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Introducing Pebble Time

kickstarter.com

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Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#391

Post by O____________O »

spunwasi wrote: post #234
O____________O wrote: post #227

I think animated transitions are the skeuomorphism of 2015. Mind you, I'm technically impressed that an E-Ink display can now be animated, but I can't wait for the end of the animated UI boom.

"Animation" is a pretty important part of UX. The movement helps the product tell the story of what you're doing. The user perceives lag after 300ms, and switches thought in less than a 1000ms. If your screen doesn't engage the user while it's making the switch, you risk them starting something else. And where's the fun of building a product people don't engage with for as long as possible? :D

The user perceives lag after 300ms

So write efficient, responsive software.

If your screen doesn't engage the user while it's making the switch

There are many ways to "engage the user" without wasting cycles on animation. If your software performs so slowly, why exacerbate things by burning cycles on animations?

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#392

Post by aareet »

kbd wrote: post #263
aareet wrote: post #258

I'm glad they went with ePaper, but I think I'll hold off until the battery life has developed to be quite a bit better (lasts a few months on a single charge?). The biggest value prop to having information on a watch to me is that I never have to think about charging my watch so I can always rely on it having the information I need. I don't recall ever replacing a watch battery and I'm looking forward to when smartw…

> I think I'll hold off until the battery life ... (lasts a few months on a single charge?) You'll be waiting a very long time. > Considering my Kindle lasts over a month on a single charge Your Kindle isn't maintaining a bluetooth connection to your phone or updating the screen frequently, and has a much larger battery than a watch. > I never have to think about charging my watch so I can always rely on it having th…

Oh I don't know if it will be all that long.

http://www.withings.com/us/withings-activite.html seems to be able to track and synchronize physical activity with my phone, runs on CR-2025 for 8 months. Don't know how they pull it off, but an inventive UI/watch interface to show me notification information like this one might be the ticket.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#393

Post by rtpg »

frevd wrote: post #385
rtpg wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pretty sure it's not that. color e-paper tech has been in the works for years now

Nope, the refresh rate is clearly too high. Compare with amazon's newest Kindle e-ink, quick animations are not possible with ink yet, and there is ghosting. Also, deducing from the battery life of 7 days ONLY, this doesn't look like eInk, which would last for weeks or longer, since it does not require power at all to keep contents on the screen. However, I have to admit that their display is the most interesting par…

well the thing is this thing has to stay connected to bluetooth the entire time, so that's part of the battery. The animations are also 3 frames or so... so maybe it's fine.

I think the ghosting comes from not explicitly setting bits. with the color e-ink screen you're probably resetting a lot of things, so even if ghosting is present, it's not very visible (especially after a lot of changes)

Looking at this closely though this _does_ remind me of something like the GBC screen. This might just be LCD.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#394

Post by bluthru »

kbd wrote: post #318
bluthru wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a choice between bland and functional. Metal and sapphire crystal is much more robust and functional than these cheap materials.

> Metal and sapphire crystal is much more robust and functional than these cheap materials. The screen is Gorilla Glass and the bezel is stainless steel!

What's with the exclamation point?

Anyway, Apple is using sapphire for everything except the low end: https://www.apple.com/watch/gallery/

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#395

Post by fudged71 »

delecti wrote: post #369
fudged71 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait for it. In the coming weeks we will probably see a steel version added to the Kickstarter

Nah, they'll probably wait a year first like last time. They know that too many people would just shift their pledge over to a steel version. It'd make waiting to release it pointless

They've specifically hinted that they want people to shift their pledges to a "surprise" that's coming later in the campaign.

It's been speculated that the metal version will be called "Business Time" :P

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#396

Post by pimlottc »

feld wrote: post #316
pimlottc wrote: post #272

Is it just me, or does it look like he's squeezing the buttons fairly hard in the timeline demo images? I suppose you have to make the buttons firm enough to prevent accidental presses but I would hope that you could use the buttons with one figure comfortably.

I can't recall ever wearing a watch with buttons on the side that I could press without "squeezing" the watch

You may be right, I never got into the habit of wearing a watch myself.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#397

Post by spunwasi »

O____________O wrote: post #391
spunwasi wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Animation" is a pretty important part of UX. The movement helps the product tell the story of what you're doing. The user perceives lag after 300ms, and switches thought in less than a 1000ms. If your screen doesn't engage the user while it's making the switch, you risk them starting something else. And where's the fun of building a product people don't engage with for as long as possible? :D

The user perceives lag after 300ms So write efficient, responsive software. If your screen doesn't engage the user while it's making the switch There are many ways to "engage the user" without wasting cycles on animation. If your software performs so slowly, why exacerbate things by burning cycles on animations?

Not all things are about speed. Helping the user to understand the "story" of what they're doing is just as important. Most UX kits involve transition animations for this reason.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#398

Post by bboreham »

DenisM wrote: post #342
bboreham wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bankers got completely cut out of the "deal" Seems to me that Kickstarter are the banker, taking 5% of the funds. And their payment processors are taking another 3%.

There are two important differences: 1. There is no discretion involved. When you're trying to finance a new development you have to convince bankers/VCs to give you money. Payment processors don't exactly need to be convinced, and Kickstarter is open to anyone. 2. The size of the cut taken by the middlemen is in direct proportion to the sales volume. With a bank you would normally take out a fixed-sized loan, then s…

I think you mis-understand how banks work. There is no bank that will lend money speculatively to fund a new product. If you have collateral, they will lend against that, but that means they aren't taking a risk on the product.

A bank is nothing like a VC.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#399

Post by kbd »

acomjean wrote: post #334
aareet wrote: post #258

I'm glad they went with ePaper, but I think I'll hold off until the battery life has developed to be quite a bit better (lasts a few months on a single charge?). The biggest value prop to having information on a watch to me is that I never have to think about charging my watch so I can always rely on it having the information I need. I don't recall ever replacing a watch battery and I'm looking forward to when smartw…

The color ePaper thing is interesting to me. If its like my brothers older sony reader (b/w ePaper), the refresh rate was slow but the battery lasted a long long time. If I remember correctly it only uses power when the display changes. I guess the minus would be its harder to read in the dark. If the refresh rate is too slow it might be annoying but I for a watch I don't think its going to be a problem.

> I guess the minus would be its harder to read in the dark.

There is a backlight when you want it. And the plus side is that it's readable always, not just when you activate the screen.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#400

Post by kbd »

aareet wrote: post #392
kbd wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think I'll hold off until the battery life ... (lasts a few months on a single charge?) You'll be waiting a very long time. > Considering my Kindle lasts over a month on a single charge Your Kindle isn't maintaining a bluetooth connection to your phone or updating the screen frequently, and has a much larger battery than a watch. > I never have to think about charging my watch so I can always rely on it having th…

Oh I don't know if it will be all that long. http://www.withings.com/us/withings-activite.html seems to be able to track and synchronize physical activity with my phone, runs on CR-2025 for 8 months. Don't know how they pull it off, but an inventive UI/watch interface to show me notification information like this one might be the ticket.

That is pretty impressive if it can really get 8 months on a battery while maintaining a bluetooth connection! Of course, this is quite a different category of product as it doesn't have a screen and just has normal watch hands.

Still, you're asking for an order of magnitude improvement in battery life, so I'll assert again that you'll be waiting a while :) I think you should relax your position, since imo there's really not much difference in having to charge a battery for 30 mins to an hour once a week vs once a month. You still rarely need to worry about your battery, which is qualitatively different than Apple or Android watches that you need to charge once a day or they die on you.

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