Author Archives: John

Pebble Battery Life

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Given how random my Pebble’s battery life can be these days,I thought I would extract the battery level information from the logs they keep (tip: if you want to see these, just start the process to generate a support request but when the email editor opens change the recipient to your own address before sending).

The graph is quite telling:

That is a little over 6 days worth of data and clearly shows periods where the consumption is far faster than it should be to allow for several days of battery life. The last two days, I have had to charge the watch every night or risk having it run out mid way through the day (and I don’t want to carry the charging cable with me everywhere I go).

The most recent firmware was meant to address the crazy power consumption issue, but it looks from this chart as though their fix doesn’t change anything.

Pebble: Still Not Ready

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Sadly, I have to say the Pebble smart watch is still not ready for general use. There are still too many bugs in the firmware, and too many limitations for it to be acceptable to anyone outside of the early adopter crowd. Even a year after they initially shipped.

In the early days, the regular firmware updates seemed to improve things. Unfortunately, the most recent updates seem to have made things worse. 

Battery Issues

The new stainless steel watches were launched with version 2 firmware and the Pebble App Store all of which seemed great. Except that the battery life of the watch could suddenly drop from the several days normally achieved to just a few hours. And it could go from super efficient to super inefficient at any time. Given that battery life is one of their key advantages, this was a pretty serious regression. Something that should have been caught during testing.

The fixed firmware was released recently, but apparently it is still not really fixed. My watch took around 24 hours to drop from fully charged to 89% (that is pretty much the normal rate I have observed – around 10% a day).

2014-05-18 04:48:27:000 ttery_monitor.c:204 Batt state: 4224mV 99% hardware charging 0 plugged 0
2014-05-19 02:55:26:000 ttery_monitor.c:204 Batt state: 4095mV 90% hardware charging 0 plugged 0 
2014-05-19 03:00:26:000 ttery_monitor.c:204 Batt state: 4086mV 89% hardware charging 0 plugged 0 
2014-05-19 05:41:26:000 ttery_monitor.c:204 Batt state: 3994mV 79% hardware charging 0 plugged 0 
2014-05-19 08:19:26:000 ttery_monitor.c:204 Batt state: 3927mV 69% hardware charging 0 plugged 0 
2014-05-19 09:44:26:000 ttery_monitor.c:204 Batt state: 3869mV 59% hardware charging 0 plugged 0

But then look at what happened. The next 30% drop took less than 7 hours. And for most of that time I was asleep and very few notifications were being delivered (I get far more during the day when all my calendar event reminders are firing off).

Seems the issue with the battery is still not fixed. I have submitted the logs, but at this point I am losing confidence in Pebble’s ability to fix these serious firmware issues.

Audio Interference

For the longest time the audio quality I have experienced when using my car’s hands free telephone system has been terrible. Very occasionally it would be crystal clear, but most of the time it was crackly, sometimes to the point where I would need to hang up and redial in hopes of getting better quality. It never occurred to me that the cause of this noise was the Pebble. 

Last week though I was driving back home after going to pick up some paperwork and I was stuck in traffic listening to music from my phone connected via the car’s A2DP connection. This had always been good quality (further confusing me as to why the telephone audio should be so bad), but now it was experiencing periodic drop outs. Very short times in the music when there was silence, but easily noticeable. Since I was stuck in traffic, often not moving at all for several minutes, I had time to trace the cause.

Remembering that the Pebble had just updated its firmware, that was an obvious place to start. Turning off the Bluetooth on the watch didn’t impact anything immediately but right then the traffic moved, so I turned my attention back to the road; leaving the Pebble’s Bluetooth off. Perhaps 30 seconds or so after I switched it off, the dropouts stopped. The next time I stopped, I turned Bluetooth back on and sure enough the drop outs re-appeared. So now, the Pebble interferes with A2DP music streams (a clear, and serious regression).

Even more interesting, during one of the times I had Bluetooth off I received a call. It was crystal clear. More experimenting with that showed that the interference I had long put down to an incompatibility between my car and iPhone was in fact also being caused by the Pebble. That is not a regression in the latest firmware though; that has always been there.

Some searching online revealed a thread on their support forums describing the hands free audio interference that is happening in lots of cars. And yet the support response I got merely shrugged it off with the advice that I should disable Bluetooth on my watch when in the car & there was no way they could test all cars. Obviously, nobody would expect them to test all cars, but it doesn’t seem hard to find some that show the problem. And there is even a detailed post in that thread stating the problem can be reproduced on Bluetooth audio quality measurement test equipment:

The Voice Quality algorithm used for this test was ITU-T P.862.1 (PESQ). The scale for the PESQ algorithm is 1-5 (5 being perfect). For all tests, the iPhone is on ATT network whereas the far-end is Verizon PSTN. Each test consisted of 3 different calls, each call sending/recordng 4 voice files. After each test i averaged all PESQ scores.
The average score for iPhone5 without Pebble was 2.71. This is average for mobile to PSTN.
The average score for iPhone5 with Pebble was 1.36. This is considered extremely low.
The average score for iPhone4 without Pebble was 2.40. 
The average score for iPhone4 with Pebble was 1.22.

That makes it pretty clear that the Pebble is interfering with the audio quality on iOS devices at least. Again, this should really have been caught during testing.

Recommendation

At this point in time, if you asked me whether you should buy a Pebble I would have to say no. Not unless you are willing to live with pre-alpha quality software, potentially abysmal battery life, poor quality Bluetooth audio connections and relatively little support. When it is working well, the Pebble is a great smart watch, but the ongoing software quality issues are really letting it down right now.

United Accounting

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We recently called United Airlines to see if there was any way to get an award ticket that had been issued with a return via LA changed to one that was a direct flight since the traveller was a teenager who has never flown alone before & was not confident of changing planes in an unknown airport.

The representative we spoke with was very helpful, and said he had managed to move her return to the direct flight without it costing any more money or additional miles (something we had asked several times). He confirmed that the total number of miles needed for her round trip would still be 25,000. The same as the original booking with the plane change.

We also received a receipt confirming the booking, the direct flights and the cost (both the $5 fee and 25,000 miles) just as the representative had stated on the telephone. That receipt is still visible in the web portal too (I have blocked out all the personal info):

However, when we next happened to be logged in to the MileagePlus website, we noticed they had refunded the 25,000 miles for the original booking and debited 37,500 for the new itinerary – taking 50% more miles from the account than their customer service representative had stated, and 50% more than the receipt / confirmation they had issued for the booking stated the trip would cost:

Misunderstanding

OK, thinking it must have been a misunderstanding, we called, only to be told there was nothing they could do. It was a mistake they had corrected. You might expect somebody to call and confirm that deducting more miles was OK, or at least send an email. Or even issue a new receipt with the corrected amount. But, no. They did none of those things. They just took the extra miles, presumably hoping we wouldn’t notice? Also notice the activity doesn’t show the correction as a separate transaction – it seems to suggest that they actually deducted 37,500 at the same time they issued a receipt for just 25,000. I wonder if they are that lax with all their financials? If we’d been paying money for this, could they have just billed the credit card 50% more than they show on the receipt?

Anyway, I contacted the Twitter support team (having found that social media support groups are generally more responsive at other companies). They took all the info (over private DMs) and after a bit of back & forth, came back with this:

Sounds promising. At least they can see that the receipt still shows 25,000 and something is amiss. But then, 21 minutes later, they came back with this:

No explanation for the mismatch between the receipt and the amount debited from the account. Just a repeat of the statement that they can’t honor the receipt / confirmation they issued (and still show online). Wonder what would have happened if the miles were not there. Would they have called, or just quietly canceled the ticket and let us find that out at check in time?

Customer Service

Most companies, if they made a mistake like this would simply apologize and refund the difference. But not United it seems. They would prefer to upset a customer (and I should note that the customer who booked the flight in this case is a gold card holder who travels all over the world with United for work) over 12,500 miles.

Of course, you could argue that we are still getting a free flight, and the miles were in the account, but the miles in question were coming from another family member’s account as a favour & he only had 25,000 spare (the remainder being ‘reserved’ for a trip later in the year). Now we are left trying to sort this out; most likely we will just cancel the ticket entirely and see what other options there are. Ideally that would be on an airline that actually cares about their customers, and especially their most loyal ones, and doesn’t make promises they can’t keep. Can’t see myself trusting United again after this.

Successful People & Early Mornings

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I keep reading articles like this one on Entrepreneur.com today telling me all these things that successful people do before breakfast, or how successful people are up every day before the sun working etc, etc. But I am very definitely not a morning person! Waking up at 5am every day would, I am certain, shorten my life (and perhaps it is also shortening theirs).

Currently, the days when I am going in to the office start around 7:30am. My goal is to be out of the house at 8am and to walk to the ferry terminal (about 10-15 minutes walking). The 20 minute ride to San Francisco is mostly social time for me – chatting with the other regulars on the boat. My 30 minute BART ride from San Francisco down to San Bruno is my time to read emails and catch up on overnight Facebook, Twitter etc. My walk to the office is usually time for a phone call (yay for bluetooth headphones!), but it also gets me some more walking time.

A full day at the office, leaving at 5:30pm for the return commute (BART & ferry again most days, with the walk home) getting me home at 7pm. Dinner, some playtime and bedtime for the toddler takes a while. So by midnight I am just getting ready to start work on my personal apps business. My goal is 2-3 hours on that before getting to bed at 3am. Only manage that a couple of times a week these days though 🙁

After reading Timothy Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week and listening to a few podcasts in a similar vein (e.g. Solopreneur Hour), I am thinking that anybody working the sorts of hours these articles suggest is missing the point somewhat. I notice that a few did mention spending time with their families, but it didn’t seem like much time (45 minutes over breakfast, or some time in the evening).

If I could afford it, I would love to be at home all day with my kids; or, for the one in pre-school, be there to drop him off and pick him up every day. I guess success is measured in different ways. To me, not having to work for somebody else would be success enough!

FedEx Fails Again

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A package was shipped to me last week from Fremont, about an hour drive south, via FedEx using their saver rate. The tracking showed that it arrived at the Oakland depot late Friday, so I thought it might arrive with me today, but, no, the tracking insists that it won’t complete that last hop from their depot to my door until Wednesday:

This is something I believe is unique to FedEx. Certainly OnTrac, and I believe even UPS, will deliver a package as soon as they can once it reaches its destination facility. FedEx on the other hand chooses to sit on packages at the last stop until the “correct” delivery date. Or, in other words, they are going to make sure you don’t get a saver rate package in less than three days since you didn’t pay for next day or two day. Pathetic, and yet another reason why given a choice I will never use nor recommend FedEx.

What is even more annoying is that the last time they did this, they also ran out of time on the scheduled day (and that was for a guaranteed two day delivery as well) and failed to deliver on time. Hopefully this time they will at least manage to deliver on Wednesday. It looks as though noting will happen until then though.

Toddler Book: Roadwork

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On a recent trip to the bookshop our two year old picked out a book he really wanted to read, Roadwork by Sally Sutton.

Since taking it home it had become one of his favourites, often being the first book he’ll ask to read. He has also memorized many of the lines, including the sounds on each page.

If you’re looking for a book for a vehicle loving, especially construction vehicle loving, little boy or girl, this one gets top marks from our son.

Welcome Natalie

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Welcome to the world Natalie. Much like your brother before you, your arrival was not as uneventful as the doctors would have liked, but right now you have found a comfortable place alongside your mother, and you’re (both) resting peacefully.

Your mother has a few months head start on me in terms of getting to know you (you’ve been kicking her on and off for a while now), but we’ll remedy that over the next few weeks for sure. We started well already with you spending time with me while your mother recovered.

Eco Bulbs

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Over the weekend, the bulb that has lit our shower for the past 6+ years burned out. That started me on a mission to replace not just that one, but all the other incandescent bulbs in our bathrooms. The kid’s bathroom has a row of 40W globes, eight in total, over the sinks, and we spend at least half an hour every night in there with him getting him bathed and ready for bed.

The first catch though is that many of the standard looking LED replacement bulbs I found were not rated for damp areas. The second was that they often included a warning that they should not be used in fully enclosed fixtures. The shower one, as well as our closet ones, are all fully enclosed.

The Cree bulbs I ended up with are damp rated, and the only restriction on fully enclosed fixtures was that they not be mixed with other bulb types.

I ended up getting a mix of 40W and 60W equivalent bulbs, rated at 6W and 9.5W respectively, to replace most of the remaining incandescent bulbs in the house, including the eight globe lights. In terms of the light they give off, they seem every bit as bright as the bulbs they were replacing, and being LED they are bright immediately – none of the 30+ seconds of warm up time you get with CFLs.

The only noticeable difference, and it is the row of eight in the bathroom where this is most apparent, is that there is a dark patch at the top of the bulb. Doesn’t affect the amount of light in the room at all.

In the walk in closet and one bathroom, the builder had fitted double bulb units (with a pair of 60W bulbs in them). I was able to also leave one bulb out using the 60W equivalent, saving even more. Of course, I could have done that with the incandescent as well to halve the power consumption. Even with just the single bulb, there is more than enough light in the small rooms these are fitted in.

Although none of the ones I have installed were attached to dimmers, the bulbs do claim to be dimmable.

Daddy Eco-Tips #1

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One of the things I try to do is to be as light on the planet as possible, although it doesn’t always work out as well as I’d hoped (don’t ask me about nappies/diapers). A few things have worked out pretty well, so I thought I’d share those occasionally on here. First up, Green Toys…

Our little boy took a liking to cars, buses and trucks very early on. Initially the small Hot Wheels size cars were all he was interested in, but more recently he has been playing with some of his larger toy vehicles. School buses were a early favorite as were garbage trucks, the latter being a weekly attraction at home that he had to go and see when they came to empty the bins.

So, those two vehicles were natural choices for his first two bigger toy vehicles. The Green Toys school bus was the first we bought and we were impressed by how durable it was. Our 2 year old is not gentle on toys (currently crashing them is a favorite way to play cars), but the bus stands up to the abuse very well. 

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Déco Screws

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Hanging pictures is one of those tasks that I always enjoy afterwards, but find annoying to do. Especially when the frames or canvas prints come with those strange gripper bars in the top center rather than more conventional wire or eyelets. Then there is messing around trying to get the hooks nailed in to the wall at the right angle so that they actually stay in the wall.

Today though I discovered a great product that makes things much simpler: Déco Screws. Simply screw them in to the wall and they can support up to 30 lbs (according the box – none of my picture frames are anywhere near that weight!). They work with the funny gripper bars (and remain invisible, unlike hooks which you can see over the top of the frame), eyelets and, of course, conventional wire.

I notice on their website they also have another product, Déco Nails, but the reviews on Amazon suggest these are not so good, so I will be sticking with the screw version.