This week, your Pebble smartwatch got a major upgrade: apps! The Pebble watchapp store launched on iOS in the Pebble Smartwatch app with a beta version now available for Android developers.
You can upload eight watchapps at a time to your Pebble and add as many as you want to store in the “locker” on your smartphone. The standard app store experience is present: get screenshots, descriptions, “Heart” an app you… heart, flip through categories Daily, Tool & Utilities, Notifications, Remotes, Fitness and Games. You’ll get a heads up if you need a companion app for a specific download and have easy access to troubleshooting with links to message a watchapp’s developer directly for support.
While narrowing your choices down to eight may sound daunting, we’re talking about some pretty specific functions here — although we would love to control our GoPro through Pebble, it’s still a gift on our wishlist. In the same vein, you either have a use for “Yacht Timer” or, um, you definitely don’t.
To keep Pebble practical, start by scanning through the Remotes category to hook up anything you use to automate at-home, from Hue to Nest to Sonos. If your phone is still the smartest thing you own, nab apps that help you hack into it and other devices: Skipstone is a universal media remote, PebbleCam lets you take pictures and look at your phone’s photo library from the watch.
Expand your notifications with apps like Pushover or eNotify that, on Android, will send texts straight to you too. Package Tracker would help ping us when crafty goodness we’ve ordered up here at Brit HQ has arrived.
Stay informed with apps like Yelp and Breaking News (the main feed from the popular site and Twitter) and keep up with your social butterfly self with Foursquare and Twitter-in-Pebble flavor: Twebble. The name reminds us of when we had a whole gaggle of Twitter apps to choose from and as many weird ways to organize the social network, but this is just a simple version of your usual feeds.
RunKeeper gives you access to a meticulous little personal trainer at your wrist that can track runs or any other physical activity through Pebble’s GPS. Our favorite 7-Minute Workout even comes in a stripped-down watch version that will still count down the exercises, just without tips.
There’s no sign of Candy Crush just yet, but you’ll see hints of some of your other favorite smartphone fun in the Games section, like a real-time version of something that could pass for Drop 7 called OrbTime.
Ready for a little Pebble app hack? There are a few apps that will help you check a couple boxes in one download. Pebble Cards gives you customizable RSS feeds at your wrist. SmartWatch is another that displays weather, your iPhone battery status, current location, appointments and notes. You can even use it to control certain functions of your phone, like music volume and picture-taking. It will even play a sound to help you locate said smartphone, which is pretty much what we’ve been waiting for technology to create for us all this time anyway.
Are you a fan of Pebble? What apps do you want on your smartwatch?