See, that's the thing. I like the Pebbles. I like where that product line is going. I think they're maybe the only one of two product lines going in the right direction (and the other of the two isn't Google Wear or iWatch).

However, every single goddamned service provider out there just ignores them as if it's just some silly geek toy. No one wants to do first party support on them for apps. Now, I'm not saying there isn't quite a few high profile service providers, but it seems to be all the wrong ones:

* Yelp: Why? Yelp on my phone exists to upload photos to help local businesses (I'm doing my part!), I can't imagine I'm going to need Yelp on my watch

* Runkeeper: sure, but if I'm running without my phone, I'd want something that does its own GPS like Garmin's stuff; and not only that, Runkeeper, the company, is starting to veer into hyper-annoying "please upgrade" messages all the time, so I'm going to personally going to drop them and switch to Strava or Runtastic or w/e

* Evernote: I don't see the point of this either, sometimes even using it on my phone is just too small of an interface to do anything but read. Plus, I'm switching to OneNote for the better desktop AND phone experience (and it has Google Wear and I think MS Band support now) (and OneNote on a phone seems usable for both read and write, unlike Evernote)

* A bunch of radio and music services I don't subscribe to: Google Music is the defacto service on Android, iTunes on iOS. I don't expect iTunes support (hell, Apple tried to ban apps that offer Pebble support because Pebble competes with the iWatch), but I expect Google Music support, and if not that, Plex support. Give me something that already has access to my personal music library.

* Uber: Generally, Uber drivers want to call you, thus you generally need to whip out your phone anyways. I'm not sure if Pebble has a Lyft app too, but my experiences with Lyft have been better (because Lyft treats their drivers better), and what I said also applies to Lyft, in my experience.
* Todo systems that aren't Todoist: Sorry, Todoist is probably the least idiotic system out there, without that, well, I just won't be doing task management on a watch then.

What damns them in the end, even given the weird selection of app partners they advertise on the Pebble website? The lack of a full sensor suite.

Now, all of that said, if apps aren't going to be the ones I'd want to use (because literally everyone has this problem, every single watch ecosystem, there's always that one app/service you use and it just isn't on the watch you're looking at, every single person has this problem right now), and Pebble's app experience in general seems to be not quite what I want either...

I'd like to remind people that the Microsoft Band 2 exists. If I had to be forced to buy a smart watch today, that'd be that one. However, it damns itself on the lack of battery life and the lack of sufficient water resistance, but it has the physical size and weight and user experience all figured out perfectly, and it has partnered with all the major service providers like Google and Apple have for their ecosystems.

So, yeah, personally, I feel smart watches just aren't there yet. If battery tech keeps getting denser and denser at the rate it is now, I suspect in about 5 years I'll get the watch I want, either from Pebble or Microsoft Band (and I feel both of those product lines will still exist then, too; neither of them feel like they're going to get Google Glassed anytime soon).