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Five days with Pebble

danilocampos.com

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Re: Five days with Pebble

#21

Post by danilocampos »

kefs wrote: post #19
danilocampos wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe me, this is better. The curiosity urge is what gets the phone pulled out of the pocket. From there, it's very low friction to decide to open it up and start screwing around. Separating the two acts has, for me, been an improvement.

...or you could just set custom notification tones and vibrate patterns/intensity levels for specific apps/contacts/labels/anything (on android)

It's not the same as reading, though. I've done that in the past and it worked out like this:

"Oh, I know exactly who is texting me. They are a high priority person in my life. Let's make sure they're okay...

Aaand it's a cat gif."

The text display is the game-changer here.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#22

Post by jaysonelliot »

I, too, love my Pebble, if only for the convenience of getting text and call notifications on my wrist.

I'm surprised at how poorly thought-out the UI is, and particularly surprised at how little control I have over it, at least out of the box.

For the moment, there's no way to invert the screen color, no way to view text or call history (even to the point of seeing a notification if you accidentally press the wrong button and dismiss it), not even a battery life indicator that I've been able to find.

Eventually, as developers start getting apps on the Pebble, and as Pebble themselves work on the UI, I have faith it will improve. As the author says, this is what it's like in early adopter land.

One thing the Pebble has convinced me of is that smart watches will be a popular product category in the near future. There's just too much potential, and even my very basic, very early-stage Pebble has already become one of my favorite gadgets.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#23

Post by cpenner461 »

Thanks for the overview of your experience. I'm eagerly waiting for mine to ship. How did the shipping process work? I.e. did it just show up on your doorstep one day or did the Pebble account site tell you when it shipped? I keep checking my account every few days but there's no sign other than I've done all I can do for now. Trying to figure out what the rest of my wait will be like. :-)

Re: Five days with Pebble

#24

Post by danilocampos »

cpenner461 wrote: post #23

Thanks for the overview of your experience. I'm eagerly waiting for mine to ship. How did the shipping process work? I.e. did it just show up on your doorstep one day or did the Pebble account site tell you when it shipped? I keep checking my account every few days but there's no sign other than I've done all I can do for now. Trying to figure out what the rest of my wait will be like. :-)

I checked my mailbox and BOOM, there it was. I got a shipping notification the next day, which was cute. But in SF, I'm less than an hour's drive from their fulfillment center, so others will probably be better prepared.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#26

Post by Apreche »

I have one, and this is accurate. The only benefit is being able to see notifications on the wrist without having to take the phone out of my pocket. That being said, it is a huge and amazing benefit. I hate watches, and feel they have no purpose, but now it does.

The thing is I think this article understated the horribleness of the notification bug that is supposedly Apple's fault. It's a huge pain in the ass. The only feature that matters on the Pebble is seeing notifications on the watch. Sometimes my phone buzzes and the Pebble does not. Unless the Pebble gets 100% of the notifications reliably, it becomes a frustration instead of a boon.

If that is fixed, then oh yes. If it's not fixed soon, I'll be trading pebble for the rumored Apple watch. Heck, I might do that anyway. But still.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#27

Post by shurcooL »

Sounds like this would be a great match with my LTE iPad mini (I keep it in my pocket). But I'll probably still wait until Apple releases their version. Even then, not sure if I'll get it because I prefer to have one device... at least until they start to sync Notification (Interruption?) Center.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#28

Post by erohead »

vitno wrote: post #11
doodyhead wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you not just disable Bluetooth on your phone for situations like that? Just curious if there's a downside. Would love a Pebble but haven't ordered yet so I'm going to wait until they catch up on the backlog.

yea, I had another presentation today and that's what I did. Nowhere near as convenient though. I'd like a software switch in the menus for the current version and the next version to have a physical switch.

There's a software switch in Pebble to disable notifications. Settings -> Display -> Notifications On/Off

Re: Five days with Pebble

#29

Post by dguaraglia »

Apreche wrote: post #26

I have one, and this is accurate. The only benefit is being able to see notifications on the wrist without having to take the phone out of my pocket. That being said, it is a huge and amazing benefit. I hate watches, and feel they have no purpose, but now it does. The thing is I think this article understated the horribleness of the notification bug that is supposedly Apple's fault. It's a huge pain in the ass. The o…

As the guys from The Bugle (a satirical podcast) said while describing this product: "we've definitely come a long way when there's a need to develop a complete new piece of expensive hardware just to avoid having to take your phone from your pocket. Meanwhile, no solution to the global hunger problem."

As much as I nerdgasm at how cool this device is, I have to wonder if, as a species, we haven't 'jumped the shark'.

Re: Five days with Pebble

#30

Post by erohead »

robbiet480 wrote: post #5

Loving my Pebble, especially with Light Flow Plus and Pebble Notifier however, I am really hoping for the IFTTT channel to come out soon, although I heard from rumor that IFTTT isn't playing ball, but I don't know for sure.

Right now you can get ifttt alerts sent to pebble via SMS (iOS) or email/SMS (Android). It's 100% in our court to get the final part hooked up, absolutely nothing to do with ifttt!
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