SmartWatch showdown – Pebble .vs. the rest
Picture of a wristwatch band, showing in detail the locking mechanism (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Pebble, a company and SmartWatch brand started by Eric Migicovsky in 2012, set the standard for SmartWatches and in many ways single-handedly ignited an entire SmartWatch industry, totally separated (yet later tightly integrated) to the Fitness Band & Activity Tracker craze which was separately growing. Each of these types of products fall within the broader Wearables market, and often get lumped in with a plethora of other devices which are all considered to be part of the “Internet of Things (IoT)”. The goal of a SmartWatch product (other than generating sales and profits for its company) in many cases, is thus to be capable of acting as a “control platform” for the IoT. There is much promise in being able to be more productive and manage one’s digital lifestyle, without being one of the so-called “SmartPhone zombies” who are constantly staring down at their smartphones rather than interacting with the people and world around them.
As a device, the SmartWatch promises to maintain the level of “constant connectivity” society, work and family/friends have come to expect of one another somehow in this crazy hyper-digital modern era, yet teases at the possibilities of a little relief in manageability and having information available but only taking out your phone to “dig in further” when absolutely necessary. In short, it makes it that much easier to ignore the constant buzzing, vibrating, bell chiming & ringing of SmartPhones as they receive Message Center Notifications, SMS texts, IMs, Chats, Emails, Calendar event updates, Video conferencing sessions (Facetimes/Hangouts/Skypes), and yes how quaint, even still occasionally Phone calls. At a glance you receive notifications pushed over to the watch from the phone via Bluetooth and can see at a quick glance without taking out your phone whether a given piece of distraction is truly worth your time or not at a given moment. Time is valuable, and watches not only help you be more timely but when they are smart they help you manage your entire life better as well. It also helps simplify keeping track of your physical activity (if you’re into that sort of thing) without needing a myriad of other wearable fitness gadgets. Let’s take a look at how the various options stack up, premising it with the following graphic which represents the “Hollywood-fueled” somewhat unrealistic dream of what a SmartWatch can do for you:
Raspberry PI – Alexa PI experiment
Turn your Raspberry PI into a fully functioning Alexa (either by literally calling Amazon’s Alexa APIs, or, calling a variety of services in specialized areas as a stand-in).
Raspberry PI 2 – Python controlled circuits Button & LED experiments
RaspberryPI digital clock/counter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So the last set of experiments definitely piqued my interest in the Raspberry PI platform and its capabilities to measure, control and otherwise interact with the physical world. In reality though, all I’ve done is play with some cheap hobbyist parts that could be picked up at any electronics shop. Still circling around the true capabilities of the PI, I realize I now need to connect the hardware capabilities to the software for creating a proper controller or event-driven system. Afterall, the hardware is where the “Things” aspect of the “Internet of Things” comes in to play and the software is what potentially reaches out to the “Internet” to connect multiple distributed devices or call out to cloud services for message relay between systems, analytics or additional intelligence.
As with the last article I sifted through the web resources out there to try to find the most relevan ones. The following videos show you how to extend the basic Breadboard/Circuit knowledge with the use of logic gates to do “code-on-chip” types of behaviors where your board/circuit can add a bit more intelligence to its basic input/output capabilities, how to safely extend the basic components with real-world sensors, and how to connect directly to the Raspberry PI as a power source via GPIO ribbon cable to control physical electronics experiments with code:
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BC$ = Behavior, Content, Money
The goal of the BC$ project is to raise awareness and make changes with respect to the three pillars of information freedom - Behavior (pursuit of interests and passions), Content (sharing/exchanging ideas in various formats), Money (fairness and accessibility) - bringing to light the fact that:
1. We regularly hand over our browser histories, search histories and daily online activities to companies that want our money, or, to benefit from our use of their services with lucrative ad deals or sales of personal information.
2. We create and/or consume interesting content on their services, but we aren't adequately rewarded for our creative efforts or loyalty.
3. We pay money to be connected online (and possibly also over mobile), yet we lose both time and money by allowing companies to market to us with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant product offers and unfairly structured service pricing plans.