Ionic and Pebble users

[Vinab]

Just received news about Ionic: great product, steep price but maybe worthwhile. However:

- for all of us Fitbit AND Pebble users (both wrists involved), please give us some specific news.

- will Ionic provide us with smartphone app (e.g. Whatsapp/Tele/Gmail/Phone...) NATIVE support? I.e. not having to load multiple buggy watch apps from third parties and set/sync them separately?

- please give us REAL notifications at the Pebble grade, now that you bought them out.

[SunsetRunner]

I read in the Engadget article the following, which gives comfort on the notifications side:

You'll get notifications from your phone for calls, messages and basically any app that can push alerts. I activated those from Gmail, Slack and Hangouts, and they all came through during my testing. Like most smartwatches, the Ionic would vibrate briefly when it received a message, and a preview would pop up on the screen for a few seconds after I lifted my arm.

[Vinab]

Well, thanks: I found the Endgadget hands-on article. It sounds quite interesting and favourable, and it does refer to the experience gained by Fitbit from the Pebble acquisition.

So notifications seem to come thru nicely: however, something that is NOT in the text of the post and briefly and quickly mentioned in the 7-min video, is that it is NOT possible to reply to messages, as it was with Pebble. Let me recall that Pebble was [well, is, as far as it will go..] able to reply with canned messages (emoji, yes/no, ok, coming...). Very handy if you are driving a car or motorcycle, very discreet in a meeting...

I never, ever got to use the more sophisticated voice reply that Pebble introduced later, anyway. Now, I can't believe a quick reply to messages would be impossible. I hope I misunderstood and am wrong. This would be a very fundamental feature.

[SunsetRunner]

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@Vinab wrote:

Let me recall that Pebble was [well, is, as far as it will go..] able to reply with canned messages (emoji, yes/no, ok, coming...). Very handy if you are driving a car or motorcycle

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Of course, in the U.K. at least, that would be illegal. 

[Vinab]

oh well I meant you can glance when you are stuck in traffic; or you might be in another country 🙂

Nobody can beat the discreet reply in meetings, though...

No other Pebble users around?

[Breezygirl8]

I agree with Vinab, for the high price point the Ionic should have ways to respond to messages..... For that price point I'd rather get an Apple Watch. 

[nevraw]

I tend to use voice replies on my Pebble Time, but do use the my preset reply messages on my Pebble Steel when I wear that.  Definitely needed on the Ionic.

[Taggs]

Just got Ionic for Xmas, fully anticipating Pebble's software prowess combined with Fitbit's hardware wizardry.

Errr, no.

Decent hardware (great battery life!), but software is crap. 

Where's the timeline, with appointments?

Where's the external bluetooth music control?

Where are the steps and sleep trend graphs?

Where are the control options for incoming notifications (canned replies, or even voice replies)?

I find myself tapping the screen to see if the expected additional options are there.

How could you buy such a great little business as Pebble and fail to exploit any of the benefits of that user interface?? I'm not saying mimic it completely - it has its own flaws - but surely at least an improvement on it?

Maybe even just provide us an option to install that OS on this device, blocky low-res and all...? That would be better than this crap.

[Vinab]

Exactly what I thought. Please Fitbit call again when you get this straight. Until then, I 'll keep my Pebble Time on the left wrist, and my Flex2 on the right one.