About a week ago I received a Pebble watch from a kickstarter that I backed over a year ago. Now that I have had adequate time to familiarize myself with said watch, I am eager to write a review about it.
I do not think that there is a watch currently out that gives consumers the functionality that the Pebble gives. A basic overview, the Pebble is a smart watch that connects to your Android or iPhone through bluetooth. Once it is connected, an app installed on our phone can push text, email, calls, and other items that your phone receives to your watch. The watch has a backlight that is activated through a button press or a shake of your wrist. Its display is a smart e-paper display and has a battery that is supposed to last 5-7 days. The Pebble I have is the black edition. The Pebble excels in some aspects but also has its draw backs.
The Body:
The Pebble is like any other watch in how it is made up. There is a strap for your wrist. The strap is rubbery but feels sturdy. Many people are not fond of the strap and bought another strap to attach to the watch instead. I do not mind the strap as it feels reliable and is functional. The clasp that secures the watch around your wrist is a stainless steel and fits well with the strap.
The actual watch that holds the computer chip, battery, display, etc. seems a bit plastic-y. It feels a bit cheap. That being said, it is very thin, especially regarding that it is a smart watch. I do not think it is any thicker than the other watches I own. There is a plastic back that serves as the actual part that touches your wrist. Even though it feels and looks a bit cheap, it serves as a good material to touch your wrist since it does not irritate it. The top is all glass that is bent over to form a curved surface. In the past week, the glass has not scratched for me and does not seem to smudge that badly. There is a noticeable seem where the plastic bottom connects with the top.
Finally, there are the buttons. There are four buttons, three on the right side and one on the left. The buttons can be hard to push at times. They start to irritate your fingers if you continually press them if you are playing a game. Other than that, they are functional.
The Display:
The display is a smart memory LCD screen. This is an e-paper very similar to what you find on a kindle, but much more snappy. I do not see any screen refresh lag when I try to change the watch state as I would in a kindle. 144×168 pixels, the pixels can be seen sometimes in curved images. Though I sometimes wish that the screen would display in color, I also find no need for it, given the current functionality of the watch. The benefit of this screen is it allows for a longer battery life.
The Battery for the Watch:
The screen allows the watch to have minimum battery consumption. Pebble said that the battery should last 5-7 days. I have only had the watch for the week, and after a full charge when I received it, I have had to charge the battery once, about 4 days in. As I am currently writing this, a week and a half since I received the watch, I have not needed to recharge the watch again. The charger is very neat. Since this is a waterproof watch, the charger is similar to the macbook charger currently. There are two magnets that hold the two metal connectors to the magnetic charger. I have only charged the watch once and had no problems, but have not charged it enough to see if the charging mechanism is durable.
The Battery for the Phone:
Right now the Pebble uses bluetooth 2.1. This means there is a higher power consumption for your phone. I have noticed that my battery hits the 20% range about a half an hour earlier than it normally does, but my phone can still last most of the day. My phone battery is about 2 years old and is not the strongest. It is important to keep in mind that the Pebble allows you to be automatically notified when you receive a text/call, so you end up checking your phone less. This saves your phone’s battery in that aspect. The Pebble has bluetooth 4.0LE support and will be implemented later once the software is further updated. This bluetooth will consume less power from your phone.
The Software:
The operating system is a custom made system made by the Pebble developers. It navigates the operating system, you use the three buttons on the left to scroll and select, and the button on the right for a back button. All of the options are based on lists and the watches are organized though lists. This makes navigating the watch rather clunky and sometimes tedious, especially considering that the buttons can be resistant to press.
There is the ability to set your watch face to a stock watch face or a user-made watch face. The faces are managed on an app in your phone. For the most part, this is easy to do. There is even a website that allows users to download watch faces through a QR code. The strength in Pebble is the community support for the watch face development. Some of the watch faces are very unique and would only work with a Pebble. Along with watch faces, there have been a limited amount of games such as snake and pebblis (tetris) available which are convient for boring large groups. All of this has been made with a limited SDK. Currently, the official SDK has not been released yet but is slated to be released in the future. The new SDK will include many more features for developers to use, adding to the functionality of the Pebble.
The final, and most useful function is the notifications your watch can receive from your phone. Out of the box, you can set up the Pebble to receive notification from your text messages, emails, phone calls, Whatsapp, calendar, Google Talk, and Facebook. For my Android phone, I have not had an issue with the notifications. I cannot say how it works with iPhones. An additional function to the Androids is the feature that allows you to download a separate 3rd party app (Pebble Notifier) to your phone. This allows you to also push notification to your Pebble from apps on your phone that you select. This allowed me to get score updates, Groupme updates, and updates for other apps. Without this functionality, I do not know if the pebble is worth the money.
Conclusion:
Though the setbacks with shipping and production defects within the watches. My watch was fine. I found that the Pebble addressed an issue within the smartphone market that has not been addressed. It is a good idea too. Companies like Sampsung, Apple, and Google all have similar smartwatch ideas in development. Pebble serves as a pioneer to what I think will be a forecast to the new functionality within the smartphone market. The question lies on if you’re willing to spend money on this product to become an early adapter. Is this product useful and functional in its current state for Android users? Yes. From here I only think it will get better. A lot of the issues are within the software, which can be fixed in the future, compared to the hardware which is, while cheap, functional.
