By Jeremy Lesniak
aNewDomain.net — I recently wrote a review of my initial experiences with the Pebble watch. One week later, I am even more enamored of it. At the risk of sounding blindly loyal, this device has changed my life. There are lots of things I could wax eloquently on, but one of the things I am happiest with is the app experience.
Yes, you heard that right—Pebble does apps. In fact, Pebble does apps well. Apps on the Pebble are called watch faces or watch apps, depending on what they are. Most of the current development is around making new time displays, but there are some other projects worth looking at.
As I mentioned in my last piece, the openness of the Pebble is what truly excites me. I have found instances where someone designed a watch but couldn’t quite make the code work, so they posted it. A short time later, someone else posts the working code. It’s currently a small community, so there’s lots of some really great collaboration.
Installing a new watch face is about as easy as it gets. There are a few watch faces installed on Pebble by default, and a few more in the app on your phone, but take a look at the faces the Pebble community members are posting.
To do this you can either go to http://forums.getpebble.com, orhttp://www.mypebblefaces.com, which is not officially sanctioned by Pebble but far easier to navigate, to find new watch faces. If you browse the sites with your phone, you can easily install them. Simple click on the .pbw file link and your phone should automatically install the file into Pebble or prompt you for what app to use to open the file. In the latter case you simply choose the Pebble app on your smartphone and all should be well.
Your phone will keep you apprised of the install status, which takes only a few seconds from download to installation to sending it to the watch. Test if you can cycle through your watch faces from your Pebble by using the up and down buttons.
If your download was an app, it shouldn’t show up in the watch faces, but rather in the navigation menu on the Pebble. That’s how I access the stopwatch, the most useful app released to date for Pebble.
Curious about the watch faces on my Pebble? Here’s what I’m using.
As I said, the Stopwatch is super useful and well designed.
The Revolution watch face is my favorite watch face design.
There’s even a Super Mario-themed watch face. When the time changes Mario jumps to hit the blocks holding the numbers. It’s a cute concept, and one that many will appreciate.
I don’t know where Pebble will go from here, especially since there are many people still waiting to get theirs. I do expect lots of great things, and I’ll write more about Pebble when there’s more to share.
Do you have a Pebble? Want one? Hate the idea? Leave me some feedback in the comments and let me know what you’re thinking about this new gadget.
Based in Vermont, Jeremy Lesniak is managing editor at aNewDomain.netand founder of Vermont Computing, Inc. and whistlekick.com Follow him @jlesniak or email him jeremy@anewdomain.net