get the sales numbers (may be 200 at beginning?).
Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
#54Looks cool.
But when I do upgrade my venerable analog watch, it's probably going to be to a http://lunatik.com + ipod nano 6g. A little more expensive, requires a jailbreak, but a hell of a lot more functional, and doesn't require uploading my code anywhere to compile it once jailbroken.
Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
#55This is a very hacker-unfriendly device. I wouldn't buy one. The SDK's compilation tool doesn't invoke a compiler; it uploads your code to a service running off of http://174.129.29.50:8080 . The Arduino is fantastic because the bootloader is open-source, the hardware is open-source, and it's easy to find out full information about the hardware and pull the MCU datasheets yourself.
I'd love to hear a counter to this. I was really close to buying one...
Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the actual hardware inside? Do you expose (quasi-)standard ARM JTAG?
We're trying to make it as easy as Arduino to develop an app for your watch! To dodge the arm-gcc toolchain issue, we've built a cloudcompile system which allows all platforms Mac/Ubuntu/Windows to have an equally easy time compiling. Simply code your app in C, then run our python script to compile your code and load it onto your watch, wirelessly!
Your python script uploads my code to your server and sends me back a binary in return. What happens when that server goes down?
Getting people up and writing code on devices quickly is awesome; but sending code (unencrypted, even) off is pretty shady, particularly since you're not disclosing it to anyone.
Arduino manages to have a cute little barebones IDE based around an actual compiler; and they provide full hardware docs, links to datasheets, the works. You're doing exactly the opposite of that. Even Apple will let me compile code for my own iOS devices -- after I've paid the $99/year fee or jailbroken, of course...
Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
#57Couldn't find pictures of the back of the watch. Would be nice with an easy way to find good pictures of the product. Like a picture gallery.
Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
#58I'm not purchasing one, but it's way cool that you got these things out there. I look at most stuff on HN and think "hey, I could build that!". I look at this and I think "wow, it's cool that someone managed to manufacture and build hardware on a small scale and sell it".
Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
#59This is a very hacker-unfriendly device. I wouldn't buy one. The SDK's compilation tool doesn't invoke a compiler; it uploads your code to a service running off of http://174.129.29.50:8080 . The Arduino is fantastic because the bootloader is open-source, the hardware is open-source, and it's easy to find out full information about the hardware and pull the MCU datasheets yourself.
I'd love to hear a counter to this. I was really close to buying one...
Hi Guys, Eric from inPulse here. We're trying to make it as easy as possible for people to develop for inPulse. That's why we've built a cloudcompile service. No messing with DLLs, drivers and other annoying parts of embedded coding.
I think we've succeeded! In our beta testing, users were able to go from downloading the SDK zip to loading their first app on inPulse within 5-8 minutes. I think that's pretty impressive for a startup hardware biz.
If you'd like to setup the arm-gcc toolchain and compile your own apps, absolutely no problem! We'll have instructions online shortly. If you need them faster, just email devsupport@getinpulse.com
Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the actual hardware inside? Do you expose (quasi-)standard ARM JTAG?
We're trying to make it as easy as Arduino to develop an app for your watch! To dodge the arm-gcc toolchain issue, we've built a cloudcompile system which allows all platforms Mac/Ubuntu/Windows to have an equally easy time compiling. Simply code your app in C, then run our python script to compile your code and load it onto your watch, wirelessly!
Also, your terms of service (http://www.getinpulse.com/terms/) states that you claim rights over information I upload to sites run by Allerta. That must include code I upload to be compiled, correct?
From the terms: "hereby grant to Allerta a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to reproduce, distribute, transmit, publicly perform, publicly display, digitally perform, modify, create derivative works of, and otherwise use and commercially exploit any text, photographs or other data and information you submit to the Website (collectively, User Generated Content) in any media now existing or hereafter developed, including without limitation on websites, in audio format, and in any print media format."