Gadgetory

well it's officially June and that means Google i/o is around the corner that also means that we're going to be hearing a lot more about Android wear I mean just look at how much the gee watch was played up at the recent LG event and with all that in mind I decided to get back to the SmartWatch game and on my trusty pebble once again and while this operating system may not necessarily be based on Android it certainly does enhance the Android experience so some of you out there have been wanting to know so this is Joshua our firm Android authority and this is how I Android with my pebble smartwatch now before I actually get into it you did hear me say that I just got back into the SmartWatch game well the reason for that is because I actually haven't worn my pebble in quite a while I actually had really anything on my wrist for a little while but when I wanted to wear my pebble once again I decided to change it up to look a little bit you might remember that grunge cuff that I used all the time well I change that up by finding a wide body band by Richard Tracy brand and you can see it right here now what I got is the silicone version of Amazon which means it can get wet and it is actually pretty soft and really comfortable so if you've noticed in the last couple of videos that's the strap that I've been rocking on my pebble and it now pretty much never leaves my wrist so let's start off with the simplest of the simple watch faces for the longest time I never really installed any watch faces on my pebble because the built-in text watch was already good enough for me already but recently I've changed my tune in one case because the design of the watch face was really good and in the other case because I needed some extra functionality and utility out of it I'll start with digit time which is a symbol but stylistic way of displaying the time the 24 hour format is shown with the hour in the middle and the numbers appearing accordingly in the circle around it it's to the point simple and looks pretty damn cool hitting down to simply move to the next watch face brings up battery lifetime now the pebble can go for days before needing a charge but it doesn't show you the battery level unless it's under something like 15% I'd rather know ahead of time if I need my pebble charger with me when let's say traveling for a few days so having battery lifetime allows me to see the total percentage left as well as the supposed number of days that it will last on a charge that number of days is actually pretty arbitrary but I found it pretty accurate for my own usage the first actual app I'm going to show you I feel addresses an issue that a lot of people tend to try and fix the moment they get their pebbles and that's the notifications the Notification Center has been given an update with the 2.0 and 2.1 firmware that allows you to look back at the history of the notifications that have come to your watch which is great but you might need a little bit more control and that's the reason why we have a lot of notification replacement applications the one that I use is the Notification Center which allows you to completely pick which applications will send their notices to the pebble and which one should not for example I don't need my wrist to blow up for every person who likes my photo and Instagram so I usually leave it off for even further control you can set keywords in the regex filters area that the app will look for any notification with those keywords will not be routed and all of this is done in the companion app that has to be installed on your actual phone further options allow you to change the look of the notifications themselves as well as set quiet hours and if you ever get a pebble make sure you set quiet hours for when you say asleep because it actually does help with your battery life this next app can easily be considered another essential especially for all your media people it's called music boss basically it's a robust media remote control that can customize the built-in music controller in your pebble or you can use its version instead I keep it set to just use the original built-in controller because already adding things like double pressing buttons for volume control or to change which media player it's controlling provide the extras that I require already music boss also requires that an app be installed and set up on your phone basically so it knows what applications it should be controlling and also so you can have a hub for customizing the experience now this next type might not be essential for everybody but it certainly has become so for me the last time that I used my pebble as extensively as I am right now there wasn't really an application quite like this that allowed you to look at navigation on your watch now the app is called nav me and it does require you to install an application on your phone as well primarily so that it can detect when navigation is being run and it costs $2.99 after you do a 7-day trial but $2.99 is a small price to pay when you have your next moves in navigation being shown on your watch so you don't have to fidget with your phone a vibration when you are certain distances away from the next move give you ample warning to check so that you don't miss your turn and if anything this is a lot better than listening to the navigation voice when it interrupts your music as we get into perhaps slightly less essential applications I wanted to give you the multi timer now for some people out there timers are very important for our daily lives especially if you need to have a bunch of them running at once and that's exactly what the multi timer does the primary uses I have for it or for the Pomodoro Technique for example if you don't know already the Pomodoro Technique is a time management method where you set a timer for 25 minutes and only focus on the one thing you need to focus on for that whole amount of time when done you can take a five-minute break and catch up with your distractions after doing a certain number of Pomodoro is you can take a longer break of maybe 15 minutes so as you can see here I have two timers for the 25-minute work period and the 5-minute rest period and then I have another timer set for three minutes when I'm brewing cups of tea the best part about this multi tamara is that it tries to store the timer data in the memory of the watch so you can leave the app for a bit and when you come back it hasn't reset this is a problem that tends to plagued plenty of timer apps out there as data storage isn't all that easy on the fly on the pebble now if there's one thing I have a lot of trouble with these days it's getting up early one thing that I really wish I could do is just get up at 6 a.m. in the morning be able to go to the gym right away and then get started with my entire day but it doesn't always happen but at the very least I do have apps to try and help me now while the sleep as Android application doesn't necessarily succeed every single time the watch app certainly enhances what could be the thing that gets me up in the morning install the watch app and when you select it in your pebble the phone apps sleep tracking will use the watch data with the gyroscope built in to track your sleep when your alarm goes off the watch will vibrate when your phone goes nuts at the very least not needing to have the phone by your side when you're sleeping is a big plus but the powerful vibration of the watch will bother you enough to at least open your eyes but what if you're in incessant snoozer well you can set a limit to the number of times you can snooze inside of the phone app but sometimes you need more of a boost sleep as Android on the phone allows to set CAPTCHA tests like shaking the phone a number of times or answering a few math questions before you can actually turn off the alarm I go for a slightly more unorthodox method QR codes normally you'd get out of bed and walk to somewhere that you've printed and stamped a QR code on the wall like your bathroom and scan that to turn off the alarm but instead I installed the QR generator on my pebble and made it so that I have to scan for different codes before the alarm will shut the hell up and an added bonus to the QR generator of the pebble is a business card section where you can have people scan that particular code to get whatever information you need to give them it helps when you run out of business cards to hand out and so there you have it how I Android with the pebble smartwatch essentially we're going to be seeing a lot of smartwatches in the coming months in the coming weeks especially with Google i/o coming up in Android we're really blowing up probably from that particular conference and what I wanted to illustrate here is even if it's not Android wear the pebble is an example of how when you take the time to cater and experience on a wearable to what you really need it to be it could become just as invaluable as a regular watch that you would wear on your wrist anyway even with the G watch and the Moto 360 on the horizon I will say that the pebble has once again and claimed the real estate on my wrist but will those smartwatches replace the pebble as my go-to everyday wearable well we're not too sure about that yet but you can stay tuned to Android authority and I'll give you my answer whatever it is either way and the reasons why so keep it tuned to Android authority for all of the best coverage including all of the coverage from my brothers in Android Joe J's Kevin the tech ninja in lawn after that drop us some likes drop us a subscribe if you haven't already hence keep it tuned to Android Authority comm because we are your source for all things Android