Pebble smart watch
I kickstarted one of these a year back and finally received it last week:
http://getpebble.com/
For the likely majority of you that haven't heard of it, Pebble is a bluetooth connected "smart watch" with an e-paper display. Basically, it is a watch with a computer in it and a wireless connection to your phone.
What this means in practice, is that in addition to telling time your watch can display notifications from your phone. You can see who is calling, you can read incoming text messages, emails and other notifications, you can control the media player on your phone.
Pebble is also an open platform with an available SDK and it's own app store, that means people have and will continue to develop sport specific apps for pebble. Such as sourcing GPS data from your phone to create a dedicated running or cycling app on your wrist.
Now, all that aside, the single coolest thing about pebble for me so far has just been the basic features of reading notifications on my wrist, specifically while riding. Like probably most people, I carry my phone with me while I ride, but in a ziploc bag in my jersey pocket. It's constantly chiming and buzzing during a ride and I constantly find myself wondering if that was something important. How many times have you been on a ride where you or someone else had to stop and check who was calling?
Not with Pebble, I just look at my wrist, read my notifications at a glance, or see who is calling and whether or not it is someone I need to stop for. For cycling, this has been incredibly convenient.
Now, this all might sound like an ad for Pebble but really it isn't. I paid $100 for it through kickstarter a year ago, but they now go for $150 retail. Personally, that seems a bit much for what you get, but my real point is that this entire new category of products, smart watches, is on the horizon, and actually far more useful and applicable to endurance athletes than I had been anticipating.
http://getpebble.com/
For the likely majority of you that haven't heard of it, Pebble is a bluetooth connected "smart watch" with an e-paper display. Basically, it is a watch with a computer in it and a wireless connection to your phone.
What this means in practice, is that in addition to telling time your watch can display notifications from your phone. You can see who is calling, you can read incoming text messages, emails and other notifications, you can control the media player on your phone.
Pebble is also an open platform with an available SDK and it's own app store, that means people have and will continue to develop sport specific apps for pebble. Such as sourcing GPS data from your phone to create a dedicated running or cycling app on your wrist.
Now, all that aside, the single coolest thing about pebble for me so far has just been the basic features of reading notifications on my wrist, specifically while riding. Like probably most people, I carry my phone with me while I ride, but in a ziploc bag in my jersey pocket. It's constantly chiming and buzzing during a ride and I constantly find myself wondering if that was something important. How many times have you been on a ride where you or someone else had to stop and check who was calling?
Not with Pebble, I just look at my wrist, read my notifications at a glance, or see who is calling and whether or not it is someone I need to stop for. For cycling, this has been incredibly convenient.
Now, this all might sound like an ad for Pebble but really it isn't. I paid $100 for it through kickstarter a year ago, but they now go for $150 retail. Personally, that seems a bit much for what you get, but my real point is that this entire new category of products, smart watches, is on the horizon, and actually far more useful and applicable to endurance athletes than I had been anticipating.
0
Comments
Then, I just found this little gem. The Kreyos. It looks to fill a similar need. Neat that the bands are interchangeable. I guess the answer is which company is more sustainable....
Any thoughts on this?
http://prelaunch.kreyos.com/fb/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Kreyos+Round+1+Triathlon+Targeting+&utm_content=Triathletes+and+Swimmers+(2013-06-13+34)+(10!6007275809092!triathletes-and-swimmers!0)&utm_term=US+18+
The Pebble was not the first smart watch, but it was definitely the first successful one. Now that it has fully taken off, we are going to see tons of competitors coming to market and I have no doubt that they will be much more feature rich than Pebble's initial offering. The only question is do you want something now, or do you want to wait for round 2?
That question is muddled somewhat by the fact that Pebbles have been sold out since the KS campaign and you couldn't even get one if you wanted to, other than say eBay, but while I think the Kreyos looks like a better watch for triathlon at first glance, I have the sneaking suspicion that the launch in 5 days that they are referring to is a product reveal and launch date reveal, not making the actual device available.
By the time it launches, you may not even need smart watches, just get yourself a Jet: http://jet.reconinstruments.com/