Michal Ždanský It has long been my dream to have a watch that could control my phone and receive important information from it. New project Pebble is the fulfillment of my dream, which will soon hit store shelves.
From time to time you can see individuals who have made a watch out of a sixth generation iPod nano using a special wristband. Thanks to its dimensions, it can perform the function of a smart watch that, in addition to displaying the time, stopwatch and countdown, also plays music and has a built-in pedometer. But they still have a long way to go in terms of smart watches.
Pebble is a Kickstarter company Pebble Technology based in Palo Alto. Its goal is to bring to the market a unique watch that connects to your smartphone using bluetooth and can display information from it and partially control it. The basis is a fine display using e-ink technology, which is mainly used by Kindle internet book readers and so on. Although it can only display shades of gray, it has very low power consumption and good readability in the sun. The display is not touch-sensitive, you control the watch using the side buttons.
Using bluetooth wireless transmission, it can then receive various data from the phone and interpret them in its own way. Specifically, it can receive GPS location data from the iPhone, share Internet connections, and read user data stored on the phone. Thanks to the deep integration of bluetooth into the system, you can display incoming calls, SMS messages, e-mails, the weather forecast or calendar events on the Pebble watch display.
The inventors also managed to incorporate the social networks Twitter and Facebook, from which you can also receive messages. At the same time, an API will be available that third-party developers can implement in their applications. There will be an application of the same name directly for Pebble, through which users will be able to set up the watch, upload new applications or change the look of the watch face. Thanks to the public API, there will be plenty of options.
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The use of the watch is really huge, it can be used to control a music player, athletes can check their pace and run/mileage and possibly read incoming SMS without having to take their phone out of their pocket. It's just a shame that the creators opted for the older Bluetooth 2.1 protocol instead of the energy-saving Bluetooth 4.0, which is available on the latest iOS devices and is backward compatible with older versions.
Although Pebble is in the Kickstarter phase, it managed to reach the target amount very quickly ($100 in a few days), so there is nothing preventing the smartwatch from going into mass production. Four colors will be available – white, red, black, and those interested can vote for the fourth. The watch will be compatible with the iPhone, but also with phones with the Android operating system. The price is set at 000 US dollars, then you will pay an additional 150 dollars for international shipping.
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What is Kickstarter?
Kickstarter.com is for artists, inventors and other creative people who need funding for their projects. After the project is announced, patrons have a limited time to support the project with the amount they choose. If a sufficient number of sponsors are found at the given time, the entire amount is paid to the author of the project. Patrons do not risk anything - the amount is deducted from their account only when the target amount is reached. The author remains the owner of his intellectual property. Project listing is free.
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Great, I was looking for something like this. I'll just wait for the version with BT 4.0 (if there is one) and especially if they make a stainless steel chassis and strap. I don't like the rubber band.
Ugh, rubber. Otherwise great even for students :-D
This is what I wanted from Apple. I believe that Apple has a similar project at some stage of development (either they abandoned it as uninteresting or they plan to introduce it sometime). At a time when Apple is floundering like this, we can only keep our fingers crossed that Pebble will succeed in producing a quality and functional product with the simplicity of control known from Apple or better. At the moment, I don't wear any watches just because my favorite manufacturers (Timex, Casio) don't offer anything as good as they used to make (for example, Timex Marathon 50) and even if the mentioned watches work, the straps have already broken and new ones (for the original models) are no longer made. So a black Pebble watch would be my choice now.
User data saved on the phone dude :-)
But Bluetooth 2.1 kills it. Even if the watch was perpetually mobile, the iPhone with bluetooth turned on non-stop will beep even more often... It's really not worth much like this.
I wonder how this will affect iPhone battery life…
As long as it doesn't have BT4.0, it basically doesn't have much of a chance to succeed. The energy saving is significant and given that the iPhone has it, it would be very interesting and if I have 10 minutes less battery life due to BT, it won't kill me with the older BT, but it will be worse for the watch than for the iPhone. the question is how many hours can the watch last. I don't want it unless it lasts at least a month on a single charge. But I definitely see it as a good and interesting idea.
They are supposed to last 7 days on 1 charge
I dare to say that the use of BT4.0 would mean somewhere around 14 days of endurance. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them ;)
It is iOS + Android compatible. Not all Androids have BT 4.0.
So I would ideally not support Android :D but still BT 4.0 is backwards compatible so it shouldn't be a problem right?
Well, I don't mind, but Sony already produces such watches some Friday and they cost 90€ in the store and they go with my iPhone even if they are designed for Android :) and you also have a choice of about 8 colored straps for them and so on....
Otherwise, the guys from the US copied something idea to produce it, they asked for money in advance and they met enough people to collect $100000 :))) quite a decent scam
Well, I don't know what to say about it, it might be a good looking thing, but to tell the truth I wasn't very excited about it. I simply won't use this if someone is running with an iPod or iPhone on their shoulder, the person who wants to see if someone is texting him wonders on his mobile phone, so that I can be connected to my mobile phone which is 3 meters away from me and buy some "smart" watch, it's really not! Just one more thing that I have to charge and it also eats up the battery from the iPhone's already rather short battery life.
But this already exists, e.g. Sony makes an almost identical watch for Android.