I was not the first to buy a smartwatch though my gadget habit might have driven me to get one. The smartwatch idea made me realise that while I needed something, I did not need a watch to do everything. Nor do I need another object to charge each day.
A half-price Pebble Steel on ebay was the motivator. But what did I really need to do with one? Several months on, here are the watch apps I found essential.
The Pebble allows eight apps to be in use, but you can keep other useful apps handy on the phone it syncs with.
On the watch
Pebble app: Alarm
Although Pebble picks up Notifications from your Apple or Google calendar, I still find great use for the Alarm app. For example each summer I do some work where I oversee the university exams. I set loads of alarms during the exam. I get the watch to vibrate when the exam has 30 minutes to run or has to finish. An unusual bonus is that you don't need to keep looking at the clock. (Repeated looking at the clock has the unreal effect of making the minutes pass painfully slowly!).
Pebble app: TripAdvisor
Perhaps it's a cliché but quick access to restaurants and attractions where I happen to be is a want. Some people would prefer info from Yelp, but whatever the choice, the idea is the same. On the Pebble Tripadvisor information is in simple text but nevertheless useful. It may remind you of the days when we browsed the web using WAP.
Pebble app: Get back
The Get back app is controlled by one button which records the exact location where you are. Perhaps you leave your hotel in a new town and go exploring the area. Perhaps you parked the car in a sprawling car park or go for a walk in the woods. Either way the app records your initial spot and shows you a compass pointing back to the recorded spot and a measure of your distance as the crow flies. What's more you don't have to be running the app all the time. It stores your origin indefinitely so you launch Get Back at the start and again when you want to return to it.
Pebble app: UK Transport (US apps exist)
Whether you're out and about or at home, choose 'bus' or 'train' and this app will provide a list of nearby bus stops or train stations. With one more press it'll provide the next few buses or trains. UK Transport offer a very simple design to provide the next train or bus with the least number of button presses. Comparted to everything else such as websites offering train, coach or bus information, it sets a model way to be useful, and especially when you haven't a clue about what's available nearby. The next time I play with this I will urge myself to donate as thanks for such a wonderful app.
Pebble app: Pebble Bike (Ventoo) with tracking to Mapmytracks
Formerly called Pebble Bike, Ventoo displays speed, time and distance travelled as I run, bike, drive or, as now, move at zero mph at my desk. A second screen tracks your position as you travel and you see the shape of the road travelled so far. (A further screen shows altitude, ascent rate, slope and ascent). As we'll see in a moment, most importantly you can start and stop tracking your journey on the watch without touching the phone at all. The trip data is uploaded to a choice of services. If you chose Map My Tracks you'd find your journeys being saved on the web and find maps and graphs wonderfully presented to keep or replay them. If you ever asked where did we walk or what route did we take through London this provides the answer. Amusingly, if you asked what strategy you took to mow the lawn or plough a field, the answer is here too. Upgrading your Map My Tracks to a paid version also allows you to share your progress live with others, should they wish to follow you.
The point to note is that you could probably do all this with your phone alone. Google Tracks and Map My Tracks are two phone apps that you can launch, start monitoring your journey and see this recorded on a map. The key aspects of the Pebble are the live speed display on the watch and being able to initiate this on your wrist whenever the need occurs.
First install Ventoo on your Pebble watch and then install the Ventoo Android app on your phone. Next set up an account at Map My Tracks. On the watch go to Settings and choose integration and then enter your Map My Tracks login and you're pretty much done.
Map My Tracks itself doesn't even require a phone app so you could simply install Map My Tracks on the phone. Then when you start Map My Tracks the phone display switches to Pebble's built-in display of time, distance and speed. The downside is that once you stop this display to say, read a notification, the recording stops too. So that's less good even though Map My Tracks offers pretty awesome records of your journeys. Combined with Ventoo, it's awesome indeed.
Ventoo also allows you to export your journey to a GPX file which after a clunky conversion on the web, can be imported into Google Maps. Ventoo also integrates with JayPS, Canvas and OruxMaps.
Timer+
Of numerous kitchen timer apps I chose this. While I often ask SIRI or Google to set alarms quickly on the phone, the Pebble watch is the device I'm likely to have on my person. You might think of more life enhancing apps, but a timer is handy for single alarms.
Other uses for Pebble
Last but best is the feature that Pebble sends notifications to your wrist - you could be in a meeting, a lecture or driving and the notification arrives silently, safely and is quick to read.
Perhaps I'll find a use for the Music app that launches a track on the phone. Perhaps I'll find an interest in knowing how much I sleep. Overall though, Pebble's long battery life provides less hassle for these several quite useful enhancements for owning a phone.
