I have a memory from when I was a child, of being in the supermarket with my mum and – it was when I was learning to tell the time – my mum asked me what the time was. I was wearing my brand new watch (probably He-Man-related in some way) and I was eating sweets. Smarties, to be precise.
‘What time is it, James?’, she asked.
I excitedly threw my wrist over and announced to all and sundry, ‘HALF PAST THREE!’, the sound that followed was like hailstones as, with near-perfect comedy timing, my Smarties tumbled out of their tube, all over the shop floor.
Now I have a Pebble watch and, instead of my mum asking me to look at my watch, the pebble itself asks me. Its little vibrations subtly nudging you that there’s something new to see. Over the past two days this has happened frequently whilst drinking coffee.
Every time I go to look, I stop.
Every time I stop, I remember the Smarties.
And every time I remember the Smarties, I think ‘One day, Whatley. One day it’ll get you’.
More to come, soon.
Related: Pebble: first thoughts
I’m still working out whether this is good or bad. Good – because you love the product so much you gleefully flip your wrist, smarties be damned (one day). Alternatively, Bad – because it’s so damn distracting.
You’re probably still deciding that one for yourself.
James Whatley Reply:
January 4th, 2014 at 19:00
I think, in the same that way that I’ve learnt to ignore my phone when it cries out for attention, I’ll learn to ignore the Pebble when I deem fit. For example, it buzzed to let me know about the email from WordPress regarding your comment. But I’ve only just decided to look, having made a mental note that there was a new email (thanks to the minor* buzz, earlier(.
Additionally, I’m still very much in ‘calibration mode’. I’m working out what alerts are important and which ones aren’t. I’m about 90% there and I’ll probably keep tinkering over time, but it does take a little getting used to.
*It’s nowhere near as harsh as the vibration from a mobile phone, it really is just a slight nudge.
Yea, you are still learning your way around the idea of offloading-notifications. Not a bad thing, but its where I deemed the device not smart enough (http://www.flickr.com/photos/arjwright/10316391686/). I get the notifications aspect, but I think that for those of us who have been in mobile a bit longer, we are looking for more from wearable tech than just simple controls – I’d argue that we are looking for the device not showing up much at all; except that when it does, its giving something that smartphones, etc. just don’t do well, if at all.
I used the Pebble with my N9. For having unofficial support, the two really did manage each other well. The N9’s UX of having an activity stream seemed to mesh quite well with the “manage the stream on your wrist” UX of the Pebble.
BTW: I use the Polar Loop now. It doesn’t get notifications from my mobile, yet I’m also “ignoring” my mobile just as much as I had before with my Pebble and my Motoactv.
What about when you’re driving..?
http://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mercedes-benz-previews-car-smartwatch-1227938836
At this point, you may just want to wear vinyl pants to stop the coffee…
I’ve had my Pebble since April (I think…I was a Kickstarter backer) and love it. Just installed Glance last night so I get weather, stocks, visual counts of calls, emails, texts, etc. Awesome.
RJ is so right about tech needed to be more than controls while “not showing up much at all. I have a Kreyos Meteor on order that is supposed to do this, but we’ll see.
I wrote an article that will be on my site within the next couple of weeks about wearable tech already driving me crazy and what needs to happen with it. Last week I wrote one about why I’m returning Google Glass, which I did last Monday.
http://davidchristian.co/2014/01/06/why-im-returning-google-glass/
As long as you don’t do it with a fine scotch or bourbon, all should be just fine…
Just be extra careful when enjoying a good scotch or bourbon…