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The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

arstechnica.com

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Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#11

Post by DouweM »

pkteison wrote: post #8

I know 3 people with pebbles. All 3 have had the screens stop updating properly after several months. Plenty of other folks on the forums also have display problems. I feel like it was an ok level of satisfaction for a kickstarter and proof-of-concept, but nowhere near good enough for me to stick with the platform. I'm just hoping it inspires another company to do a great job of making an awesome e-ink watch now that…

Interesting. I know 3 people with Pebbles and have one myself, and none of us have had any problems of the sort. At one point my charging cable broke, probably due to my transporting it rolled up, but that's it.

Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#12

Post by milesokeefe »

startuup wrote: post #2

Seeing if anyone in HN community has been playing around with wearables by developing apps for them and whats your experience been like so far?

I'm a web developer so diving into pebble dev was my first time writing C.

That said, I've really enjoyed it. The SDK is excellent and hacking apps on a watch is terribly fun.

Here are some of the apps I've made so far:

https://github.com/MilesOkeefe/freedom-clock

https://github.com/MilesOkeefe/magic8

Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#13

Post by wvenable »

mikestew wrote: post #5

I find it interesting that the Android app update is being delayed, given that Android has thus far been the platform of choice if you own a Pebble. For the longest time you couldn't do that much with unjailbroken iOS due to limitations. SMS, phone calls, and music control, that was it. Email was unreliable at best (iOS-using Pebble owners know the notification settings "finger dance" all too well). No worries now th…

Because of iOS and App Store restrictions, the new Pebble Store is necessary for getting 2.0 applications to work on the iPhone. The iOS Pebble app actually bundles the JavaScript-side of every Pebble store application to get around the platform restrictions.

On Android, this hack isn't necessary and users aren't missing out on much because they can use the store on the web and install whatever they want. So there is much less reason to work on the Android app right now.

Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#14

Post by kylec »

mikestew wrote: post #7
njharman wrote: post #4

2.0? That falls fare short of what wearables were doing decades ago.

What do you mean? A decade ago it was Microsoft SPOT, which could do Microsoft Messenger, weather, stocks and news. Is there something else you're thinking of?

Well, there was Fossil's Wrist PDA that ran Palm OS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_Wrist_PDA

Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#15

Post by mikestew »

kylec wrote: post #14
mikestew wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? A decade ago it was Microsoft SPOT, which could do Microsoft Messenger, weather, stocks and news. Is there something else you're thinking of?

Well, there was Fossil's Wrist PDA that ran Palm OS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_Wrist_PDA

Fair enough. Though at 108g, just 4g shy of the weight of an iPhone 5S, it begins to stretch the meaning of "wearable".

Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#16

Post by TheAnimus »

mikestew wrote: post #15
kylec wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there was Fossil's Wrist PDA that ran Palm OS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_Wrist_PDA

Fair enough. Though at 108g, just 4g shy of the weight of an iPhone 5S, it begins to stretch the meaning of "wearable".

In otherwords slightly less than an Omega Seamaster? Which is 111g as per: http://www.pmwf.com/Watches/ARTICLES/TwoOmegaSeamaster/A%20r...

Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#17

Post by Leszek »

pkteison wrote: post #8

I know 3 people with pebbles. All 3 have had the screens stop updating properly after several months. Plenty of other folks on the forums also have display problems. I feel like it was an ok level of satisfaction for a kickstarter and proof-of-concept, but nowhere near good enough for me to stick with the platform. I'm just hoping it inspires another company to do a great job of making an awesome e-ink watch now that…

You can add one more to that list, I'm currently waiting for my RMA replacement to arrive. I do love having it when it works, but I'm a bit disappointed with the hardware issues. Reminds me of the old RRoD issue on the old Xbox360s.

Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#18

Post by Thiz »

Apple is missing big time in the smart watch camp.

Imagine all the NFC possibilities, like the article about hotel check in and stuff like that. PC activation. Car activation. Passcode integration. Lights on/off on enter/leave, etc.

People may react with disdain about the idea, but once smart people start building cool apps, they undoubtedly will follow.

Just do it Apple, damnit, we will build the apps, they will surely come.

Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#19

Post by MartinCron »

Thiz wrote: post #18

Apple is missing big time in the smart watch camp. Imagine all the NFC possibilities, like the article about hotel check in and stuff like that. PC activation. Car activation. Passcode integration. Lights on/off on enter/leave, etc. People may react with disdain about the idea, but once smart people start building cool apps, they undoubtedly will follow. Just do it Apple, damnit, we will build the apps, they will sur…

As someone who buys pretty much every (non-mac-pro) thing that Apple sells, I'm perfectly happy with Apple waiting and letting other people experiment with the first few generations of crappy wearable tech before making something that I'm de-facto obligated to buy.

Re: The Pebble Steel review: Wearables 2.0 arrive

#20

Post by cstrat »

pkteison wrote: post #8

I know 3 people with pebbles. All 3 have had the screens stop updating properly after several months. Plenty of other folks on the forums also have display problems. I feel like it was an ok level of satisfaction for a kickstarter and proof-of-concept, but nowhere near good enough for me to stick with the platform. I'm just hoping it inspires another company to do a great job of making an awesome e-ink watch now that…

I feel like you've got an unlucky group of friends. I bought a ten pack for a group of us at my work, none of them have had any issues at all, yet. My personal experience has been 10 for 10, and I know some people who have bought in later and haven't had issues. The only issues I see are the ones I read about.
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