Gadgetory

hi I'm Dan Seifert with the verge and I'm one of the hyper-connected I need to know what's going on constantly and my social networks and beyond I can't miss an email any Twitter favorite or even any snapchat and if I miss a text message for my wife well that's a whole nother ball of issues and I need all of this immediately without pulling my phone out of my pocket the thing that solves all of these notification problems for me is the pebble smartwatch it's an always-on constant nag that alerts me to anything I tell it to and right from my wrist I can determine whether something is important or can be addressed later the pebble uses a standard 22 millimeter wrist band so it's easily customizable and since it works with both iOS and Android that makes my life easy since I'm constantly having to change devices for work setting up the pebble with an iPhone is pretty simple thanks to a recent app updates right on 7 you just pair it with the phone over Bluetooth and then download the app from the iOS App Store from there I can get virtually any push notification sent from my phone to my wrist with the Android this set up is very similar but if I want every app notification of my wrist I need to download a helper app from the Play Store in addition to pebbles official one I like using one filled with a vacation center but there are many options available and there are a bunch of helper apps that extend more functionality to my pebble like extra security for my phone setting up Gmail alerts is as simple as having the Gmail app display notifications on the lock screen of my iPhone or checking the box next to Gmail in the Notification Center app on Android on both platforms the pebble has other basic but useful features like controlling music playback and pebbles open API has led to some more bizarre uses for the SmartWatch but for me what's most important is the glanceable information sometimes the pebble can feel a bit like a hat it's not great for clearing notifications for example if I see an email on my wrist I'm going to see it again on my phone the next time I pick it up I'd also love for a way to delete or archive an email right from my wrist so I don't have to process the email again later on and look sometimes the pebble can be too good at keeping me updated if I'm working on something with a deadline and I need to be heads down the pebble can be quite annoying interrupting me with every email that dings my inbox in those cases I tend to just take it off instead of going through the tedious process of disable notifications we're still at the cusp of a boom in wearable technology and it's very likely that the pebble and its competitors will be greatly improved upon in their future but here today the pebble sir is a need in my workflow and it's not something I would want to give up it's not quite the Dick Tracy sci-fi future of computers on our wrists but we're getting close