Pebble and other smartwatches: Info at a glance!

I wish the range is shorter to make it worthwhile. I think if you left your phone in a bar and stepped out, it would have been swiped before the watch would buzz.

Ahh I see. So it’s dependent on the watch face? I had hoped that they would all do it. I don’t mind if it doesn’t tell me immediately but at least within 30s or one minute would be great. Anything faster than the 30m later that I realized it this morning. Anyways Pebble has a 10% off deal so I used it to pick up a pebble Steel and their premium metal band.

Sorry my bad. It does not depends on watch face at all. What I meant by range is distance. I wish it were shorter before it buzzes. As it is, you have to be separated from the phone for quote a distance before it buzzes.

If you just use GMail, Android Wear has pretty complete support for everything, as you’d expect.

How is the battery life on the Urbane 2?

Battery life is great, given that it is a phone. I can probably go two days without charging (maybe a day and a half) with normal useage.

Gmail does not have Exchange abilities on the Note 5 but I created a generic Exchange account so that the built in Calendar app syncs with Agenda on the watch. So I am back using Outlook.

yes, i assume so, the watch was originally $120 new and it was in a bunch of review sites and it has new versions coming out.

Apparently not, they pulled it from the market due to hardware problems. (The LTE version at least, guess there is a non LTE that is fine.)

Yup, just spent two hours with AT&T setting up my return. They tried a hard sell for the Gear S2 as a replacement. Not sure what direction I am going now. The Urbane 2 was what I was looking for.

I got my Bepple protective clip on for the Pebble Time and I have to admit that the QT3 Hivemind were correct. It is UG-LEE.

2 hours to return a defective product? Remind me never to buy anything from AT&T or LG in the future.

Was a really strange experience. Spoke to four people. At first they were happy to take the watch back with a $35 re-stocking fee. I told them no, this is a recall and read them the story from one of the Android sites. They finally acknowledged it was a recall, but then they were keen on doing an exchange for the Gear S2.

Spent a lot of time on hold while “consulting” was being done. Might have been easier if I started with the Premier Web site.

Hmm, so two days later and my (Pebble) order is still processing. Really guys? How long does it take to get a watch and put it in the mail? It’s not like it was just released. I’ve heard bad things about Pebble’s customer service and slow response times. I guess nothings going to happen until after the weekend now.

After the LG disaster, I finally picked up a replacement Huawei Watch. So far so good. I was worried when I first turned it on and none of the notifications worked, but after installing an update everything works fine. I got the black link band version and the watch face looks the most expensive of the few I’ve sampled. The watch experience is almost the same as the LG except that I cannot use it to make calls independent of the phone. I even have the same “Skywatch” watch face on it.

I think I’ll sell my Pebble Time with 2 power cords and a Wedge stand if anyoine wants it. White. I use my Apple Watch more lately.

2 weeks later and I’m still waiting for the Pebble Steel that I ordered. Man, I never expected free shipping to be this slow. First world problems, I know, but even still…

So my Pebble Steel finally showed up in the mail. My first impression was holy crap is this watch a lot smaller than I expected and the actual display is even smaller than that. But it actually fits my small wrist very well. It’s just a shame that the display couldn’t take up more of the screen. I would give up a couple of days battery life for a larger display and less bezel.
The watch itself is hella sexy, far more so than the new Pebble Time and PTS. Pebble really took a huge step backwards with their new watch designs. I wish they hadn’t put the Pebble logo below the display and I wish they hadn’t gone with the proprietary lugs but I guess we can’t have anything.
Set up was totally smooth and I think it only lost the Bluetooth connection once today. Downloading watch faces is addictive as hell and the ones I’ve got are very good and all seem to give a warning if the connection is lost (which is why I bought the watch in the first place, to prevent losing my phone).
When it comes to low light environments I think the high contrast PS has a real advantage over its newer, color brothers. The light takes a fairly vigorous wrist shake to turn on so you’re not going to accidentally have the light turning on all the time when you go to the movies.
I also got one of the new premium metal bands as finished leather straps don’t really do it for me. Switching was a pretty serious pain as the lug screws were fastened so tight that I couldn’t remove them with the screw driver provided. I finally managed to get it but I was seriously worried that I was going to strip the screws or accidentally slip and scratch the watch. The “premium” watch looks nice but it feels a little light for my liking. Metal bands shouldn’t be light unless they’re made of titanium but again this is only a $30 band. It only has one micro adjustment on the clasp.
So far I’m exceptionally pleased with the watch despite its niggles. I don’t know yet what the battery life will be like but I don’t use watch faces with lots of animations and I don’t get a ton of messages every day so I’m hopeful.
I’m also looking forward to OS 3.0, whenever that comes to the older gen Pebbles. I’ve heard December sometime but nothing concrete.
While there seems to be tons of cool watch faces available I wasn’t able to find any must have apps. When it comes to stuff like Evernote, Uber, PayPal, etc etc I’d just far rather pull out my phone. Are there any must have apps that I should get? I saw a couple of fitness trackers and sleep trackers but I’m worried what they would do to the battery life. Is there an app that will make my phone ring if I can’t find it?

Looks like people are spending $1500 for their smart watches at a fast clip. http://www.androidauthority.com/tag-heuer-smartwatch-increased-demand-659916/

I agree with this review of the Huawei watch. http://9to5google.com/2015/12/05/opinion-huawei-watch-brilliant-almost/

Those two main complaints seem a bit of a reach. Looks like the notch near the charging contacts will keep it aligned, and some of the Fitbit bands have exposed charging pads and seem to have no issues with that. Kinda silly that he’s complaining about the lack of variety in watch bands straight from the manufacturer when it can take normal ones available everywhere.

Having used the Gear 2 and Apple Watch, the whole notched contact connection charging thing is more painful. I do agree about the watch bands. Just received a rubber watchband that cost me $14.95 from Amazon and works great as a workout band replacement. There are a couple of nice leather and metal replacements from third parties that seem like they are giving them away compared to how much Apple is charging for their bands. A complaint that he missed is that Huawei doesn’t seem to be making replacement chargers yet, so you have to take care of the one you have.

I also replaced the Skymaster watch face with the Ranger watch face. The Ranger seems to work with the weather, has a compass, and can make the watch face that glow in the dark green.

After much back and forth, I returned to my Apple Watch/iPhone 6 plus combo. I have the same feeling about Android wear as I do about Android tablets vs. iPads. They just do not work as well for a number of tasks and the extra expense is probably justified. I really enjoyed my Samsung Note 5, Google Now, and the overall experience (discovered I could get Uconnect in my Dodge Durango to sound out text messages with Note 5). However, the Apple Watch, despite my dislike of the design, just works better for just about everything you can do with a smartwatch. Weather reporting on the watch is consistent with the phone (was all over the place with my Huawei Watch and purchased watchfaces). The vibrations on the watch are actually noticeable on my wrist. I can read part of my Outlook mail on the watchface. The suite of iOS health/fitness apps work great with the Apple Watch in comparison to Google Fit (or its 800 variants from each individual watch maker). I spend much less time fiddling with the iOS watch and phone. If I could get the Huawei watch with an iOS and an iOS ambient mode that shows the watchface at all times, I would be very happy!