Hasta La Gadget!

The first Pebble developer SDK is already in limited testing, the company has confirmed, allowing coders to create custom watchfaces for the smartwatch. Pebble is paving the way for new features that won’t be in the initial feature-set, too; although it uses Bluetooth 2.1 to connect currently, there’s actually a Bluetooth 4.0 chip inside for lower-power wireless in the future, and there’s an ambient light sensor which developers will also be able to tap into. On the software side, there’s If This Then That integration for extra flexibility. Read on for more details.

Some of the initial watchfaces have already been released, with a mixture of analog and digital styles. There’s a Braun-esque analog, plus a binary one which would look at home on a Tokyoflash timepiece, and the Pebble team itself has created some fashionable written-text UIs, which say “Twenty past Nine” rather than showing numbers.

Pebble also demonstrated the music interface, with the smartwatch paired with an iPod and used to scroll through a playlist. The watch shows what’s currently playing on the display, and thanks to the waterproofing, you could even use it to control playback while you’re in the shower. The accelerometer is used for controlling the backlight, with a simple tap of the watch turning on the display.

As for message previews, they show your email subject and sender, as well as the content of the message; SMS, meanwhile, shows sender and the full content. Incoming phone calls show caller ID and number at the same time, and you can dismiss the call with a push of one of the side buttons. Phones can also send things like Facebook alerts, and developers will be able to use Pebble’s user-ID system to send notifications directly to their subscribers’ smartwatches.

Pebble has also jumped on If This Then That (IFTT), which allows for easy creation of macros to send notifications to the smartwatch when different criteria are met. So, you can set up a weather alert – pinging news to your wrist when the temperature reaches a certain point –  or a stock price alert online, and link Pebble in.

Installing new apps and watchfaces is a simple matter of using Pebble’s smartphone app, tapping the required content in the gallery and then watching it load on the smartwatch almost instantaneously. Software updates are delivered the same way, triggered from the app and pushed to the watch; Pebble says there’ll be updates every 2-3 weeks until the initially-promised features are working. That will include Runkeeper support, for instance.

That’s great for the Pebble side, but a persistent Bluetooth system takes its toll on your phone. Pebble says the watch will impact your phone’s battery by 5- to 10-percent per day, thanks to its 24/7 connection. The smartwatch will begin shipping later this month.

Pebble talks developers, apps, watchfaces and future-proofing is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Love budget devices? We’ve got Chandra Thompson, marketing manager for Pantech hitting our stage to discuss what the next year has in store for the company.

Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!

Continue reading Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Pantech’s Chandra Thompson

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

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Pebble has given Kickstarter supporters something to look forward to this week thanks to its freshly-revealed ship date, but with that out the way the company is filling in some of the hardware and software gaps. Next up is how you’ll charge the smartwatch, an interesting topic given Pebble is also waterproof. In fact, it’s a neat little custom USB cable.

That has a standard USB plug on one end, and a magnetic plug on the other which clings to the side of the watch. That allows Pebble to avoid any unnecessary openings to the watch, ensuring it’ll keep working even if you wear it in the shower or drop it in your drink.

It’s actually water-resistant to 5ATM, which is enough for a little swimming though not diving. Whether you’d actually have your smartphone nearby – Pebble hooks up via Bluetooth to pull over notifications – is questionable, however.

Of course, while a proprietary cable solves one problem – how to make the watch water-resistant – it also opens up another, i.e. the fact that you’ll need to carry it around specifically if you want to recharge the smartwatch on the go. The lack of standard microUSB flexibility is offset by the lengthy battery life, however.

Here’s how you’ll charge your Pebble smartwatch (and it’s pretty slick) is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Pebble has kicked off its first ever press conference, and the smartwatch company has opened with the first thing Kickstarter supporters wanted to hear: a ship date. The watch has gone into mass production, the company has confirmed, and will begin shipping out to preorder customers from January 23.

That mass production is pumping out 15,000 Pebble watchers per week, so it’ll take a little time to satisfy all of the multi-million spending Kickstarter backers. In fact, Pebble estimates that it’ll be around 6-8 weeks before all of those orders are met.

Of course, after that there’s a small legion of subsequent preorder customers who jumped onto the smartwatch after it made its Kickstarter goal last year. They’ll have to wait a little longer for their new toy.

In the box will be a standard 22mm watch strap, but Pebble says it’s easily interchanged with a standard band. It’s also water-resistant, and has a scratch-resistant glass on top of the e-paper display. More hardware details in the timeline below.

Pebble: We’ll ship January 23 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

[CES 2013] Three or four CES editions ago when the Android mobile operating system was still rather raw, there were already many small time hardware manufacturers who jumped aboard the Android-powered tablet bandwagon, and since Android has strengthened its position considerably, the slew of Android tablets at CES has not ceased to slow down. Case in point, the Coby MID7065, an Android-powered tablet that features Google Play as well as Google Mobile services. This bad boy will start to ship sometime in the first quarter of the year at $149.99 a pop.

What kind of hardware does it pack underneath the hood? For starters, there will be a dual-core 1.2GHz processor with 1GB RAM, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR connectivity, 8GB of internal memory and a microSD memory card slot for expansion purposes, accelerometer and gyroscope sensors, a front-facing VGA camera and a rechargeable Li-Poly battery. Not the best tablet on the block, but considering how little you pay for it, it does seem to be worth every penny as a “beginner’s tablet” if there is such a thing. [Press Release]

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Polaroid M7 Ready For Spring Debut, Asus Transformer All In One Seen With Android 4.1 Jelly Bean,