Pebble Kickstarter Review

While many are waiting for the innovative Pebble watches that were ordered on Kickstarter to be finally made, I was lucky to get them, probably I was among the first Backers.

And here are the impressions for the first couple of weeks of use.
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NB: the review was made on a device with firmware version 1.9.1 and using iPhone 4s (application version 1.0.5) and over time in a certain part will lose relevance.

Appearance

Honestly, I immediately liked the design of the watch on the first images seen on the site, and, having received the device, I was not disappointed. The fear that the clock will be too big has not been confirmed. The height and width of the Pebble almost coincides with my quartz watch, which I used before, here you are:



The thickness of the Pebble, however, turned out to be quite significant, usually it does not interfere, but it is inconvenient to wear them with a shirt with a narrow cuff, besides, the device may look strange on another female hand.

The watch is equipped with a long and wide Soft Touch rubber strap, according to my feelings it should fit almost everyone, although I have not done the experiments.

Actually, the “dial” is represented by about 15 options, some of which are pre-installed, and the rest can be downloaded through the corporate application, among them are quite interesting: “binary” and telling the time in everyday style like “five minutes to five” (of course in English). Here are some of them:



The clock screen is declared by the manufacturer as made using ePaper technology, however, this is only a marketing term. The clock does not use the usual eInk. The screen is made by Sharp using proprietary Memory LCD technology. In my opinion, such a screen even wins over traditional e-paper, because, firstly, it provides a deep black color, and secondly, the states change instantly. As for power, then, according to the assurances of Sharp, it remains at a minimum level.
The screen resolution is 144 x 168 pixels.

The screen backlight turns on for 3-4 seconds, and not only by pressing a button, to turn it on it is enough to twist your hand or tap your finger on the screen, which is quite convenient, although the latter does not always work.

The watch is charged from the supplied usb cable, which can be connected to a computer or wall adapter (not included, but any smartphone owner should have at least one). At the other end of the cable is a convenient magnetic connector, almost like a MacBook:



But in case of loss, the second such cable, apparently, will be very difficult to get, especially in Russia.

The operating time from one charge was 6.5 days, which is close to the manufacturer’s claim, although you should take into account that I didn’t receive many calls and SMS during this period. After the second charge, the clock turned off after 3 days, but experienced a lot of experiments.

Functional

I'll start with the unpleasant: at the moment, Pebble does not support the Russian language, as, indeed, any font other than ISO-8859-15 Latin , any Russian-language messages on the screen will be displayed as rectangles. The manufacturer promises to add other fonts sometime in the future, but you can only guess about the timing.

After first turning on, Pebble will offer to download a branded application to your phone, which, at the moment, will allow you to update the firmware, show instructions for setting up the phone, and allow you to download additional dials and one game - snake.

Calls and SMS

When a call comes in, the clock starts to vibrate, the name of the subscriber from the phone book is displayed on the screen (if the name is in Russian, then the rectangles) or a number if there is no entry in the phone book. At the moment there is not a closed bug, because of which, even when a subscriber recorded in the phone book calls, sometimes the number on the clock screen is displayed instead of the name.

Right from the clock, you can pick up the phone or drop a call by pressing the button (to talk, of course, you still have to get the device, there is no microphone in the clock).



SMS messages are displayed on the screen for several minutes, the subscriber’s name or number is on top, then text. If the text does not fit on one screen, you can scroll through it with buttons. In case there are several sms in a row, the last message is displayed on the screen.
In the same mode, you can “broadcast” email messages on the clock screen in case the email client is configured on the phone.

Player control

The Music app in Pebble was perhaps the most disappointing for me. Judge for yourself: all you can do is switch to the previous or next song in the current album (playlist), or pause playback. There is no choice of album or free, but not consistent, navigation in the clock there. If you reach the last song in the album, No music found appears on the screen, without the ability to go back, after which the Play button will play all the songs in the phone in random order.
You can control on the iPhone not only the standard Music application, but also Pandora, Spotify and other applications that use default music controls (whatever that means).

Perspectives

At the moment, this is almost all that smart watches are capable of. There are alarm functions, the ability to adjust the font size, the backlight work and some other trifles, as well as turn off the clock and reset the firmware. However, the manufacturer promises to release a preliminary version of the SDK by mid-April, after which the first community applications should appear. Some of them may even be paid. Then, apparently, we will see a long-announced application from Run Keeper, which will allow sports fans to keep track of their activity without getting the phone out of their pocket once again.

Total

Pros (for me):

I finally stopped skipping calls due to the fact that I do not feel the vibration of the phone in my pocket.

And generally cool device.

Cons (for me):

The device leaves a feeling of dampness and incompleteness, as if I had a beta version. However, as the founders of the crowdfunding service quite rightly note, Kickstarter Is Not a Store , and supplies to regular customers have not yet begun.

Well, the lack of support for the Cyrillic alphabet, of course, is sad.

For all the time of use, I ran into one serious bug - the Bluetooth connection fell off and did not recover until the clock rebooted (I would tell someone 5 years ago that I would restart the clock :).

PS If someone wants to look at the insides of Pebble, then iFixit has already managed to disassemble them.