ChodTheWacko

The concept of a smartwatch has been curious to me. I really didn't see the point. ESPECIALLY for me, since I'm Mr "I want a king kong screen/battery on my phone". The smartwatch is, basically, the opposite.

However, I have semi frequently thought, "a smartwatch would be nice right now". The biggest "pro" of a smartwatch is that you never again have the scenario where you pull out your phone, glance at it to get a piece of info, and then put it away. Where you spend 10x more time pulling the phone out than actually using it.

This happens when I check the time, or get e-mails, text alerts, app notifications, wrong numbers, whatever. This is especially annoying when it's a scenario where you don't want to pull out your phone. I.e. Meeting,
or phone is in the backpack, or I'm wearing gloves, or it's kinda rainy, no-phones allowed area, ski-lift, whatever.

Some side perks you might not think of:
1) No more just having the phone sit in front of you so you don't miss calls/notifications.
2) No more missing calls since you can feel the watch vibrate. Happens a lot if the phone is buried in a big pocket, or the room is loud.
3) You can turn down your ringer/vibrate on your phone to not bother people. Esp. nice at work. (I want to take a hammer to a few of my coworker's phones)

Cons, of course are cost (not enough bang/buck for most people), and battery life, especially for smartwatches which, imho, try to do too much.
Ideally, once a week charge.

Since I'll likely be switching to a phone with no notification light soon (sob), I plan to snag a pebble. It's on sale for $120, which is alright, and the battery life is pretty decent since it's just an e-paper screen.

Whiskers

Considering a Pebble...Not sure...

underdog

I like the concept of Galaxy Gear, how it tightly integrates with a (Samsung) phone. I'm
giving the 1'st gen version a pass, its just not "there" yet - even Samsung tacitly admits
that. I fully expect I'll own a 2'nd gen - it will add a whole 'nother dimension to my Note 3,
taking care of all the stuff Chod mentioned and tons more.

HEAVY_RL

iTrader: (1)

I've been in the market also, the samsung watch isnt getting high marks for the price and none offer a fatkid friendly band.

doopstr

Waiting on Whiskers to tell me which one is the one. Then I'll buy it a few years later. Slow adopter

Sarlacc

Only interested in the Kreyos right now...but its still getting to the market.

Will be interested to see what Apple does.

maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

Waiting for Apple.

Galaxy gear is 1) ugly 2) horrible reviews 3) too large 4) battery like sucks.

Apple will fix all of that imo

CarbonGray Earl

I'll be waiting to see what Google does after Samsung and Apple. They'll have refined the Samsung bloatware and will probably play nice with my current mix of devices, not to mention, it will probably be cheaper.

I'll probably end up buying the wife the Apple one.

ChodTheWacko

So I've been using a pebble since last saturday ( 5 days).
Battery lasted 4 days. When the indicator pops up you have about 20 hours left, so that means you need to charge it up overnight or something. (it takes about 2-3 hours to charge).

It basically works as advertised - notifications show up on the watch, and you can have the watch vibrate on notification. You can read e-mails/messages on the watch. Wechat you can't - there's an app which is supposed to allow it, but I haven't tinkered with it yet.

I haven't had a problem reading the screen in fairly dim light but it's tricky. it does have a backlight, which is nice at night. The only real annoyance, is that some people are annoying on chats and
talk
like
this
ha
lol

And it can be a vibrate fest.

But overall, i'm glad i got it. When I'm out, the phone can basically stay in my pocket the whole time, and it's nice to get further away from the 'people who constantly stare at their phone' cliche.

Whiskers

Still not sure. I may pass on it.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Definitely waiting for a different generation, not blown away by the first generation, a lot to be desired IMO

Whiskers

Get the Pebble, so far so good.

Whiskers

1 Week with the Pebble and Im hooked.

ChodTheWacko

Yea, you get used to it. I'm not sold on the $249 "pebble Steel" though.
The bang/buck takes a BIG hit.

Oh, warning - the plastic on the pebble is supposedly quite scratchable so you might want to get a screen protector from gadgetwraps or something.

Whiskers

Thanks, I love it so far. Got a protector on it now.

Agree with the Steel, looks ok, not that great and since I got it for $120, its 1/2 price then the steel. If they change the internals next time around maybe.....

CCColtsicehockey

The steel is the first one I actually like the look of as a watch. I agree it is hard to stomach though with the price but at the same time it is understandable.

ChodTheWacko

I accidentally had my 'keep screen on' program enabled and killed my phone.
I've now installed this program:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...blealarm&hl=en

To buzz my watch if my battery drops below 15%.
I have 'android system' notifications generally disabled since it's too noisy.
Also the app has nice reminder stuff so you can have it buzz your watch to remind you of stuff (scheduled or one time).

Whiskers

That a cool program....

I pimped my Pebble out a bit recently....

ChodTheWacko

Nice - what watch face is that?

Whiskers

Smartstatus

ChodTheWacko

I realized another nice little perk of a smartwatch.
I used to be against battery chargers ( I have an Anker Astro3 12000mAh)
because they aren't real practical. You need the phone corded to the battery for extended periods and it's not pocketable/annoying to check calls/etc.

Now, with the watch, you just leave the phone/battery plugged in and left in your bag, and it can happily charge and you don't miss anything. This makes non-replaceable batteries a lot less annoying.

ChodTheWacko

With all the new smartwatch announcements, kind of a good time to bump this thread a little with some notes after using it for a while.

Recently I found my phone by turning on the music player from my watch. That was pretty handy.

Although I wouldn't want to hold a conversation with my watch, it would be pretty nice to be able to respond to a SMS via voice. It's a bit needless to pull the phone out just to say, "almost there - three blocks away". So a mic would be nice. Camera is definitely not needed.

I need to find a nice navigation app that works with the watch. Color screen would be nice for something like that, I'll admit.

Whiskers

There are a few GPS apps in the Pebble store, I bought one but rarely use it. Google Maps with notifications work well.

ChodTheWacko

New use for the smartwatch -
using 'glance', I can have the smartwatch vibrate if the phone is out of range.
Kept me from leaving my phone at work, which was nice. I'm not sure if this will drain the battery hard tho.

This will also drive you crazy if you have a flaky bluetooth connection, which thankfully I don't.

Whiskers

smartstatus buzzes as well if you go out of range

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Warren, don't miss your piano teacher lesson :gheylaugh:

Whiskers

She's hot.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

octoher12

Screw the watch, get the google glass lol

Doom878

I'm starting to want one of these too. I have a Note 2 but would hate it for to be limited to Samsung devices only. I would prefer a nice looking metallic face but it might $$$.

Whiskers

Get a pebble. Seriously.

Doom878

I wish it came with a color screen

Whiskers

I thought I would at first, but the thing just does a few things, and does it well.

ChodTheWacko

I don't - it'd be too much of a battery drain.
Pebble is the best selling smartwatch right now, and it's long battery life is a major part of that.

I don't miss color - there's not enough screen real estate to waste on images. It would kind of nice to have a tiny face pop up when someone calls me, I guess, and prettier watch faces, but that's the only thing I can think of.

That being said, at this point in the game you should wait and see what the pricing/battery life of the Google wear devices is. As much as I love my pebble, I'm not against switching to an Android wear watch if it has a reasonable price/battery life. Mainly for a microphone.

Whiskers

Only thing replacing my Pebble is going to be the Iwatch.

speedemon90

Right now from rumors I'd get the moto 360 over any others cause it actually looks really good.

Doom878

Thanks for the tips. Let's see what comes out...

ChodTheWacko

Used the pebble for navigation (using navme, which pushes google map notifications to the watch - doesn't seem to work otherwise). It was fantastic, espec. when bike riding and I couldn't hold the phone.

ChodTheWacko

Bumping this - i'd like to drag Android wear out of the android thread (since it isn't android, after all)

Some interesting pictures/stuff at:
http://www.lucaviscardi.eu/la-mia-prova-di-moto-360/
and
http://www.lucaviscardi.eu/moto360-l...-in-esclusiva/

1) Moto 360 is still gorgeous
2) Battery is significantly better than the other two android watches (this has been reported in other threads too, i.e. the verge 'i saw a moto 360' thread)
3) Only IP67 resistance, so no swimming. (Pebble is only swimmable smartwatch I think)
4) optical heart sensor? Hrm.
5) Great sunlight visibility
6) Round display breaks some android wear apps.

Still waiting on cost, but looks like a winner. And release date is still 'this summer'.

Biggest turn off of the other two watches imho is the lackluster battery life, and how neither watch is viewable in sunlight. Pebble blows them away in this respect.

- Frank

Whiskers

Im wearing my Pebble until the Iwatch come out...