Comparing Pebble and Android Wear

A number of readers have wrote in to ask me how does Android Wear compare to Pebble. Here is a list of items that I have compiled which I hope would be useful for those of you wanting to choose a wearable platform to develop for.

Note that this is a work-in-progress and I welcome your feedbacks if any of the items listed here is inaccurate. I will update it as more information is made available. 

	Android Wear	Pebble
	Android Wear is a modified version of the Android OS adapted for wearable devices sich as watches. The primary function of Android Wear is as an extension of your Android device – displaying notifications and allowing users to interact with the device through voice navigation on the wearable device.	The Pebble is a smart watch that allows you to write apps that run on the watch as well as on your mobile device. It displays notifications from your device. Pebble also allows companion apps running on the mobile devices to provide additional functionalities to the apps running on the Pebble watch.
Availability	Devices such as Moto 360 and LG G watches have been announced; availability not known yet	Pebble and Pebble Steel
Manufacturer support	Motorola, LG, Asus, HTC, Samsung, and more	Pebble
Interaction with users	Voice control and touch screen	Four buttons – Up, Select, Down, and Back
Device Network connectivity	Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (LE)	Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (LE)
Hardware Features	Not clear at this moment	Accelerometer, ambient light sensor, magnetometer
Standalone apps	Not available in the Developer Preview release	Yes, watchface apps and watch apps can run standalone on the watch
Companion apps on the mobile device	Android Wear devices require apps on the mobile device to send notifications to it	Companion apps on the mobile device can send notifications as well as provide additional functionalities such as Web services access, location-based services, etc
Connection to mobile device	Requires connection to a Android device	Optional; connection to a mobile device is only required for the installation of watchfaces and watch apps;
Color Screen	Yes	No, only black and white support
Touch Screen	Yes	No
Platform support	Android only	iOS and Android
Supports notifications	Yes. The primarily function of Android Wear is to display notifications from the Android device	Yes. Displays notifications from the iOS and Android device
SDK	Android Wear Developer Preview + Android SDK	Pebble SDK
Programming language support	Java	C (native apps), Javascript, Objective C and Java (Pebble Mobile apps)
Smartphone compatibility	Works with Android 4.3 and above devices. At this moment, Android Wear can only connect to phone devices; but Google has announced that the Android Wear Developer Preview release will be updated to support non-phone devices as well	Works with iOS 6.0 and newer and Android 4.0 and newer devices

Pebble course on 10-11 March 2014

For the Pebble course, on the 10-11 March 2014, you are recommended to bring along a Mac if you have one. If you don't have a Mac, you can bring along a Windows machine loaded with VirtualBox. This is because the SDK for the Pebble is Unix-based, and hence a native version of the SDK is not available for the Windows platform. As such, if you have a Windows machine, you will use VirtualBox to run Ubuntu (a version which I have prepared) and run the SDK on Ubuntu.

As for mobile device, you are required to bring along a mobile device (iOS devices strongly recommended). If you don't have an iOS device, you can also bring along your Android device. The reason for this is that the Pebble mobile app is currently in beta for Android, and it still has some minor issues in terms of stability. The Pebble mobile app for iOS, on the other hand, is already in the AppStore and is much more stable and reliable than its Android counterpart.

Hope to see you all at the Pebble course!

Announcing the details of the Pebble Programming course

I am super excited to announce the details of the first Pebble Programming course held in Singapore. Here is the synopsis of the course and the dates:

Pebble Watch included in course fee!

In this 2-day workshop, you will learn the fundamentals of programming the Pebble watch. You will learn the difference between a Watchapp and a WatchFace app, and how to develop compelling Watchapps and WatchFace apps that you can install onto your own Pebble Watch. You will also learn how to write iOS and Android apps that interact with your apps on the Pebble watch. 

Topics

Setting up the Pebble SDK

WatchApp vs. WatchFace apps

Hello, Pebble World!

A Quick Introduction to the C Programming Language

Anatomy of a Pebble App

    Header Files

    Static and global variables

    Metadata

    Windows

    Layers

    Initializing the UI of the app

    De-initializing the app

Building User Interfaces

    Event Handlers

    Click Handlers

    Timer Handlers

    Navigating Windows

    Simple Animations

Persisting Data

    Writing to persistent storage

    Reading from persistent storage

    Deleting a key from persistent storage

Using the Pebble Accelerometer

    Using the Accelerometer Service

    Registering for Tap events

Integrating with Mobile Apps

    Using the PebbleKit for iOS and Android

    Connecting to your Pebble

    Obtaining information on Pebble

    Communicating with a Pebble app

    Launching and Killing your Pebble app

    Sending and Receiving messages
Integrating with JavaScript
    How to get your Pebble App to communicate with your JavaScript code running on the Pebble Mobile App on your mobile device
    Passing messages from Pebble to JavaScript
    Passing messages from JavaScript to Pebble

    Launching configuration page to let users customize your Pebble app

What you need to bring for the course?

    a. Need to bring along a Mac for the course

    b. Bring along your iOS or Android device

Time and Dates

9am to 5pm:

* 6-7 Jan 2014 (Mon-Tue)

* 6-7 Feb 2014 (Thu-Fri)

* 10-11 Mar 2014 (Mon-Tue)

Fees

* S$1,295 (nett; no GST) 

* Course fee includes a Pebble Watch (US$150)

Venue

Bayview Hotel Singapore

30 Bencoolen Street 

Singapore 189621

Application Form

Download Application Form here.