Why Pebble Time, Not Android Is Apple Watch's Biggest Competition | Hacker News Reader

Why Pebble Time, Not Android Is Apple Watch's Biggest Competition

macworld.com

47 pointscrdr8847 comments

The reason why I keep watching what Pebble does is because for Apple and Google the watch could be just an accessory to their main event like ChromeCast and AppleTv. But for Pebble their watch and its capability is their bread and butter. When Apple and Google would be satisfied checking it off the feature list Pebble meanwhile will continue to innovate and try cannibalizing the phone, implementing feature (maybe good, maybe bad) that used to be on the phone, but now on the watch. While today there is talk about off loading computing to the phone it wont be long before the watch will be good enough.

I think Pebble's biggest selling point is that it works on iOS and Android.

I don't think that many change ecosystem on purpose after deciding iPhone or Android (they're too invested fairly quickly) but I'm sure many people get a cheap Android phone when they lose or break their iPhone.

It will be a painful realisation when the iWatch won't connect to a temporary Android phone.

Couldn't have put it better. Also, I wonder how many casual users will buy an iWatch for their Android phone and wonder why it isn't working.

Just because you rarely change ecosystem, I don't believe it is the biggest selling point.

To me, it is that the Pebble simply works, and does it well. I've tried wearing an Android-based smartwatch - while great hardware (except battery time) - it simply didn't work that well. I think that is the biggest selling point.

On the other hand, I remember having my Pebble in a drawer for most of the first year. But once SDK 2 was released, things started to happen and it became really useful in itself and the apps/watchfaces available.

I have a moto 360 myself and never remember to wear it. It came free with my contract.

If I were to buy another smartwatch it probably would be a Pebble Time I just think they should push this particular USP.

> it simply didn't work that well.

Can I ask what wasn't working that well?

My LG G used to be awesome, but recently my Nexus 5 has been crashing all the time, and removing the Android Wear app and unpairing the watch completely fixed it. (plus the phone has much better battery life now it isn't crashing all the time)

So yeah, wear on flagship devices purchased straight from Google, not so good at the moment. I'll try it again in a few weeks to see if they've fixed their QA problems.

I wear a moto360 everyday since october, and I really like the "hardware part" of the watch (it looks good and feels nice). But, the software (or whatever it is), is a complete mess. The UI (card display, gestures) is made for square screens, not round ones. The voice control either doesn't work because of my accent/noisy surroundings or it makes you look like a very very strange person. For a long time, there was an issue that kept the time displayed on the watch's ambient screen from updating (so you would get "jumps" of several minutes when the watch activated).

I could go on for a long time, but I think you get the idea: it is just not a finished product.

Thanks to both of you

> On the other hand, I remember having my Pebble in a drawer for most of the first year. But once SDK 2 was released, things started to happen and it became really useful in itself and the apps/watchfaces available.

That's where I still am. I was an early adopter from the KS offering. I've sent two of the three Pebbles I started with back because they had issues and since then they've been languishing in the back of a drawer. One of the broken ones was a gift, unfortunately, so it was hard to speak positively after that.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and upgrade them to the latest version before writing them off entirely. Maybe the Pebble Steel will be a major step in the right direction -- if anything, I hope they have fixed their quality control issues and increased the quality of their builds.

If I could get a pebble that looked like a moto 360 I'd be in. But to me it should be a watch/jewelry first, and smart second.

This is what I realized after picking up a Moto360 on sale a few months ago. I'd held off on buying a smart watch due to the common complaints people seemed to have: battery life, usefulness, etc.

But honestly I saw it on sale for $175 and kind of wanted a new gadget so I pulled the trigger. Since then it's funny because the issues most people have (apps and such) have been the least important things about it for me.

I don't mind laying it on the cradle when I go to bed every night and the same complaint some people have (it doesn't do much that I can't just do on my phone) means that I won't miss it terribly if I forget the charger on a trip out of town and the battery dies after a day or so.

Really what I like about it is that it's a watch...that I can change the face on. The hardware looks nice and I can pick faces that show all sorts of info at a glance. I've even spent a little time with apps like Facer and Watchmaker and some Photoshop/Illustrator to make my own faces. It really is neat. I can have my watch show an animated X-Wing flying down an 8-bit trench with a digital countdown-style time readout on top or I can make it look like a minimalist analog watch with a little weather icon made to look like part of the display. I can show weather/radar or a visualization of the temperature over the next 24 hours as a ring around the face. There's really no end since you can just program it to look like whatever you want.

And yeah, I get little notices about traffic or Amazon deliveries and other typical Google Now stuff but that's just icing. I hate to say it but even as a function-over-form kind of guy, I'm actually pretty cool with something where one of the main functions is being able to play around with the form.

I don't know if this is a common sentiment — it hasn't been brought up at all in the Apple podcasts that I listen to — but my primary interest in getting a smartwatch is customizable faces. Watches are interesting because they're little mechanical microcosms that sit on your wrist; with a computer, you can simulate the movement and do so much more on top of that. This also has the potential of opening up a whole new app market.

Pebble can already do this (albeit imperfectly) while the Apple watch is years away from having an always-on display.

Never thought of this personally. But after reading your comment I agree this is pretty cool. I'd want the watch to be much thinner than current iterations though. Especially if we are going more for aesthetics than practicality

This is pretty much the primary reason I would ever get a smartwatch. Once I can put Tokyoflash-esque [1] faces on the watch, then I would consider jumping in.

[1]: http://www.tokyoflash.com/en/watches/1/

While I love Pebble, I feel like this is similar to when the iPhone (and iPod Touch, which was also a huge deal at the time due to the popularity of MP3 players) came out and suddenly made people realize just how much a well-designed touchscreen UI could change their interactions with an historically button-based product.

I think the battery life is going to still be the catching point that nips apple's momentum, but we shall see.

There's an argument to be made that its easier to charge a device every night, than wonder if your 30% will get you through to the next day and figure out when you should charge it.

I believe you are right. If my smartphones battery would last 2 days instead of one, I would probably still charge it everyday, just to be sure I don't run out of battery.

But if it lasted 7 days? You'd probably end up charging it at most every 5.

Personally I find my iPad, which lasts about a week, is the divide that is most often dead when needed. However, I think the issue there is that it's not constantly in my field of vision, being in my bag. My iPhone and, I assume, an iWatch, would be constantly reminding me of its battery level.

At 20% on the pebble in the evening I'm pretty confident I can make it through the next day, but that's not really your point I suppose.

I really don't get that argument, you can easily charge it up every day if you want to. It stops you worrying if you're going away for a few days though, I know if I charge up my pebble before the weekend I can go away without worrying about needing a charger. I don't have to worry about my watch in the evening because I've used it quite a bit today.

It's like saying that Hummers have the advantage because you have to keep stopping for fuel every petrol station, rather than wondering if you can make it to the next one.

My iPad ends up completely drained all the time because I don't need to charge it every night. My iPhone never does. It's silly, but I know that needing to charge something every night makes it easier for me to keep it charged.

The buttons on my Kickstarter Pebble are also truly atrocious. They are way too hard to press, the hardest buttons I have on any device by an extremely long shot. Navigating on a watch by button press is not very pleasant, but it is just that much worse with bad buttons.

Man there are so many varying takes on what people want from a watch that I really sympathise with designers and manufacturers.

It took me a fair bit of cash to work out my own sweet spot - an automatic Swiss watch on my left arm, and a Microsoft Band on the right. This after trying really hard to like (and wear) a Pebble, and then a Pebble steel. The Pebble just doesn't do anything I need. Unfortunately for Android, it's part of an ecosystem I won't touch. Apple's watch is appealing like crazy, but DOA because I need to take my phone along if I want to track a run or cycle. The Microsoft Band is amazing, but its Achilles heel is that it's not waterproof. Swimming is the one thing I'm still using a dedicated device for. Oh and diving, but while you'd think tech has advanced enough by now, I'm not expecting much from smart watches for that.

How bulky is the MS band? I looked at getting one, but i can't tell from the pictures how comfortable it is (nor could find one in a store to try on).

Looks bulky when you look directly at the display (the strap is a lot wider than the wrist looking straight down at it), but surprisingly unbulky when seen from any other angle. I have a small, and imagine mediums and large look even less bulky.

Apparently Microsoft is going to deliver a lot of stock to (I think) BestBuy soon, so availability should improve. I'm in the UK, and you don't want to know what I had to do to get my hands on one...

From what I have read, Microsoft Band heart rate sensor is useless. Too bad, once somebody delivers continuous heart rate tracking with reasonable accuracy and bulk, he will have my money.

Yeah I followed that saga too. And I still have no idea whether the sensor is actually bad, or good. I do know that the Band samples at different heart rate frequencies depending on what it's running -

- Exercise modes (Run and Workout): Heart rate records every second

- Sleep tracking : 2 minutes on, 8 minutes off. Repeats throughout duration

- All other times : 1 minute on, 9 minutes off, and repeating the cycle

- Manual: You can force-check your heart rate at any time by tapping the Me Tile

I've heard very good things about the Mio Link. It is already pretty small and I'm sure the technology could be miniaturised if subjected to Apple-size budgets. I think the battery life is bad though, only suitable for exercising not for continuous use, but again that could be because the technology isn't optimised to its full potential.

Check out the new Fenix 3 from Garmin : http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2015/03/garmin-fenix3-detailed-re...

I'm surprised there's not much mention of the different app architecture for Pebble vs Apple Watch.

For Apple Watch, all application code lives on the phone and every interaction on the watch requires a round trip to the phone and back. This contributes to the shoddy battery life, sure but I'm mostly concerned about latency. When writing your app, you really only use a designer in Xcode.

For the Pebble, code for watch-specific behavior lives and executes on the watch itself, along with two options for logic on the phone: 1) a native companion app which the watch talks to (more like the way Apple Watch apps work, but with code split across devices) and 2) arbitrary javascript which runs in a execution sandbox that all the Pebble watch apps share.

Anyone think that the Apple Watch approach is a better idea? Tempted to get one to compare.

> For Apple Watch, all application code lives on the phone and every interaction on the watch requires a round trip to the phone and back.

IIRC this is just for now, and they're going to have native apps soon, but the SDK for that isn't ready yet.

I wonder if the (current) Apple Watch approach is better battery-life wise, given that it avoids any data syncing and does any and all heavy processing on the iPhone rather than the watch.

I have found my pebble watch to be surprisingly useful. And given its cost a reasonable value. The big 'win' for me was simple vibrating notifications, as I don't hear high pitches any more it is the first watch with a timer/alarm function that I always notice. The ability to change watch faces is also fun, and that it always has the time displayed is, for me, critical in a watch.

That said, when v2.0 of the firmware pushed with additional notification/services my ability to recharge once a week dropped to I must recharge it every 3 days or so. Not a win for me.

Won't that be changed if Google develops iOS compatibility for Android wear?

Is there any evidence to suggest that they would?

There have been rumours that they might. No idea how on earth it would work though. iWatch is pretty tightly coupled with iOS internals.

I dont think it would take very much to get the simple stuff like notification to work. Thats all Apple's API which is open to developers. All Google may have to do is provide some kind of downloadable layer for support for more tightly coupled things(Google Now). I am assuming that Apple lets them.

At least, Android Wear could do the same that Pebble does, isn't?

There are rumors Google is working on it: http://9to5mac.com/2015/03/03/android-wear-ios/

and one developer has already gotten some basic notification functionality working: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DIIYmVSc9Yw

That would be pretty cool. I like many things about Android Wear, but the absence of iOS compatibility is my main gripe.

One interesting thing is to see who Apple is targeting their watch. So far it has been featured in high profile fashion magazines. I think this is clear distinction from Pebble and maybe also from Android products.

The article's mention of carrier-subsidized iPhone price of $199 made me see something obvious: what if the Apple Watch was also subsidized?

Since it's likely to increase network usage, it seems a reasonable bet for carriers. Maybe an extra $50 on top of the iPhone to get a watch too?

Further, they could just spread the cost into the 2-year plan. I'll actually be a bit surprised if this doesn't happen.

sigh. Android Wear and Apple Watch are NOT direct competitors. They both only work with their respective OSes.

They're competing to create the most compelling ecosystem. If people are lead to believe that Android+Android Wear is a better pair than iPhone+Apple Watch then people will switch.

That is a battle that will be won or lost without either platforms' watch actually mattering. I would agree that Wear and iWatch are not really competitors, except in the heads of fanboys who want direct comparison charts.

I read somewhere that Apple support was coming for Android wear and I would be inclined to believe that also.

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