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Ars Technica Goes Close Up With the Pebble Smartwatch
Ars Technica takes a close look at the crowd-funded Pebble smartwatch. The reviewer had to put up with repeated delays in production as a Kickstarter backer, but seems happy with the watch and optimistic about the future of third-party apps; an SDK is due later this month. "It currently ships with three default watch faces, as well as 12 others that you can load onto the watch with the companion app (free on iOS and Android). By far my favorite custom watch face is 'Fuzzy Time,' which rounds the current time to the nearest 5-minute interval and translates that number to what you might say if your friend asked you the time. While seemingly trivial, I love this rough approximation of time. Rarely do I need to know that it's 5:13:23pm, but seeing that it's 'quarter after five' is awesome."
those of us who have "analog" clocks and watches are amused; also we'd probably have that smart watch just display analog clock face
Kickstarter pledges: 99 bucks.
Pebble watch in retail 150 bucks.
Having a watch that will not tell you exact time an instead tell you 'fuzzy' time in 5 minute increments (in words, not numbers) and doing it at 5atm pressure under water?
You see where I am going with this.
You can't handle the truth.
..watches ran on a battery lasting several years without recharging. That was awesome.
anyone is clever enough to do that approximating in his head. some people find different versions of presentation to be aesthetically pleasing.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
They still haven't released an SDK and they won't do so for a while after it ships?
What are people going to do with it while they wait for developers to receive their device and build apps?
I owned a much more feature rich device in a similar watch form-factor, the WiMM One. While the device was nice, there was never a good enough set of apps with addictive utility to me that justified the constant battle with battery life. It launched with a complete app SDK and was built on Android so it was trivial to develop apps for. This device doesn't have an SDK available and isn't as conventional. I suspect it will meet much the same fate once these initial orders are fulfilled.
Rarely do I need to know that it's 5:13:23pm, but seeing that it's 'quarter after five' is awesome."
Perhaps not in seconds, but I rather like to know how many minutes I've left to catch the bus since three and eight are quite different. I guess I really only look at the seconds if I'm trying to time something, which is rare but unless it's spoken I'd rather have it with numbers... how often do people really write "quarter past three" instead of 3:15 pm (or actually 15:15 around here)?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
That wasn't the tone of the original quote.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I have one, and while it is a bit rough and clunky in some ways, there are three things about it that really work well for me: 1. Caller ID and SMS messages displayed. My phone is now always on silent and often left in my bag, because the watch alerts me better than a ring tone does. 2. Music play functions, so I can change tunes easily while driving (I have a borrowed car so not worth installing a kit). 3. The big watchface with big numbers because without my specs my eyesight sucks. So all in all I am a happy customer.
jesus fucking christ. it's not dumbed down.
feynman has an anecdote where he tries to determine if people can count and read at the same time. his results were that half of the people he tested could, and the others could not. the ones who could, counted by imagining visually a clock face or such, and the numbers incrementing on that. the ones who couldn't counted by mentally counting verbally. there was no difference between the two groups in terms of IQ or other achievements. some people just think differently. (feynman's conclusion was that, if something this simple was that complicated, psychometry was totally hopeless.)
you know, a good analog watch gives more precision than an HH:MM:SS digital watch. is that dumbed down? no. some people like the digital readout; some people like the analog; and if you really need exact time you can get a watch with a millisecond timer.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
That has never stopped them before. Apple is very good at taking existing products, removing features and usability, putting their own spin on them, doubling the price, and selling millions of them to people who think that Apple makes the only one and refuse evidence to the contrary.
Before the iPod there were cheaper, and more functional music players.
Before the iPhone there were cheaper, and more functional cell phones.
I predict this will be the same. There will be all sorts of smart watches on the market first, and that will do more than the Apple version, but Apple will still come in and sell millions of their version to their blind followers.
Either that, or people will just not buy in to the smart watch thing at all... I'm still sort of split on this one, I think I'm waiting for a "killer app" for it.