New Toy

You would be surprised how many developers don’t jump straight away on the latest technology. So many dislike social media, prefer retro gaming and have a laptop which isn’t exactly cutting edge.

I’ve only just got my first smartwatch for personal use. With a family I can’t justify spending lots of the latest tech. A recent Black Friday deal was on the Pebble Classic for just shy of £50.

I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. It works pretty well (not flawlessly but only minor issues) with my iPhone 6. The primary use case, when showing my new purchase to my wife, was being able to have silent vibrating alarms in the morning. I tend to get up at around 6:30 and take my son downstairs. He has been a very poor sleeper (recently much improved) and I like to give my wife some definite time when he won’t wake her up. Prior to the Pebble an audible alarm often woke her, now this no longer happens.

I’m most impressed by the approach Pebble have taken in creating a smartwatch that doesn’t try to be a powerful computer on your wrist. 66Mhz CPU, 128KB RAM (thats KB!) and the memory LCD display work really well together. I’ve been exploring the SDK and have come away really impressed. It is very well designed, fit for purpose device.

It is sometimes easy to forget that mobile apps for iOS and Android also operate in constrained environments. “Fit for purpose” is often a phrase that is talked about too late in the development of an app. Writing apps for the Pebble forces you into decisions early on about storage, performance and display. These things shouldn’t be secondary decisions when developing for the latest phones and tablets.

For me the Pebble is a great smartwatch - well designed and cheap enough I’m happy for my son to prod it with mash potato covered fingers during dinner.