The Pebble smartwatch may not have a color screen or support for voice controls like the Apple Watch or Android Wear devices from LG, Samsung, and Motorola. But it does have long battery life, an always-on, sunlight readable display, a week of battery life, and a starting price of just $99.
And starting with the launch of the Pebble Android app version 2.1, when you use a Pebble smartwatch with an Android device, you’ll be able to see all of your notifications on your wrist… not just notifications from a handful of apps.
Just install the app on a phone running Android 4.3 or later, visit the Notifications settings and select the apps you want to receive notifications from. You can also select all, or none.
The new app also adds support for ending a phone call in progress and the company says it should also offer better reliability and performance.
Pebble is doing a phased rollout of the new app, so only about 10 percent of users will be able to get the new app from the Play Store right away. It should roll out to additional users later and the company eventually plans to offer an update that’ll bring full notification support to any device running Android 4.0 or later.
The company is also releasing new firmware for the smartwatch itself. Firmware version 2.8 adds support for additional characters so that notifications can be displayed in 80 different languages.
I like it so far. The upgrade has much better support for my HTC One’s native email app – before today it only said “email received” on the Mail app but displayed everything on Gmail. Now both let me see the sender, subject, and first line or so on my Pebble.
Also works well with a couple of social games – couldn’t get Wordfeud notifications before and now I can see what word was played and for how many points.
“…displayed in 80 different languages.”
Disappointingly (though unsuprisingly), none of the 80 languages are Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. But hey, if you were waiting until the Pebble supported Kabuverdianu to buy it, today’s your day.