Earthquake!

Inspiration

I develop websites about earthquakes for UCSB Earth Research Institute. My job inspired me to make a Pebble Watch app to show the most recent earthquakes within California.

How it works

Pebble.js SDK + Pebble iOS app + JavaScript + Earthquake Seismology API-> Earthquake!!

Earthquake Source:

Earthquake Seismology API, which updates every 60 minutes

Process

Javascript running on iPhone requests earthquake data though Earthquake Seismology API, parses the returned results, and display on Pebble Watch.

Challenges I ran into

Pebble.js is under active development, so I met two bugs that were from the SDK itself and costed me a few hours to debug.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

• Finished the app implementation
• The app updates every 5 minutes.
• The app shows distance from user to the earthquake source

What I learned

• How Pebble Watch works
• Markdown
• Calculation of the distance between two coordinates

What's next for Earthquake!! -- Pebble Watch Earthquake Feed App

A companion iOS/Android app, along with the Apple push notification service can make this app a "real-time" (5-minute accuracy) earthquake notifier even when this app is not running in foreground.