Hasta La Gadget!

For those of you who have received your Pebble E-Paper watches, and for those of you who are about the get it soon, here’s some great news for you. Pebble is planning on releasing its Watchface SDK to developers during the 2nd week of April. This SDK will allow developers to create their own watchfaces for the Kickstarter prodigy. Pebble has seen some extraordinary watchfaces released by the Pebble developer community, like a watchface that lets you play “Snake”, so by releasing this SDK and garnering more developer support, Pebble can be brought to the next level.

Pebble says that the watchface SDK is still a work-in-progress, and that it’s mostly just a “proof of concept”. It wants developers to note that the watchface SDK will not allow them access “to the accelerometer (or magnetometer), or communication between watchfaces and smartphones (among other deficiencies).” There’s a good possibility that 99% of the APIs in the SDK will change “as we move towards a full blown SDK”.

Pebble also plans on releasing a firmware update next week as well. The firmware version, 1.9, helps improve user experience. Your watchfaces are now at the bottom of the stack, meaning if you keep pressing the back button, you will find your way back to your watchface. Also, by pressing the up and down buttons on the right side of your Pebble watch, you can alternate between the watchfaces you have installed. There are also “under-the-hood” changes that allows developers to more easily and quickly display text on the watches.

The new watchface SDK will open a new chapter for Pebble E-Watches. Pebble provided a few examples of watchfaces developed through the SDK, including a watchface that tells time in Dutch, a watchface with a dragon that blinks every minute, and a watchface that shows Mario (from Super Mario) grabbing a coin every minute.

Over 40,000 Pebbles E-Paper watches have been made so far, and over 85% of Kickstarter backers who ordered the long strap version of the watch will receive their watches next week. Pebble is making good progress in getting its watches out to all of its 70,000-ish backers. If you haven’t ordered the watch yet, you can pre-order it now through Pebble’s website for $150.

[via Pebble]

New Watchfaces coming to Pebble soon is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

CASIO’s famous shockproof watch “G-SHOCK” will have its 30 year anniversary in April, and in commemoration, 3 limited edition models of the “Resist Black” series (GW-5530C, DW-6930C, DW-5030C) will be released on April 19 in Japan.
Only 10,500 watches in total are available for these 3 models.
On the back-cover, there is a cool anniversary logo designed by internationally famous graphic designer, Eric Haze.
DW-5030C (21,000 yen) – Design inherited from the …

Earlier today, iFixit posted up their teardown walkthrough of the Pebble smartwatch, and noted that the device didn’t support Bluetooth 4.0 — only Bluetooth 2.1. However, there seemed to be some confusion between the specific chips used in the watch, as Pebble has responded to the teardown, saying that Bluetooth 4.0 is indeed supported.

The confusion seems to be warranted, though, as Pebble notes that while the chip used in the Pebble smartwatch doesn’t normally support Bluetooth 4.0, the company had the firmware of a different chip flashed on the ones used in the watch in order to support Bluetooth 4.0. The situation is definitely a little confusing, but Pebble says that this was done to speed up orders.

Pebble posted on Reddit the details of the situation, and note that the Pebble features a PAN1316 chip from Panasonic that uses Texas Instruments components. The chips that TI sent to Panasonic were labeled CC2560, which doesn’t support Bluetooth 4.0. However, Pebble had Panasonic simply flash the firmware of a CC2564 in order to get the latest Bluetooth support.

However, while the smartwatch does, in fact, come with Bluetooth 4.0 support, Pebble hasn’t yet switched it on in the watch’s operating system, but it seems they’ll be doing that sometime in the future, most likely with an update. It’s unclear why they’re holding back 4.0 support, but it could be a number of reasons at this point.

Pebble says smartwatch includes Bluetooth 4.0, despite iFixit’s claim is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Seiko’s executive line “Seiko Brightz” will release Seiko’s 100 year anniversary limited edition solar atomic watch on April 26 in Japan.
Only 500 watches will be available.
It is pearl white and pink gold in color with 7 diamonds on the dial.
It comes with original stainless steel band and extra crocodile leather band.
The price is 262,500 yen (including tax).
It can be pre-ordered here.

There have been numerous collectible Star Wars watches over the years, and the latest batch has just found its way across the universe from a galaxy far, far, away. Or at least from the UK.

These new analog watches are made by Zeon and officially-licensed by LucasFilm. The collection include five cool designs whether you’re rooting for the Light or Dark Side of the Force. The line includes a Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, Boba Fett, Stormtrooper, and of course, Darth Vader. As usual, R2-D2 is all alone, and C-3PO is nowhere to be found in the collection. Each watch has a leather band, is water-resistant to 5ATM and comes individually numbered with a velvet-lined box and numbered collector’s certificate.

Naturally, the Darth Vader one is the coolest, with its black case, red face crystal and red accents. It’s also neat that the Skywalker one has a compass built in. Though I’m not sure that would actually to navigate through the Death Star’s trenches.

You can currently find Zeon’s Star Wars watches over at UK shop Great Gear Store for £125 (~$187 USD) each, and they should be making their way to more retailers soon.