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'Pebble Time' Debuts on Kickstarter With Slimmer Design and Color Display
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I almost got a Pebble Steel but I'm glad I didn't. My brother has one, and likes it. But I played around with it and it's such a far departure from the smooth experience of iOS that I'm used to. Battery seems great, but I never wear a watch at night anyway so charging nightly isn't an issue. I'd rather have a bright OLED display with more useful features.
Color e-ink was introduced as available to ship on January 6, 2015. So, it's VERY new.
http://gizmodo.com/color-changing-e-ink-is-here-but-not-in-ebook-readers-1677767392
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Not sure whatever happened to Mirasol - but they were showcasing eInk displays as early as 2012 I think
8 fps is the display rate for e-ink, not 30. It shows.
Technically, it CAN be 30, but everything is a dull gray. The film needs a 1/8 of a second to reach the full black color.
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Colour e-ink has been around for quite a few years.
http://www.eink.com/display_products_triton.html
Was announced in 2010.
Why we haven't seen bigger adoption of colour e-ink?
Really a lack of usage scenarios that make sense. Colour e-ink has the same slower refresh rates and lower pixel densities that regular e-ink has. They also lack a lot of colour vibrancy. Most colours are very muted and dull. It does the light colours and pastels, but without the vibrancy, they just don't work well for the things you would want a colour display for, such textbooks, movies, video and pictures.
Predominantly, e-ink is in use for e-readers, which are mainly focused on novel reading, which is mostly black text on white(ish) backgrounds. the added cost of colour, especially bad colour just has not made a lot of sense, so, colour e-ink development hit a dead end, especially with LCD and OLED's in the tablet space being of such high quality.
I think the tech itself was announced in mid 2014. Though getting it into a mass product would not be instantaneous. There are several limitations still to the product, but it has its use.
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I think the 2010 announcement and the 2014 is not for the exact same thing.
I've loved my original Pebble, so I'm happy to see a much more attractive looking device. However, I plan on buying the Apple Watch, and that does include fitness/heart rate tracking. I'll be interested to see how/if the port on the Pebble Time is actually taken advantage of by developers, and what effect that might have on the comfort of the device considering the port's location.
Interesting about pebble battery length from http://blog.straphq.com/2014/10/04/pebble-battery-life-measure-solve-increase-stuart-harrell/
How long will the Pebble battery last if the only thing running is….
Minute Watch Face (bluetooth on) – more than 12 days (14 days to be exact)
Backlight is on constantly – 4 hours of battery life
Watch face Seconds – 9 days
Watch Face with Minute Animation – 11 days
Watch Face with Minute Bluetooth off – 36 Days
Constant Animation – 1 day
Grabbing Weather once per minute – 6 days
Grabbing Weather once per second – 18 hours
Misfit – 5 days without 4.5days with misfit (approx 10% of battery lost)
How long will the Pebble battery last if the only thing running is….
Minute Watch Face (bluetooth on) – more than 12 days (14 days to be exact)
Backlight is on constantly – 4 hours of battery life
Watch face Seconds – 9 days
Watch Face with Minute Animation – 11 days
Watch Face with Minute Bluetooth off – 36 Days
Constant Animation – 1 day
Grabbing Weather once per minute – 6 days
Grabbing Weather once per second – 18 hours
Misfit – 5 days without 4.5days with misfit (approx 10% of battery lost)
Or they could charge a huge mark up on each unit like Apple does to cover R&D, or do it this way where they keep the unit costs down and crowd fund.
Thats possible. Has pebble ever announced exactly what display technology they're using?
We keep calling it e-ink cause it appears similar to e-ink, but they're not actively calling it that. They're calling it "E-Paper". This implies to me that it's not actually made by the e-ink people either, but perhaps another company that is making similar display technology. There was a company a couple years ago that made a tablet with an e-paper display (not made by e-ink) that had fluid 30fps display and colour (but still suffered from washed out colours, I just can't remember the name of it).
But my original comment is still valid. There HAS been colour e-ink in the past. It has just never gotten mass market appeal due to a real lack of real world usage scenarios
So, basically, higher interactivity with hosts device or users means lower battery life. But, still potable cause it doesn't need to refresh the screen constantly. Not really news.
How long does it last with having to be there for notifications (and putting them on screen). Is it is polling for them like for the weather, once per second? (or is it push?). A 1 second poll makes it last 1 day. Seems that would be an interesting info to have?
If only apple watch had these stats i might consider rose gold version for 22K
You mean grabbing weather once a seconds makes it last the day... It already has that... Notice as how the closer it comes to an Apple watch in interactivity, the closer its stats approach it.
In fact, trying to compete on the same thing would be the Pebble's undoing. It is better that it carves its own niche. It has a better chance at differentiation there.
A pebble costs $15 in parts and manufacturing. They sell for $199. About a 1500% markup. I bet the Apple watch has more than $28 in parts, thus will have a smaller markup than Pebble.
http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/07/24/t-ts-pebble-teardown.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=V_Taboola
People go on and on about the mythical 'Apple tax' - which doesn't exist as much as people claim it does. Every manufacturer wants to make a profit. Every manufacturer tries. Apple has products that sell well, so they don't need sales or deep discounts which eat into the profits.
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I applaud those of you who must drink 5-Hour Energy by the gallon or are on crack. You clearly need a smart watch that can last an entire week.
However, I do this thing every night. It's called "sleep" and it allows my body to recharge. And just before I do this "sleep" thing, I will put my Apple Watch on its charger so it will be recharged when I wake up. This nightly ritual won't hurt the usability of my Apple Watch because I don't need to refer to it while sleeping.
However, I do this thing every night. It's called "sleep" and it allows my body to recharge. And just before I do this "sleep" thing, I will put my Apple Watch on its charger so it will be recharged when I wake up. This nightly ritual won't hurt the usability of my Apple Watch because I don't need to refer to it while sleeping.
I applaud those of you who must drink 5-Hour Energy by the gallon or are on crack. You clearly need a smart watch that can last an entire week.
However, I do this thing every night. It's called "sleep" and it allows my body to recharge. And just before I do this "sleep" thing, I will put my Apple Watch on its charger so it will be recharged when I wake up. This nightly ritual won't hurt the usability of my Apple Watch because I don't need to refer to it while sleeping.
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And most fitness trackers track sleep! Because sleep is important for overall health. Therefore some people would want it actively tracking while they are sleeping.
I applaud those of you who must drink 5-Hour Energy by the gallon or are on crack. You clearly need a smart watch that can last an entire week.
However, I do this thing every night. It's called "sleep" and it allows my body to recharge. And just before I do this "sleep" thing, I will put my Apple Watch on its charger so it will be recharged when I wake up. This nightly ritual won't hurt the usability of my Apple Watch because I don't need to refer to it while sleeping.
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So you've never spent a night or two away from home when you didn't have any prior ability to bring your proprietary charger with you?
Never been stuck in an airport for 24+ hours? never just forgotten to charge some device? Ever just want to have to NOT constantly have to remember to plug in more and more devices and want stuff to just work for maybe longer than a day? Just because < 1 day charge is acceptible to you, doesn' mean that it's going to be acceptible for others.
is the same old statement. "Your Results may vary". however, All smartwatches should at least be aiming for maximum battery life possible.
The Apple Tax very much does exist.
How else can you explain that in the past, there was a $100 differential between the 16GB and 32GB iPhone?
Now with the 16GB and 64GB iPhone 6, the $100 differential makes a bit more sense, but they got away with overcharging for the size increase for years.
I just came up with a brilliant solution for this problem: charge it before you go to bed.
The battery in the Apple Watch must be around 350mAh, so it'll likely take about an hour to charge, so it'll be done while you eat supper and grab a shower.
I am buying one, I'm not an Apple basher - I'm just tired, tired, tired of reading posts from people who almost religiously refuse to admit there is a single shortcoming with the
Watch at all and that the Pebble is total garbage thats not going to sell well. I just wanted to put my point across that the Watch is not perfect.