Hello there,

I just came across the inPulse watch and am quite interested. I have a couple questions though, before I take the plunge.

On the bluetooth connectivity, how many devices can it be paired with? I.e. can I pair it with both my home computer and my office computer, so that when at home it is automatically able to receive data from the home computer, and when I get to work it can automatically receive data from my work computer? I ask because I've seen some devices that can only handle being paired with one thing, in which case it would be fairly useless -- i.e. set up & pair it at the office at 9am then get home that evening and set up & pair it to the home computer at 5pm, then repeat that every day. I'm hoping it can handle being paired with at least 2 or 3 devices.

Also bluetooth - what sort of device does it register as? Type, services... that sort of thing?

Hacking - is there any potential for hardware hacking it inside? The prospect of a single hardware button strikes me as very, very limiting. How about an accelerometer? UART? Adding sensors?

Shipping - where does it ship from? I'm curious, in regard with budgeting for customs fees etc. (I'm in Canada.)

Thanks!

I have had the privilege to hack on one of these watches for the past couple of weeks... its pretty cool...

The watch does not register itself as any service... it uses L2CAP which is like a raw socket... And then there is a defined protocol of commands for higher level things like notifications.

If you wanted to do UART you would do it with another device, that has bluetooth... (or a ttl->bluetooth device of sorts).

it does not need to be paired. it handles anything sent to its mac address and port.

as for everything else... maybe if you had really tiny hands...

>> I pair it with both my home computer and my office computer, so that when at home it is automatically able to receive data from the home computer, and when I get to work it can automatically receive data from my work computer?

Yes you can. It can only be only be connected to a single device at a time, but the transition between connections to different devices is quite smooth.

>> Hardware hacking?
We're not officially going to support hardware hacking (i.e., if you start soldering stuff to it you've voided the warranty) but we're hardware hackers ourselves, so would love to see some creative use cases!

>> Shipping to Canada
Shipped from California. In our experience, no customs fees to Canada.

@jkatzer
The watch support pairing. Some smart phones require the device to be paired before it can be used.

Thanks for the info!

Just a couple more questions came to mind...

• Does it include the charging cable? (whats "in the box" when you order?)
• Can you use it while it's charging? Obviously inconvenient on your wrist but sitting on the desk or whatever, is it still functional while charging?
• How are firmware updates handled? i.e. if a bunch of few features are added next month, can we download a new firmware and write it to the watch over bluetooth or through usb etc?
• Is the firmware available? (also Is it open source?)
• In the sdk, can we access the battery level? I looked through the examples but maybe I missed that.
• On the same line of thinking, how about the bluetooth status? signal strength?

Cheers!

>>Does it include the charging cable? (whats "in the box" when you order?)
Yes!

>>Can you use it while it's charging? Obviously inconvenient on your wrist but sitting on the desk or whatever, is it still functional while charging?
Yes!

>>How are firmware updates handled? i.e. if a bunch of few features are added next month, can we download a new firmware and write it to the watch over bluetooth or through usb etc?
Exactly, all updates can be downloaded over Bluetooth.

>>Is the firmware available? (also Is it open source?)
yes, www.getinpulse.com/guide

>>In the sdk, can we access the battery level? I looked through the examples but maybe I missed that.
On the same line of thinking, how about the bluetooth status? signal strength?
Not at the moment, but this is a good suggestion.

>>Is the firmware available? (also Is it open source?)
yes, http://www.getinpulse.com/guide

Thanks Eric! That page you linked to has links to the SDK and example app code, but I don't see the firmware there. By firmware, I'm talking about the actual OS on the watch, not the apps.

Eg. if I want to go ahead and implement the battery level or bluetooth rssi, as it's not available through the API at the moment can I hack the firmware of the watch itself?

Cheers!

As of now the watch os itself is not open source. We'll be listening to the developer community as we make those kinds of decisions going forward.

Bluetooth status is exposed, but not RSSI. The API will evolve with developer needs. What is exposed now is what I would call the bare minimum to make feature-rich apps, but if you need advanced functionality we're here to work with you to create neat stuff.

We genuinely want to see the platform used to its full potential.

Thanks for the clarification Jon! Can you confirm though, that it is firmware upgradable - and if that's done via bluetooth or usb etc?

I found the bluetooth status (and battery charging status) functions in the pulse_types.h header, that's cool. I would love to see some more of the hardware layer exposed, esp. battery charge state (either in mV or as a percentage) and more of the bluetooth connection info (eg. rssi and even the 'friendly name' of the connected device, etc).

I've placed my order today by the way (just so you know I'm not just tire-kicking hehe) so I'm quite looking forward to getting into it.

>> I've placed my order today by the way
Glad to hear it!

Most of what you've asked for is pretty easy for us to expose. I'll add the requests to our issue/feature tracker.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with the watch!