Good news for Pebble owners this afternoon. The company just posted an update for the smartwatch’s companion iPhone app that adds support for incoming email push notifications, meaning you can get alerts on your Pebble watch when new emails arrive.
The app has to be running in the background of your iPhone for it to work, and it’s only compatible with Gmail and other IMAP email services. But the feature should get substantially more functionality when iOS 7 is released, as it has better accessory support…
Here are your release notes for version 1.2 (via 9to5Mac):
“With the release of Pebble’s iOS app version 1.2, iOS users are now able to receive email notifications to their Pebbles. Please note that your Pebble app must be running (at least in the background) in order for the notifications to come through.
Once it has been successfully set up, you will see the account listed on the Email Notifications page. A blue bar means that the account is active. If you would like to temporarily disable the notifications, simply tap the bar once to turn them off; it will appear grey when the notifications are disabled.
Tap the bar again when you wish to re-enable the notifications.”
If you need help setting up, check out Pebble’s support page.
Pebble essentially single-handedly kickstarted (pun intended?) the smartwatch craze when it raised a record-breaking $12 million in funds from Kickstarter. Now Apple, Samsung, Google and pretty much every other major tech firm is said to be building one.
To date, Pebble says it has received over 190,000 pre-orders since Kickstarter, and nearly 300,000 sales altogether. Not bad. At any rate, if you own one of the smartwatches yourself, you’ll want to grab this update. You can find it in the App Store, for free.