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Pebble 2.5 firmware lands w/ support for Emoji, new Compass app, iOS 8 notification dismissal, more

Pebble has launched version 2.5 of its smartwatch firmware, packing a bunch of great new features—including some interesting new abilities for users who have recently upgraded to iOS 8. Notably, the update now allows iOS users to dismiss notifications by clicking the X button to dismiss one, and holding it down to dismiss all. Pebble also says that the app should stay live in the background more often on iOS, but the company says that users should make sure not to disable “Smartwatch Proximity.”

Additionally, the company says that the firmware brings the ability for the Pebble and Pebble Steel smartwatches to display Emoji, replacing the previous small white boxes that are all too familiar across platforms without Emoji support. And to round off the most interesting new features, the company is launching the Compass app that they promised long ago, which can be picked up on the Pebble appstore. I definitely recommend this one; I’ve tried it out and I’m quite impressed with how fluid the app is.

The smartwatch should have improved Bluetooth and notification reliability compared to previous firmware versions, and Pebble says that 2.5 also fixes a plethora of bugs.

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Comments

  1. TechSHIZZLE.com - 10 years ago

    Too bad it doesn’t fix the lines going through the display on my original Kickstarter Pebble.

  2. Eli Matar - 10 years ago

    They they call the Apple watch ugly.

  3. How funny. I decided to buy a Pebble to void taking a 5.5″ phone out of my pocket every few min. I just want notifications on my wrist. Been using it now for about 5 hours, and pretty disappointed in its features, but mostly in that it will not display all notifications. I use WhatsApp a lot as I coach a team of entrepreneurs and we stay in touch this way, but it only sends the 2nd notification from WhatsApp, not the first. Well that’s not going to work. I guess I’ll update to 2.5 even though i just updated it to 2.4.1 a few hours ago right out of the box.

    • Alonso Fernández - 10 years ago

      that’s strange I use my Pebble and Whatsapp and get all of the notifications without a hitch.

    • Ronnie Yip - 10 years ago

      I use a third party app “Notification Center for Pebble:

      https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.matejdro.pebblenotificationcenter&hl=en

      Sure, it takes up 1 of the 8 slots, but it is highly customizable. Also, the notifications from the default Android email app actually shows the messages, instead of just showing “new emails received.”

    • rdlee632 - 10 years ago

      I think that might be an iOS issue, not a Pebble issue. If you jailbreak your phone and install BTNotificationEnabler, you can see any notification that can be displayed on the lock screen of your phone.

  4. Jim Lambeth - 10 years ago

    Any idea if iOS 8 will allow SmartWatch+ to used canned SMS responses …without jailbreaking the phone?

  5. ismaelc - 10 years ago

    Shot a short video of the compass app in action – Pebble’s Compass app: http://youtu.be/vVozBa_oTN0

Author

Avatar for Stephen Hall Stephen Hall

Stephen is Growth Director at 9to5. If you want to get in touch, follow me on Twitter. Or, email at stephen (at) 9to5mac (dot) com, or an encrypted email at hallstephenj (at) protonmail (dot) com.