I love my Pebbles, but the lack of good basic apps was always a struggle. I use PowerNoter to pull to do lists from Evernote, which is fine -- but not always reliable.
It's a shame to see them go. Everyone I know with Pebbles love them, but they tend to be more technical users who wouldn't get stressed over a few bugs.
All I really want from a smart watch are:
- notifications (of my choosing)
- some sort of note / to-do app
- multiple timers, alarms, etc
- music / media control (even with a companion app)
- customizable 'do' button (similar to what IFTTT offers)
Most of these were available in some form, but these should have been released by Pebble themselves as stock apps.
The Pebble Classic v1 did not ship with a lot of functionality for notifications, music and alarm (I remember needing Music Boss for a while), but later on I got all three working (it was permission related). The notifications can be customised. Firmware also did extend such features at the price of less uptime (mine went from 7 to about 3 days).
The lack of a to-do app is a huge one for me. Why? Because the use case of using a smartwatch with a grocery store list is huge for me. I'd use it twice a week, at the very least. Replacing the screen on my phone sets me back 85 EUR. A Pebble cost me ~115 EUR (including duties & S&H). And with all the kids and perky people in the grocery store the question isn't if my phone is gonna drop, its when. It is just so unfortunate that Google Keep doesn't have a public API. There also isn't an abstraction layer for to-do lists (I, for one, am not going to pay for a subscription app like Evernote with a cloud based in US). Preferably I'd self host, and gladly pay a one time fee for such an app.
> Everyone I know with Pebbles love them, but they tend to be more technical users who wouldn't get stressed over a few bugs.
Yeah, that and lack of apps/features perhaps makes the device just not user friendly enough. You can't sell that if you focus on productivity, but you can mask it if you're going for fitness.
There is a keep for pebble that was developed for a while [0]. The developer released the source code, so perhaps it can be modified to work with a custom note API. It still works for me on the original pebble with latest firmware and shopping is the primary reason I still use it.
There is also WatchNote [1] (no longer developed) and Infinite Notes [2].
Thanks for thinking along, FWIW I hope it may inspire other readers as well. I was aware of option #0 and #1. #0 made me give up -eventually, after retrying- since it requires root because Google Keep has no public API. This is also why I was puzzled #1 claimed it did work (it didn't).
0) Keep for Pebble requires root (root is area 51 for me)
1) WatchNote never worked for me (only sortof, via Evernote, very buggy)
2) Infinite Notes doesn't use Google Keep (offline is nice though since I regularly lose internet access in the grocery store).
3) PowerNoter doesn't use Google Keep (voice command is interesting, but my shopping list isn't saved in English)
Perhaps I should ditch Google Keep as requirement, but the missus is very accustomed to that and doesn't tolerate yet another piece of software for grocery shopping.
I love my Pebbles, but the lack of good basic apps was always a struggle. I use PowerNoter to pull to do lists from Evernote, which is fine -- but not always reliable.
It's a shame to see them go. Everyone I know with Pebbles love them, but they tend to be more technical users who wouldn't get stressed over a few bugs.
All I really want from a smart watch are:
- notifications (of my choosing) - some sort of note / to-do app - multiple timers, alarms, etc - music / media control (even with a companion app) - customizable 'do' button (similar to what IFTTT offers)
Most of these were available in some form, but these should have been released by Pebble themselves as stock apps.