smartwatch

76 'smartwatch' stories May 2012 - September 2014

Pebble 2.5 firmware lands w/ support for Emoji, new Compass app, iOS 8 notification dismissal, more

Stephen Hall Sep 18 2014 - 3:33 pm PT

Photo.Tabletop-Lineup-B

Pebble has launched version 2.5 of its smartwatch firmware, packing a bunch of great new features—including some interesting new abilities for users who have recently upgraded to iOS 8. Notably, the update now allows iOS users to dismiss notifications by clicking the X button to dismiss one, and holding it down to dismiss all. Pebble also says that the app should stay live in the background more often on iOS, but the company says that users should make sure not to disable “Smartwatch Proximity.”

Additionally, the company says that the firmware brings the ability for the Pebble and Pebble Steel smartwatches to display Emoji, replacing the previous small white boxes that are all too familiar across platforms without Emoji support. And to round off the most interesting new features, the company is launching the Compass app that they promised long ago, which can be picked up on the Pebble appstore. I definitely recommend this one; I’ve tried it out and I’m quite impressed with how fluid the app is.

The smartwatch should have improved Bluetooth and notification reliability compared to previous firmware versions, and Pebble says that 2.5 also fixes a plethora of bugs.

Supply-chain report claims Apple rejected Samsung displays for Apple Watch

Ben Lovejoy Sep 17 2014 - 4:57 am PT

3 Comments

apple-watch

A DigiTimes report is claiming that Apple has rejected Samsung as a supplier of displays for the Apple Watch, and that all of them will be made by LG.

LG Display will supply Apple AMOLED panels for the Apple Watch, with shipments expected to reach about five million a month in 2015, according to sources at LG Display.

The company had been expected to split display production between the two companies, and the usual caution needs to be applied to DigiTimes stories, which rely on anonymous supply-chain sources.

The report claims Apple is hoping to sell upwards of 50 million smartwatches in 2015. Analyst estimates for sales of the Apple Watch range from 10M to 37M.

Apple has not yet given a launch date for the new device, stating only that it will go on sale “early next year.” The entry-level model will cost $349, but Apple has not revealed pricing for more expensive models. The top-of-the-range Edition models featuring solid gold cases are expected to go well into four figures.

Apple Watches will contain NFC chips that allow them to be used for mobile payment via Apple Pay with older iPhones. You’ll need to authorize the watch when you first put it on in the morning, and it will then remain validated for payment for as long as it remains in constant contact with your wrist.

Guess Watches CEO pretends she welcomes the Apple Watch as she announces GUESS’s smartwatch plans

Ben Lovejoy Sep 15 2014 - 6:58 am PT

35 Comments

guess-top

If you’re the CEO of a watch company, you likely watched the announcement of the Apple Watch with a mixture of optimism and fear. Optimism because Apple just made watches cool again in a market where many people haven’t worn one for years. Fear because most of those who now have a renewed interest in watches aren’t going to buy yours.

Guess Watches CEO Cindy Livingston put a brave face on it with a letter welcoming Tim Cook to the watch industry (full version below) as she announced the company plans to make a smartwatch of its own …
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Poll: Was a square format the right choice for the Apple Watch, or would round have been better?

Ben Lovejoy Sep 11 2014 - 4:30 am PT

109 Comments

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The fact that Apple was working on a smartwatch may have been one of the worst-kept secrets in the world, but the company did at least manage to keep us guessing about the form it would take – right down to whether the form factor would be square or circular.

Was a square format the right choice? To help us form a view, UX/UI designer Alcion has put together a series of renders showing what the Apple Watch would look like with a round face …
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EA developing games, second screen experiences for wearables like Apple Watch

Jordan Kahn Sep 10 2014 - 12:02 pm PT

12 Comments

Apple-Watch-Emojji

One thing that Apple didn’t get into during its keynote presentation is any possible gaming experiences that might come with its new Apple Watch wearable. Today, however, EA has announced that it’s already prototyping ideas for wearables like Apple Watch. In a blog post from EA’s Mobile gaming head Frank Gibeau, the company announced announced it has a team working on ideas for gaming on wearables including standalone games and second screen experiences for console and mobile games:
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Apple and Samsung will sew-up the smartwatch market, others will fail, predicts analyst

Ben Lovejoy Aug 14 2014 - 5:41 am PT

16 Comments

iwatch-concept-future-08

Apple and Samsung will largely own the smartwatch market between them, predicts Jackdaw Research chief analyst Jan Dawson in a report being issued later today and seen by Re/code.

Dawson said that new players should “stay out of the market,” and existing players should scale back their plans.

“We do not recommend that existing vendors should maintain current levels of investment when market growth and the overall revenue opportunity remain poor,” Dawson said. “It is unlikely that more than one or two small vendors will be able to make a sustainable business out of smartwatches in the face of competition from Samsung and […] Apple” …

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HP and designer Michael Bastian team up to produce an iOS-compatible smartwatch with a traditional look

Mark Hearn Aug 1 2014 - 1:30 pm PT

5 Comments

The great smartwatch boom is starting to consume electronic makers and HP is not exempt. The company is partnering with designer Michael Bastian to produce its own next-gen timepiece. Hewlett-Packard’s timekeeper won’t be dedicated to a single mobile platform and will instead serve as a companion device for Android and iOS smartphones similar to how Pebble watches work.
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Microsoft reportedly working on iOS-compatible fitness band for Q4 release

Mike Beasley Jul 2 2014 - 5:45 pm PT

1 Comment

Photo: in.com

Microsoft is planning its own entry into the wearable market, but won’t make it exclusive to Windows devices, according to a report from Paul Thurrott. The device won’t be a watch, but a simple fitness band that can sync with multiple smartphone platforms, including Windows, iOS, and Android.

The company is said to be aiming for a Q4 release with pricing similar to that of Samsung’s Galaxy Gear. No word yet on whether the hardware will work with Apple’s own Health software or will require an app created by Microsoft.

Pebble smartwatch updated with improved Bluetooth and notification management

Mark Gurman Jun 30 2014 - 4:43 pm PT

1 Comment

Pebble has updated its smartwatch software and iOS app to bring various improvements, including improved Bluetooth LE connectivity and quick notification management. The notification improvements are shown in the brief video clip above. Here are the release notes:

Pebble Firmware 2.3 (Release Notes)

Improved Bluetooth LE connectivity.
Added the ability to skip to the next notification with a double-click of the Down or Up buttons.
Bug fixes and stability improvements.

iOS Pebble App 2.2.2 (Release Notes)

Enabled more new JavaScript apps to be downloadable in the Pebble appstore (Pebble apps included in this latest bundle will no longer say “Coming Soon” for iOS users).
No other major changes from version 2.2.

The updated Pebble software is available via the Pebble app’s software update function and you can grab the latest Pebble for iOS via the App Store for free.

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WSJ: Apple planning multiple iWatch models with as many as 10 health-related sensors

Mike Beasley Jun 20 2014 - 12:31 am PT

19 Comments

iWatch concept: Espen Oxholm

The Wall Street Journal has published a new report claiming that Apple’s upcoming entry to the smartwatch market will sport ten or more sensors for collecting health data. The report also claims that the company is working on multiple versions for the wearable device, which is expected to be released later this year.

The iWatch is expected to be a health-focused device and will likely work with Apple’s new Health application, which it debuted earlier this month at its Worldwide Developer Conference. The application and its associated framework, called HealthKit, already have built-in support for certain types of devices without the need for a third-party application.

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Analyst goes to Taiwan, says iWatch has a round face; will be more than one model

Ben Lovejoy May 28 2014 - 5:28 am PT

34 Comments

Moto360

Rossenblatt Securities analyst Brian Blair is citing supply chain sources in Taiwan in stating that the iWatch has a round display, and is similar in design to the Moto 360 smartwatch shown above in a Motorola teaser image, but with a slimmer profile, reports Business Insider.

According to his supply chain sources, the iWatch will have a round face. Many people were expecting it to have a rectangular face, but Blair’s sources tell him it’s going to be round, like a normal watch …

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Review: Cogito Pop smartwatch for iOS (video)

Dom Esposito Apr 21 2014 - 8:50 am PT

6 Comments

When you put the word “smart” in front of anything, most people tend to think that it’s going to be some kind of advanced product. Most smartwatches on the market have a display and offer a simplified (or detailed) look at information from your smartphone along with access to third-party apps and services.

CONNECTEDEVICE is the company that’s trying to put the “watch” back in smartwatch. What if your smartwatch was created with the primary purpose of showing the time? Well, that’s exactly what the Cogito Pop does. It offers style and functionality, but don’t expect anything fancy here. The Cogito Pop puts notifications on the back burner, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

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The research that shows Apple is right to take its time over the iWatch

Ben Lovejoy Apr 2 2014 - 6:25 am PT

14 Comments

wearables

New research from Endeavour shows that more than half of U.S. consumers who have owned a wearable device no longer use it, and of those two-thirds stopped using it within the first six months of ownership. This is up from the 40 percent abandonment found by a similar survey by CSS Insight last fall.

The Guardian newspaper in the UK has a supporting piece in which it found more than 900 Galaxy Gear watches for sale on eBay, with asking prices as low as a third of the purchase cost.

While the data may be bad news for existing smartwatch and fitness band suppliers, The Guardian has an apposite comparison with early mp3 players, which also suffered high abandonment rates a decade ago.

So lots of those early MP3 players eventually ended up in drawers; but that didn’t stop the sector becoming huge.

And the company responsible for that shift was, of course, Apple: the company which took its time getting both the device and the user-interface right.

Google releases ‘Android Wear’ SDK developer preview, watches from LG, Moto & others due next quarter

Jordan Kahn Mar 18 2014 - 9:23 am PT

16 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrqZl2QIz0c]

silver_metal_600_00010 Ahead of the release of Apple’s much rumored “iWatch” wearable product, Google has now officially announced Android’s entrance into wearables with project “Android Wear.” The Android Wear SDK allows developers to integrate a number of features into Android powered wearables and relies heavily on Google Now functionality, as we were first to report late last year.

Google also confirmed that it’s working with a handful of partners to bring Android Wear powered wearables to market by later this year:
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Finally a smartwatch concept that I could actually see myself wearing

Ben Lovejoy Mar 7 2014 - 4:50 am PT

28 Comments

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I’ve said before that if Apple or anyone else wants to persuade me to wear a smartwatch, they’re going to have to design something that looks like a stylish watch rather than a chunk of smartphone glued to a strap.

Even most of the concept images floating around haven’t really hit the mark in my view. But this one, by Hungarian designer Gábor Balogh and spotted by The Verge, does.

Granted, it suffers the usual concept image issue of being designed with little thought to practicality (what happens when I answer that call?), and it’s not an iOS interface we’re seeing, but Balogh himself says that he’s aiming to illustrate a principle rather than a specific user-interface. That principle being that a watch should, first and foremost, work as a watch.

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Check out the full set of images on Balogh’s Bēhance page, and let us know in the comments what you think.

Crowdsource update: SunSprite, the solar-powered wearable aimed at geeks

Ben Lovejoy Feb 25 2014 - 4:44 am PT

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLZ8CGOUg2w]

With all the focus on skin cancer caused by too much exposure to sunlight, you might expect a UV-measurement gadget to be designed to warn you when you’ve spent too long in the sun. But no, the SunSprite has the opposite goal: it’s aimed at those who spend all their time indoors, and don’t get enough time in the sun. Or, to put it more concisely, geeks.

Sunlight plays a role in both mood and sleep patterns. The SunSprite measures exposure to both visible and UV light, and uses LEDs to indicate when you’ve met your daily goal of having spent enough time outside. It also communicates with a companion iPhone app. The retail price is a rather hefty $149, but early bird Indiegogo backers can get one for $89.

A neat thing about it is the same sunlight it measures also powers the device. The low energy requirements of the SunSprite mean that just a few minutes of sunlight provide enough energy to power the gadget for a week.

With some rumors suggesting that the iWatch may incorporate solar panels, perhaps this is one more health-based sensor Apple could include?

There’s a longer video that goes into more detail below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsePn7icDuw]

2014 to be a big year for wearables, with 17M devices expected to be sold

Ben Lovejoy Feb 13 2014 - 5:09 am PT

5 Comments

wearables

Market analyst Canalys reports that 1.6M fitness bands and smartwatches combined were sold in the second half of last year, and is predicting that more than 17M devices will be sold this year, driven largely by forecast sales of 8M smartwatches.

Though currently a relatively small market serving fitness enthusiasts, wearable bands represent a massive opportunity in the medical and wellness segment. 2014 will be the year that wearables become a key consumer technology, as the smart band segment is estimated to reach 8 million annual shipments. Canalys estimates that this number will grow to over 23 million units by 2015, and over 45 million by 2017 …
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The $50 smartwatch will be here by the summer, says Archos

Ben Lovejoy Jan 9 2014 - 4:19 am PT

5 Comments

Photo: engadget.com

When a whole new category of technology arrives, you can usually rely on tech-heads to get excited about them even if the mass-market doesn’t. So far, though, smartwatches don’t seem to have made as much headway as many expected. When a confirmed gadget addict like me is left wondering why I’d want one, something somewhere is wrong.

But where functionality hasn’t persuaded many of us, perhaps price will. Archos is planning to launch a basic smartwatch in the summer for just $50, a price it may be hoping will lead people to stop asking ‘Why?’ and instead ask ‘Why not?’.

Don’t expect too much tech for your fifty bucks: what it will buy you is more of a dumbwatch than a smart one. All it will do is relay notifications from your phone and allow you to control music playback. Oh yes, and tell the time. The display, too, is low-tech: a 1.55-inch non-capacitive e-ink screen.

The styling also looks pretty crude. But for $50, it’s almost cheap enough to try one out just to see whether the idea of a smartwatch grabs you.

Archos also plans a color model with 1.8-inch capacitive screen for $100 and an aluminum-cased version for $130, but these won’t be available until later in the year.

Pebble Steel smartwatch leaks: metal & Gorilla Glass version on the way (Update: Announced)

Ben Lovejoy Jan 6 2014 - 3:57 am PT

14 Comments

Left: Pebble Steel. right: original plastic Pebble

If you like the functionality of the Pebble smartwatch but are less keen on the plastic finish, it looks like you won’t have long to wait for a metal version. We’ve seen a couple of leaks of the Pebble Steel, seemingly the exact same innards as the existing Pebble watch but with a stainless steel casing and Gorilla Glass.

There are said to be two versions, one in brushed stainless steel (shown alongside the original plastic version above) and a matte black one (shown below the fold) …
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Pebble announces dedicated smartwatch appstore coming next year

David Beren Dec 18 2013 - 10:48 am PT

2 Comments

From 9to5Google:

There was little question at some point, somewhere in their roadmap Pebble’s smartwatch was going to get a dedicated appstore. That day has arrived as a new company blog post indicates the new developer portal is now open. The app store will launch to the public in 2014 and be the “first-of-its-kind wearable application directory.”

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Pebble smart watch gets smarter with do-not-disturb mode plus improved notifications & alarms

Ben Lovejoy Dec 13 2013 - 3:53 am PT

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Photo: @granddiamondwit

Pebble has announced that v1.14 of the smart watch firmware introduces a do-not-disturb feature, to block all notifications for a set period of time, together with improvements to both notifications and alarms.

Do Not Disturb. Block notifications for a set period of time (from Pebble: Settings » Notifications » Do Not Disturb).

Alarms app update. Create multiple Alarms, toggle Alarms on/off, and edit existing Alarms.

New “Snooze Alarm.” Customizable via the Pebble Alarms app.

Improved Notification Control. Specify what notifications are displayed (Notifications On, Phone Calls Only, or Notifications Off). Notification settings are now accessible more quickly through a dedicated menu (Settings » Notifications).

Improved iOS performance. Notifications are now sent more quickly from your iOS device to Pebble. After exiting Airplane Mode, Pebble will now search for connectable iOS devices immediately, instead of waiting one minute.

The new firmware also includes a number of bug-fixes. Pebble was last updated last month to allow it to reliably receive all notifications from iOS 7 devices. Apple updated its Bluetooth APIs back in June to provide full Notification Center access via Bluetooth.

To install it, simply open the iPhone app and you should be prompted to upgrade.

Qualcomm gets in on Bluetooth beacon action with iBeacon competitor

Ben Lovejoy Dec 10 2013 - 5:18 am PT

13 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3LX84jdfnE]

Apple’s iBeacons aren’t the only Bluetooth LE beacons available, but they have so far been the default option for retailers thanks to the backing of such a well-known company. Qualcomm, which makes wireless chips for Apple among many others, may be aiming to change that with its launch of its own beacons from just $5 each.

Gimbal proximity beacons, available in two models, are accurate down to one foot and work indoors and outdoors […]

Depending on volume, Series 10 beacons [for indoor use] are available for as little as $5 each and Series 20 beacons [weatherproof version] are available for as little as $10 each.

While the move represents competition for Apple, it’s good news for iOS users …
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Apple working to slim its iWatch via intermittent Bluetooth LE connection?

Ben Lovejoy Nov 7 2013 - 4:31 am PT

5 Comments

iWatch concept by Stephen Olmstead

An Apple patent filing filed today suggests that Apple may be working on a way to make its long-rumored iWatch slimmer than existing offerings by reducing the size of the battery required.

One of the barriers to widespread adoption of smartwatches is that existing models are not exactly sleek. Technology lovers might be willing to put function ahead of form and put up with chunky devices, but the wider market buys on style first, technology second.

While the Bluetooth LE protocol used by existing smartwatches uses around half the power of classic Bluetooth (peaking at 15mA instead of 30mA), a constant connection in a device you won’t want to charge daily still requires a reasonably chunky battery. What Apple’s patent proposes is for an on-demand creation of a Bluetooth connection between two devices, one with radio capabilities (aka an iPhone), one without …
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Pebble to announce new software features on Nov. 6

Mike Beasley Nov 4 2013 - 5:52 pm PT

2 Comments

Smartwatch maker Pebble has announced a software event scheduled for 10 AM Pacific on November 6th. Pebble already has an SDK for developers, but they’ll be announcing some upcoming additions to the watch’s software capabilities. The event will stream live on the Pebble website for anyone to watch.

Two members of Pebble’s developer support team will also hold an AMA on Reddit directly after the event to discuss the upcoming changes with developers and answer any questions they may have.

Pebble also says that over 400 users who backed the original Kickstarter project are still waiting on their watches, which seems like a high number considering the fact that the watch has been available in Best Buy for some time now.

Update: We’re hearing the announcements will focus on SDK and iOS 7 compatibility improvements.

Hello Pebblers!

Apologies for the radio silence the last couple months. We know it has been a long time since we shared an update, but we’ve had our heads down focusing on some exciting developments and big news is brewing.

This Wednesday, November 6th, we’ll be sharing the details. You’re invited to join our (hopefully less blue) livestream at 10am PST to hear the news first hand. Just visit www.getpebble.com Wednesday after 9am PST for a link to the event. If you’re currently developing for Pebble, or interested in creating apps for Pebble, then you should definitely tune in!

We’ll also post the news for those who can’t join and a recording of the livestream will be available immediately following the event. Eric and Pebble’s developer support team will also be available to take questions on a Reddit AMA on Wednesday at Noon PST.

Most of you have Pebbles on wrists by now, but our records show that 460 of our 68,929 backers are still waiting. If you are one of those 460, we want to hear from you! We need a correct email and shipping address so we can send your Pebble(s). Please enter your info at http://bit.ly/kswaiting and we’ll confirm Pebble shipments as fast as we can.

Thanks once again for your support, much more to follow soon!

Team Pebble