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Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Pebble E-paper Watch Display Problems

Last year, on April 27, I wrote a review of the Pebble E-paper Watch that I got through their Kickstarter project. You can read that posting here.

Since that time, there have been a few firmware updates, all providing additional features and functionality. I love this watch, up to now.

In December, I clicked a button to get into the settings and the settings menu had a little bit of display corruption. It cleared up quickly simply by backing out of the menu and going back in.

Sadly, it was not the last time it happened.

Since then, it has also occurred for various notifications, as well as the default watch faces.

Option, Settings, Display menu.
Settings menu.


Options menu.

A default watch face?

Another default watch face.

Notifications.

Default watch face immediately after turning
the watch on, I think.

A Google search brings up quite a few hits from others experiencing the same problem. Oddly enough, most of them appear to have occurred after the last firmware update. I concur.

From what I've read, the only solution is to contact their support, provide requested photos indicating the corruption to get an RMA, and get the watch replaced.

I contacted their support, via the iPhone app as someone suggestion, on January 1, 2014. To date, I am still waiting for a reply. I did get an automated reply the same day, telling me that someone would be contacting me "soon".  I guess their idea of "soon" is a little different.

I should note that the display corrupt does clear up after a few button presses, and the watch face remains clean for the most part, so it's not entirely useless — it's just very annoying.

Coincidentally, Pebble has recently announce their "Pebble Steel" for $249. The firmware update that will accompany it looks pretty sweet, but until these display issues are resolved I'm not interested.

This last photo is kinda funny... they tout the original Pebble as having a "scratch resistant lens". Click the photo and you'll see exactly how scratch resistant it is. :)

The scratch resistant lens after normal
daily wear.
An update can be found here.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

A new year, but more of the same...

This is the mandatory new year blog posting, where I post everything I'd like to accomplish in the coming year.

That list isn't much different than past years.

  • Lose weight — Maybe this will finally be the year I hit 199lbs? Might be a tough one, considering I put on extra weight over Christmas. I was supposed to lose weight since my last annual physical exam to get my cholesterol back down. I failed. But so far this year, I've been pretty active, and returned to riding my bike on the trainer in the basement, despite how boring it is. I've had more shoulder issues since the summer as well, but with my "good" shoulder. It's only begun to feel a little better in the last week, but the mobility is only about 50%. I'm afraid to try the Nike Kinect again since the pulled calf muscle incident.
  • Pick up my camera more often — I've felt very uninspired in the last year or so. As much as I love photography, and the challenge of getting that one awesome shot, I don't feel the same inspiration as past years. I'm not sure how much that will change while it's still winter, but we'll see what happens when spring rolls around.
  • More cycling — Last year I rode my bike to work often. I hope to do that again this year.
  • Continue to brew beer — And learn more about it. I got a couple of books for Christmas.
There we go. One boring blog post.