SmartThings and a SmartWatch

Devices & Integrations Connected Things
1

So, Smartthings just tweeted this:

SmartThings ‏@smartthings
19m
@KraKsX We’re looking at you to help us out with a new integration project now that the new @Pebble SDK is out. :slight_smile: http://developer.getpebble.com/ 
Now, I’m curious what the idea with the Pebble and integration with SmartThings is about.  I can see three possible things:

  1. Pebble works as presence tag in some way.

  2. Pebble works as a method of displaying notifications.

  3. Pebble works as a simple interface.

The think I see here is that none of these really gain much for the end user.

First: the Pebble communicates via BT, which the ST Hub does not.  At least not yet.  So it can’t be a “presence tag” until it’s paired with a phone.  And the phone can already be used as a presence tag, so that doesn’t gain a user anything.  Eventually it might if newer hubs get BT.  But even then, how often are you going to leave and come back home with just your watch but not your phone?

Second: Displaying notifications doesn’t require much (if any) extra work.  The Pebble already displays emails and text messages.  Simple setup SmartThings to text you notifications and they will show up on the watch.

Third: Again, because the watch can’t communicate with SmartThings hub unless it’s paired with a phone, what benefit would a watch interface give?  First, the small screen on the watch makes it hard to have more than very limited information displayed.  And the user input method (up and down buttons, and select and back buttons) would make it time consuming to operate.  Again, given that your phone will have to be close anyway to make it work, why fiddle with your watch instead of grabbing your phone?

Please don’t misunderstand me here… Now, I’m not a Pebble fan, but I’m not a smartwatch hater.  I have a MetaWatch, which I think is superior to the Pebble for my needs.  But everything I just said about the Pebble applies 99% to the MetaWatch as well.  The only difference is that the Metawatch has a few more buttons.

I’m just wondering… am I missing something here?  Is there some SmartWatch/SmartThing interaction that I’m missing?

 

2

What I’d like to see is notification and control working together. Say a door opens when no one is home. I get a notification and if I don’t hit a button on the Pebble to “okay” the event within 30 seconds, the siren will go off. I guess it wouldn’t be a huge pain to pull the phone out, but for notifications that happen a lot and have to be responded to, it could reduce the annoyance factor enough to make it tolerable.

3

Because Pebble can display any phone notifications (at least for Android), then Pebble can display these notifications.

The true integration comes in when I can press a button on my Pebble to turn my lights on/off or have a certain mode set. This can be done by either working with Pebble for straight up integration, or creating a Tasker plug-in that can perform these actions as well. Then the watch can trigger Tasker to perform these events.

Either way, I hope to see this happen sometime soon. I would love to be able to control the lights with my watch.