Pebble Smartwatches Looking Better Than Ever with Latest Update

Pebble has been offering relatively affordable smartwatches for several years now — in fact, its original wearable, which debuted with huge success on the crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, is credited with making modern smartwatches popular.
While the company currently offers several different models with a variety of designs and features, all of them tend to fall short of the competition when it comes to a few key areas.

For one, all Pebble smartwatches feature e-paper displays. Some of the products — like the Pebble Time, Pebble Time Round and Pebble Time Steel — feature color e-paper displays, but none of them have touchscreens, which you'll find on the Apple Watch, Samsung Gear products and pretty much all other Android Wear devices.

The upside is that these watches offer much longer battery life, since they don't have an LCD or OLED screen sucking up energy.

One other area where Pebbles have been relatively lackluster is its fitness tracking capabilities. While the Pebble app store has long offered apps like RunKeeper for monitoring your workouts, and the latest watches do offer basic daily step and sleep tracking thanks to Pebble Health. But, thanks to a recent update, this functionality is expanding, moving this data beyond your watch face.
The News
As Pebble announced in a blog post on its site, it's updated Pebble Health to display activity data over time — not just for a given day — and it's added automatic tracking for runs and long walks, including instant watch notifications with a summary of your activity after completing a walk or run (along with more in-depth data on the smartphone app.

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Plus, users will now get "insights and encouragements" to help provide motivation.

More activity-tracking data is definitely a good thing — especially if you're looking to choose a smartwatch that can also function as a fitness tracker — but what's especially important about this update is that Pebble's integrating this information with its mobile apps for Android and iPhone.
Previously, you could only view your health data on your Pebble watch screen, and given the small size it's no wonder you weren't able to pore tons of stats. However, with Pebble Health integrated with the company's mobile apps, you'll be able to pull up your activity info on your smartphone and get a more comprehensive picture of how much you move. You'll be able to view your latest activity levels and compare them with your average, plus you can see stats like calories burned, step distance and active time.
That's not even all the news: In addition to updating its fitness tracking to display much more info in its smartphone apps, Pebble's adding a new Smart Alarms feature to its official Alarms app. This functionality appears to mimic fitness trackers that specialize in sleep monitoring and optimization by waking you up when you're in your "lightest sleep." This means that the monitor could go off as early as 30 minutes prior to your set wakeup time, based on where you are in your sleep cycle.
The last aspect of the update will only concern iPhone users, as Pebble owners with an Android phone have had access to these features for some time. The iOS Send Text app will now allow you to start a text conversation from your wrist, and you can choose from a pre-written (canned) response or use a voice note to interact with contacts. You'll also be able to reply to incoming calls with either a canned response or voice note. It's not exactly as advanced as taking a call on your smartwatch, but it's important functionality for those who want to use their wearable without constantly needing to take out their phone.
As for how to get these updates, you'll need to update the smartphone app (via the appropriate app store on your phone) as well as your Pebble smartwatch firmware. As you'll see once you complete this updates, the app interface has changed as well, moving to a four-tab layout divided between Health, Watchfaces, Apps and Notification.
Why This Update Is Important
First of all, it's important to note that the new Pebble Health features only apply to Pebble Time devices, so if you own an older Pebble watch, you won't be able to enjoy the fitness data. However, Pebble Health itself is only available for Pebble Time watches, so if you have an older watch from the company this is either irrelevant or an extra push to get you to upgrade. (The cheapest device with Pebble Health is the Pebble Time, which starts at $150.
So, assuming you do own a Pebble Time Series watch or are considering buying one, why does this update represent a big improvement? Well, it paints a much fuller picture of your activity and movement, going beyond simple summaries displayed on your wrist to show you data over a span of days, letting you compare your most recent activity to past workouts and more. This is essential if you want a smartwatch that can handle activity tracking as well as on-wrist notifications and other non-workout-related tasks. When Pebble Health only revealed a limited glimpse of your activity info on your watch screen, it was hard to convince yourself that these smartwatches could compete with an activity tracker from the likes of Fitbit or Jawbone. However, now that you can access much more data from your smartphone app, a Pebble Time smartwatch can likely handle your activity tracking needs — unless you're a professional athlete (like a swimmer) or have specific fitness-monitoring requirements.
The bottom line is that this update makes Pebble devices much more competitive with both other smartwatches and basic fitness trackers. It's especially great news for those who already own a compatible device, but if you're on the market for an affordable wearable, the Pebble Time Series is looking more appealing than ever before.

My iPhone Screen Won't Rotate. How Do I Fix It?

One of the really cool things about the iPhone and iPod touch is that the screen can reorient itself based on how you're holding the device. That is, if you turn your iPhone on its side the screen adjusts to display wide rather than tall.
But sometimes, when you rotate your iPhone or iPod touch, the screen doesn't rotate with it. This can be frustrating or make your device difficult to use.

There are a couple of reasons why this can happen.

Screen Rotation Could Be Locked

The iPhone includes a setting called screen rotation lock. As the name indicates, it prevents your iPhone or iPod touch from rotating its screen no matter how you turn the device.
To check whether screen rotation lock is turned on, look in the top right corner of the screen next to the battery indicator for an icon that looks like an arrow curving around a lock.

If you see that, rotation lock is turned on.

To turn rotation lock off, follow these steps:

1. In iOS 7 or higher, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to reveal Control Center. The icon at the far right—the lock and arrow icon—is highlighted to indicate that it's turned on
2. Tap that icon to turn off rotation lock
3. When you're done, press the home button or swipe down to close Control Center and you'll be back to your homescreen.

With that done, try rotating your iPhone again. The screen should rotate with you this time. If it doesn't, there's something else to consider.

Some Apps Can't Rotate

While many apps support screen rotation, not all of them do. The home screen on the most iPhone and iPod touch models can't rotate (though it can on the iPhone 6 Plus and 6S Plus) and some apps are designed to only work in one orientation.

If you turn your device and the screen doesn't reorient, check to see whether the orientation lock is enabled. If it's not enabled, the app probably is designed not to rotate.

Your Accelerometer Could Be Broken

If the app you're using definitely supports screen rotation and the orientation lock on your device is definitely off, but the screen still isn't rotating, there could be another problem.

A problem with your device's hardware.

The screen rotation feature is controlled by the accelerometer in the the device—a sensor that tracks the device's movement. If the accelerometer is broken, it won't be able to track movement and won't know when to rotate the screen. If you suspect a hardware problem with your phone, make an appointment at the Apple Store to have it checked out.

Screen Rotation Lock on the iPad

While the iPad runs the same operating system as the iPhone and iPod touch, its screen rotation works a little differently on some models. For one, the home screen on all models can rotate. For another, the setting is controlled a bit differently.
In the Settings app, tap General and you'll find a setting called Use Side Switch to: which lets you choose whether the small switch on the side above the volume buttons controls the mute feature or the rotation lock. That option is available on all iPad models except the iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4, and newer. On those models, use Control Center as described earlier in the article.

Extend Your iPhone Battery Life In Three Taps with Low Power Mode

Figuring out how to get the most life out of your iPhone battery is crucial. There are dozens of tips and tricks to achieve it, but if your battery is very low right now or you won't be able to charge for a long time, there's one simple thing you can do to conserve battery life: turn on Low Power Mode.
Low Power Mode is an aspect of iOS 9 that disables some features of the iPhone in order to make your battery last longer.

How Much Extra Time Does Low Power Mode Get You?

Because the amount of extra battery life Low Power Mode delivers is so dependent on how you use your iPhone, I can't say exactly how much time it will save you. According to Apple, though, the average person can expect to up to get an extra 3 hours of battery life with it on.

How to Turn On iPhone Low Power Mode

Sound like something you want to try? To turn Low Power Mode on:

1. Tap the Settings app to open it
2. Tap Battery
3. Move the Low Power Mode slider to On/green

To turn it off, just repeat these steps and move the slider of Off/white.
This isn't the only way to enable Low Power Mode, though. The iPhone gives you two other options:

• Siri—Just tell Siri "turn on Low Power Mode" (or a variation of that phrase) and she'll take care of it for you
• Pop-up Window—When your iPhone's battery life drops to 20%, and then again at 10%, the iOS gives you a pop-up warning. In that warning is a button that can turn on Low Power Mode. Tap it to start saving battery.

What Does Low Power Mode Turn Off?

Getting your battery to last longer sounds great, but you have to understand the trade offs you're making in order to know when it's the right choice for you.

• Processing power is reduced—The speed that the processor in the iPhone runs influences how much battery it uses. Low Power Mode controls the performance of the processor and the graphics chip in the phone to reduce the amount of battery it uses. This means your phone will be a little slower and might not perform as well in games and other graphics-intensive tasks

• Background app refresh is disabled—Your iPhone learns how you use your apps and automatically updates them around the times you usually open them to ensure that the latest data is always waiting for you. It's a cool feature, but it also requires battery life. Low Power Mode temporarily suspends this feature 
• Email fetch is turned off—The iPhone can be set to periodically grab new email from your accounts. Low Power Mode turns this feature off and forces you to manually check for new messages (open Mail and when you're in an inbox swipe down from the top to refresh) 
• Automatic downloads are disabled—You can set your iPhone to automatically download app updates or purchases made on other devices. It's great to keep your content in sync, but doing that requires power to check for downloads and perform them. Low Power Mode prevents automatic downloads while it's on
• Visual effects and animations are suspended—The iOS is packed full of all sorts of cool visual effects and animations. They make using the iPhone more fun, but they also require battery. By turning them off, Low Power Mode saves power
• Screen brightness is turned down—The brighter your phone's screen, the more battery you use. Low Power Mode reduces your screen brightness to save energy.

Can You Use Low Power Mode All the Time?

Given that Low Power Mode can give your iPhone up to 3 hours of extra battery life, and the features it turns off aren't completely essential to using the phone, some people may be wondering if it makes sense to use all the time. Well, you're not alone. Writer Matt Birchler tested that very scenario and found that Low Power Mode can reduce battery use by 33%-47% in some cases. That's a huge savings.
So, if you don't use the features listed above very much, or are willing to give them up for more juice in your battery, you could use Low Power Mode all the time.

When Low Power Mode Is Automatically Disabled

Even if you've turned on Low Power Mode, it's automatically turned off when the charge in your battery exceeds 80%.