{"id":589,"date":"2015-04-27T04:48:50","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T00:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/?p=589"},"modified":"2015-04-27T05:22:40","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T01:22:40","slug":"who-needs-an-iwatch-when-you-have-a-pebble-smartwatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/?p=589","title":{"rendered":"Who needs an iWatch when you have a Pebble Smartwatch!"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, I decided to buy the original Pebble Smartwatch. I was sick of waiting for the iWatch, and people who own Pebbles seem really happy with them. Over the past month, I’ve become one of those people! Read on to find out why!<\/p>\n

Basically, I realized what I wanted was a way to get texts without having to pull my phone out of my pocket. Admittedly, I didn’t know what the Pebble was, or what it was capable of before last month. I had been looking at Casio watches, as there is a Bluetooth Casio watch that will display an icon when you receive a text, but that’s about it. I spent about a week doing research, then remembered my brother-in-law had a Pebble, and always wondered what that was about. When I saw that it was designed to work with an iPhone, providing notifications etc, I got pretty excited, and sped down to BestBuy to grab one for $89 (coupon, aww yeah).  Screw the Apple iWatch, which “came out” this past Friday, with a waiting list that goes out past June! I’m getting all the useful features I want out of my Pebble Smartwatch, right now. The features go way beyond simple notifications, too! Some of the neat things I’ve been doing with the Pebble watch:<\/p>\n

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  1. I see all my important notifications as they come in (from all my iOS apps, not just text messages)<\/li>\n
  2. With the JavaPay Pebble app, the Baristas at Starbucks are always blown away when I just scan my watch to pay for my caffeine. One even said: “dude, it’s so much easier to scan the watch than an iPhone screen!” Of course it is, it’s e-ink… You can see it in direct sunlight!<\/li>\n
  3. With the GiftCard Pebble app, I’m able to pay for my coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts. Of course every time, they ask me if it’s the new iWatch…<\/li>\n
  4. With the HomeP Pebble app, I’m able to open and close my garage door, from my watch! How cool is that. I can also see if I left my garage door open by accident. <\/li>\n
  5. With the Pandora Pebble app, I’m able to control Pandora on my phone, including switching radio stations, thumbs up and downs, skipping songs, etc. <\/li>\n
  6. I use the Scorekeeper Pebble app during league soccer games to keep track of the score, and of course also time the halves so I know how much time we have left. <\/li>\n
  7. I recently downloaded the Smartwatch+ app, and am now able to use my watch as a remote shutter button for my iPhone 6 plus camera, see my GPS location, use FindMyPhone when I misplace my phone, etc. <\/li>\n
  8. I’ve started using my Pebble paired with RunKeeper instead of my Garmin Forerunner 620, when I go out for my runs. I am considering selling my Garmin. <\/li>\n
  9. I’m going to try out the sleep tracking app, morpheuz. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What do I like about the Pebble Smartwatch?<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The e-ink display looks amazing in direct sunlight. It’s a pleasure to look at. <\/li>\n
    2. The battery really lasts a long time!<\/li>\n
    3. There are so many great watch faces. I tend to use a different one every few days. Watch faces can have all sorts of great data, including current weather (GPS based)<\/li>\n
    4. It is very sporty looking, and I feel that the build and materials used make it great to wear during sport events. I considered getting the Pebble Steel, but liked the plastic\/silicon original version better. <\/li>\n
    5. There are so many apps available, I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface. <\/li>\n
    6. It’s waterproof!<\/li>\n
    7. It uses standard size and connectors for the wrist strap! <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      What do I dislike about the Pebble Smartwatch?<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Not being able to send canned responses to text messages. There is a way to do it, but you have to jailbreak you iPhone. No thanks.<\/span><\/li>\n
      2. The screen seems to be made from a very soft plastic. I scratched it on my third day wearing it. <\/span><\/li>\n
      3. The watch band it kind of not wide enough.  Not for my wrist, but compared to the width of the watch. I feel it should be about the same width as the watch body. Luckily, another kickstarter<\/span> project (Richard Tracy Brand) solves this, and my new wide body silicon wrist strap is already on its way. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Overall, I really am glad I decided against the iWatch. I don’t envision doing more than the 10 or so things I listed above, plus I would rather spend $89 on this great Pebble Smartwach, than $400 on an iWatch Sport. If you are considering a Smartwatch, give the Pebble a good serious look! The Pebble Time should be coming out In the next few weeks, so you can have a color screen too!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        About a month ago, I decided to buy the original Pebble Smartwatch. I was sick of waiting for the iWatch, and people who own Pebbles seem really happy with them. Over the past month, I’ve become one of those people! Read on to find out why! Basically, I realized what I wanted was a way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[33,76,75,79],"class_list":["post-589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apple","tag-iwatch","tag-pebble","tag-random","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions\/593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hakbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}