Comments on: Pebble Smartwatch Review: A Useful Dumbwatch

By: Antonio Cangiano

Antonio Cangiano — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 22:19:59 +0000

In reply to James Freeman. I'm going to try out a few of the suggestions I received and see if it helps. Being located in Canada, returning items isn't as cheap (especially when you consider the insane $40 DHL brokerage fee). I fully agree with you that the idea behind it is far from dumb and smartwatches in general have a lot of potential.

By: James Freeman

James Freeman — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 22:10:41 +0000

Your battery problems don’t sound right, to the point I think you might have a defective unit or your weather app is really power hungry. Mine lasts a week with no issues, but I don’t use an animating watchface, get that many emails/texts per day, or use any third party apps yet.
As for the backlight, you can also push one of the buttons to turn it on (any of them should work).

I agree, it’s a prototype technology that’s still being explored, but it’s been enjoyable for me so far. I didn’t realize how nice it is to have simple notifications on my wrist before I ordered one (vs digging into my pocket to get my phone). I have a feeling as smartwatch designs start looking better they’ll get more mainstraem adoption.

By: Antonio Cangiano

Antonio Cangiano — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 21:38:31 +0000

In reply to misato. Thank you for your informative comment, misato. I think that httpebble and the weather face I'm using (Chunk Weather) might significantly impact battery life. I look forward to the new firmware. Regarding the ePaper display, I knew going in that it wouldn't be particularly bright, but I still hoped for a little more brightness.

By: Antonio Cangiano

Antonio Cangiano — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 21:34:18 +0000

In reply to Steve Sanders. I'm using Chunk Weather. I'll try Dan suggestion and see if it helps. I agree that a battery warning would be handy.

By: misato

misato — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 21:20:26 +0000

while I agree in most of the things, I would like to comment in 2 points of the cons that you have:
– Batery life: Right now, I’ve got it in airplane mode for more than 2 weeks (I was out of the country) and it lasted for 10 days. On a normal use it lasts for about 4-5 days. How many notifications do you receive? Wich watchface do you use normaly? The e-ink screen only uses energy when it refreshes so I’ve got a watchface wich only does animation every minute and no other refresh data (like the weather ones, that connects with your phone every 30 secs i think). Basicaly the less refresh on the screen, the less batery it takes 🙂 That’s how e-ink works and not the fault of pebble or any other device.
– About the disconection with the weather apps, I supose you are using iOS. The disconection is (again) not a problem of Pebble itself but the OS on your phone. When iOS needs memory, it kills background apps so httppebble will be killed and though your whatchface disconected. Most of that problems will be solved in firmware 2.0 as you can do http requests (aka ask for the weather) directly from the pebble and not using httppebble or whatever other app in your phone.
– The screen is not bright enough: again, that’s how it is an e-ink screen. It looks like paper. And that’s why you have the backlight (wich also takes out some batery charge).

Other than that I think you did a pretty nice review. I hope you don’t feel bad for my coment as I only want to inform. I also agree with you in the rest of the things that you mention, especialy with the stupid magnet connector and not showing the remaining batery.

By: Steve Sanders

Steve Sanders — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 21:19:30 +0000

You should be getting waaay more than 1.5 days of battery life. Are you using a very battery intensive watchface? This is the primary advantage of the Pebble over something like the Galaxy Gear. I use my Pebble quite a bit and I still manage to get at least 4 days of battery life. I do wish it warned you a bit more agressively when the battery is low, though.

By: Antonio Cangiano

Antonio Cangiano — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 21:17:51 +0000

In reply to Dan. Thanks, Dan. I'll try your tip.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 21:09:43 +0000

To solve the battery life issue disable motion backlight. It turns on far too frequently, like when you’re typing. With that turned off I get 5-7 days of battery life.