REVIEW

SMART WATCH Pebble Watch - My First ! Here we decode why Pebble is better than Android

— Anindya Roy

2. Too bright and distracting. And with the gesture based lights up, it’s a pain. We in India do right hand driving and wear the watch in left hand. Which essentially means, when in night you are driving and shifting gears. The moment you move your hand from the gear to the wheel, a bright screen is right up in front of you to distract the hell out of you. 3. The sensors are a waste of effort. I was amused by the heart rate sensor in the device. And was expecting brilliant use cases for the same. But it turned out to be pretty useless. I have to press a button for over 10 seconds to read my pulse rate. he long story started when I first saw to disagree). Now how is that possible, Well for that much of effort I can check the Pebble watch on . I was that a device is great but is still useless? my pulse without any sensor or device. All Tcommitted to back it, but the project That’s possible because as a techie I really I need is my fingers and a dumb watch. was delayed, so I pulled out. Then it was appreciate the effort Samsung had put in to Remember the old days how your family finally launched and it got rave reviews from develop such a marvelous piece of hardware physician used to check your pulse! journalists. It was indeed a fantastic device and with so many sensors and a great battery life. So why Pebble? I would like to answer why at that point of time probably the best. But when I start seeing it as a simple user it’s a smart watch first. And that is – But today is it wise enough for you to buy too annoying. Here is why: the Pebble? Where we have Galaxy Gear 2 1. The device doesn’t look like a watch. It Why a Smart watch already in the market and LG G and Samsung looks like a miniaturized phone tied on It might just look like a geeky toy. But it could Gear Live just launched on Google Play, and your wrist. Sadly I have a very thin wrist. at least help a few. Significantly! And I am one awaiting the Moto 360. And such a giant watch looks pretty of them. On an average, a user checks his Also we have many other competitors like awkward on me. phone 100 times a day. now that’s average. the Sony smart watches, and the CooKoo watch already available and selling. Though just to make it clear. I haven’t got my hands on the LG G or the Live as yet. But I had spent some time with the Galaxy Gear 2. And still just a week back I finally decided to buy a Pebble. Probably after using Galaxy Gear 2, I decided not to wait more for upcoming smart watches and book my Pebble. Here is a quick walkthrough on why I did that. To start with let’s see why I didn’t opt for the Galaxy Gear 2.

My experience with Galaxy Gear 2 This product is great but useless (that’s just my point of view and you are welcome

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but rather with the eco-system. The device has probably everything to work as a great fitness tracker. But looks like the developer community hasn’t taken this piece of hardware so seriously yet to start building good fitness apps around it. Right now we have a set of fitness applications for Pebble, but most of those apps are disconnected from the mobile and are not even capable of maintaining a historical log of what the watch has captured. Whatever apps are available are extremely power hungry. I just bought an Android app to track my sleep. This apps is a paid one and is called “Sleep as Android” and can capture your movement while your are sleeping using the gyroscope People like me, who are connected via many And being an e-ink display based device, it’s of Pebble. platforms like Mail ( multiple mail accounts ), pretty low on maintenance. This watch happily But while using it I had to get up at 5:30 AM SMS, Twitter, FB, WhatsApp and of course calls, goes on assisting me for 3 days to 4 days when my Pebble started to vibrate saying its tend to get 300 to 500 alerts a day. And if you with a single charge. Whereas the Galaxy Gear charge is critically low. Whereas it actually had get that many number of alerts on your phone, couldn’t even cope up for more than a day for more than 50% charge when I went to bed. you (or at least I am) are tempted to check it my usage. Which basically boils down to two possibilities: at least 30 to 50 percent of time. Which adds The Pebble has a gyro built in so you one, the apps is horribly written to use the up to a lot of distraction and overall wastage of dont need to move your hands. And needs a Pebble APIs and two, I move too much while productivity time and phone battery. thorough shake to turn the backlit on. Which sleeping which made the Gyro work for the If you have a simple notification device saves me when I am driving. And of course entire night and ended up consuming all the which can sit on your wrist and keep updating the screen is not as bright as the Galaxy Gear battery. In both the cases I can’t afford to use you on the alerts in a very subtle manner, you 2, so if even it gets on it doesn’t bother me this app again. can quickly have a glance on the watch screen too much. Other LCD based devices can’t This might soon change as Pebble has tied and avoid yourself from opening your phone. actually live with a fainter backlit as they have up with Misfit to build a fitness app. And I just It saves you a lot of time and effort. While to counter the sun with their backlit. Whereas hope they are not just simple dashboard appli- writing this para I noticed I got 3 WhatsApp with an e-ink display, you only need the backlit cations for Misfit but are actually going to use group alerts and 2 SMSes. Which would have in the night. So they can actually be pretty the inbuilt Gyro of the device to track things. tempted me to open the phone at least twice subtle and milder. The other key trouble with this device is its if not more. But just because I had a smart Ok, so by now it might appear as if I am mobile application. Which I have found to be watch on my wrist I didn’t even had to move charmed by the Pebble and am not able to see too resource hungry. I use a simple smart- my hand away from my laptop keyword. And the dark side of it at all. No that’s not the case. phone with not too much RAM (Moto G). And here comes another SPAM email. Actually it also has its one set of problems. The what I have been realizing is, the interface Ok, So now let’s get on to why I decided to key one has nothing to do with the hardware, of the Pebble app from where you install and get the Pebble manage your device, the watch face and apps is pretty sluggish. And more often I have found Why Pebble? errors which says it can’t open the store due to The key reason is the fact that, probably some or the other connectivity problems. it’s the only watch among the smart watch So as a bottom line. I would rate the Pebble fraternity which looks like a watch. And not hardware pretty high but I believe the software a miniaturized phone. And when you are bit. Both coming from the phone developers travelling in a metro train no one even notices and the community - needs a lot of work to you are wearing something which is not like make it a real success against the already a regular watch. Well, those who want to there Android wearable’s and the upcoming buy a smart watch to flaunt around they will . But being at a great pricing point certainly not like that. But for serious users, and being the only one with e-ink. It indeed that makes a lot of sense. has an edge. pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] JULY 2014 PCQuest 85