Pebble Smartwatch

[Bunjiweb]

So, I finalised my order for the Pebble smart-watch yesterday and I absolutely can't wait.... Looks like as I didn't make the Kickstarter backing I won't be receiving it until early March which is going to be a long and tedious wait - Just hope it's worth it.

More info: www.getpebble.com

Also uploaded the video of their CES press conference here:
colour is a bit off as hue of original livestream was totally off, but you get the idea...



Anyone else ordered / thinking of getting one?

Ben

[kopite]

I was really tempted to get one at kickstarter but missed out.

I am going to wait till release and see how it integrated with runkeepr although now that I have a garmin forerunners I dont think I`ll need it anymore,.

[burble]

I backed the Kickstarter project quite early on so I'm hoping to receive mine pretty soon

[Bunjiweb]

You lucky thing burble! Please report back when you receive it, I'd be really interested in early user reviews and whether the hype is justified.

Ben

[Spud1]

I confirmed mine yesterday too - as have some 2000 others from the looks of the current batch count. Also not expecting delivery until March though (so does that mean June? ) which is a long wait!

Looking forward to it though - just in time for the golf season.

[crmster84]

Bit to small and figitey for me im afraid but a cracking piece of design never the less!

[burble]

You lucky thing burble! Please report back when you receive it, I'd be really interested in early user reviews and whether the hype is justified.

Ben

Will do!

[Hicks12]

I confirmed mine yesterday too - as have some 2000 others from the looks of the current batch count. Also not expecting delivery until March though (so does that mean June? ) which is a long wait!

Looking forward to it though - just in time for the golf season.

How did you find this information? I have literally just gone by the kicktraq backer numbers, rough estimate is around the 17k mark which means I should be in with the second or third batch but that just depends on how long it takes to ramp up to full scale production, they said 15k a week was the limit. Another system is this: http://duncanj.azurewebsites.net/PebbleBackers.aspx now idea if its accurate at all but it says I am backer 21120 so could be right, still within 30k so heres hoping .

Cant wait to get it, yes it could look better but I havent seen it in the flesh yet and it still aint half bad, I just love the tech side of it .

[Spud1]

I am a pre-order customer (missed out on backing them by 24 hours ) so when i login to my account it says "X left in this batch" in the top right corner.

[MadduckUK]

Bit to small and figitey for me im afraid but a cracking piece of design never the less!

I think the size is one of the plus points. Computery watches tend to be oversized but this is quite understated and I wouldn't feel like a goon wearing one.

[hugobosslives]

I want one. But don't think I would use it to its potential. I mean I usually reply/interact when I get a notification so would need to get my phone out anyway.

Once you can get these that look a bit prettier tho. I am in

[burble]

I backed the Kickstarter project quite early on so I'm hoping to receive mine pretty soon

Well it wasn't 'fairy soon' that I got my Pebble, it was today.

A couple of pics, first the Pebble (still with the protective plastic on the face) in the box.



They put a lot of thought into the packaging to make it fit through an average letterbox. Mission accomplished there.

Next a picture of it on my wrist showing the 'Simplicity' watch face and after I'd replaced the strap with a NATO strap.



I think I like the NATO strap, I've got the same one on a Parnis watch of mine but I'm not convinced it works too well on the Pebble. I'll leave it a few days and see but I think I'll end up changing it. I don't like the strap that it ships with but then I don't like any plastic watch straps.

I've only had the thing a few hours so can't comment too much but first impressions are really good. I like the way it sits on my wrist and it doesn't feel like it weighs anything.

The notifications are great, I've got the Pebble paired to my iPhone 5 and so far have only setup notifications for iMessage/SMS, WhatsApp, Twitter & Facebook and as yet they're all working great (despite a known bug) and it's already proved useful when I left the phone upstairs while I was in the kitchen and could read an SMS from my girlfriend.

The music control works well, I currently have my iPhone docked over the other side of the room and can control the music from here.

Caller ID is quite hit and miss (again, a known bug) so it'll either display the contact name or the phone number. It'll be nice when that one is fixed as I don't have a head for phone numbers.

[Bunjiweb]

Bit of an update from me...

I got bored of waiting for the Pre-Order to arrive and so I bought one off a Kickstarter (for a slightly inflated price) and had my pre-order refunded after I'd had this one for a week or so and was happy it was all working well.



I've got a super-cheap fabric watch strap on it, which I find far more comfortable than the original strap. It actually cost me 6p off Ebay, with free shipping... I don't think I'll ever get the chance to rip-off a Hong-Kong Ebay seller to such a degree again.

I've just installed HTTPebble which allows further communication between the watch and live info such as weather. There's a great watchface available HERE. The latest update on Pebble also brings some great improvement such as queueing up multiple notifications so you don't miss any.

Oh and also I did a little review of the Pebble on my own blog HERE.

[burble]

The most recent Pebble firmware seems to have killed the battery life for me, I was getting about 14 days on the previous version but I'm getting about 3-4 days now.

Since I posted the pictures of mine I've changed strap, I'm using a different coloured NATO strap as the Orange was a bit too bright for my liking. I've also received the longer Pebble strap that I forgot I ordered but I can't abide the standard strap so I'll leave it in a drawer somewhere.

The charging cable is a pain I find, the magnets aren't strong enough to hold it in place so I'll occasionally find that although it looks like it is connected it actually isn't. Hopefully some of the mock ups for dock type things will come to fruition.

I'm still really happy with my Pebble but I've also backed the Agent watch to see what that's like.

[kopite]

To the people with them.

Have you tried using runkeeper with it yet?

I want to know if its possible to start/stop activities from the watch instead of having to use the phone itself

[burble]

I've not used RunKeeper with mine.

If you don't get an answer here you could have a look on the Pebble forums and see if you can find out there.