Washington DC area commuters and visitors now have access to public transit arrival times for both bus and rail at the flick of a wrist on your Pebble.
Choosing the stops:
You use the configuration screen to define up to 8 favorite stops. If you’re near a bus stop sign, enter the stop number printed on it. If you’re far away, you can look up the stop number using a link on the configuration screen or by going to the website mentioned below. My WMATA also lets you pick a rail station name and fills in the stop number for you.
Choosing the stops in the configuration screen:
1. Choose which of 8 stops you want to set up.
2. If you want a Rail stop, choose the station from the second popup. The stop number is automatically filled in.
3. If you’re near a bus stop sign, enter the stop number printed on it. If you’re far away, you can look up the stop number on the website mentioned below.
4. Enter a name and subtitle for the stop. See suggestions below.
5. Repeat for up to 8 favorite stops.
Looking up stop numbers in advance:
For the Metropolitan Washington DC area WMATA: wmata.com
Naming the stops:
Pick a useful title and subtitle for your stop. I like to change the name to something I recognize like, To Work, From Work, To the Gym, From Downtown, From the airport, etc.
Getting arrival times:
I like to switch to My Bus shortly before I need it. Use the up and down buttons, then select the stop you are interested in. You don’t need to refresh the screen. That’s done automatically. An update is fetched every minute because the data returned is only accurate to the minute.
Problems:
When starting the watch app, it may say, “Open the Pebble App” or after a while “Updating Arrival Time” won’t go away after a second or two. Although the Pebble App is designed to keep running in the background, if you’re a heavy phone app user during the day or checking your social media while waiting at the stop, it may kick out the Pebble App when you download that cute kitten photo. No, worries, just switch back to the Pebble App for a moment, and the updates will resume.
If the time shows as “--“ it could mean one of several things: The route is not running at the moment, or the service is down.
Prediction accuracy can change. The GPS on the bus may work, but the radio transmitter announcing the position to the world may not. NextBus falls back to reporting the scheduled bus departure. This can cause you to miss a bus if the driver arrives early or you may have to wait longer for a late bus to arrive. Meanwhile, you’ll see updates for the bus behind the late bus.
Please report any problems using the Contact Me link on the right.