Pebble Smartwatch Review

What is a smart watch?

We have heard for a while about this little device and the growing interest that many people have shown, but what is a smartwatch and what does it do?

Well, a smartwatch looks like a normal wristwatch but, in addition to displaying the exact time, it comes with “smart” capabilities. You will need to connect it to a smartphone or tablet to access the smart features.

Some have called them a complement to the smartest devices.

What can a smart watch do?

Smart watches come with various settings and applications, but the most common features are the ability to read emails, text messages, take pictures, act as a GPS, and much more. (Note: At this time, the Pebble company has implemented around 5500 applications for its smartwatch.)

To access the applications of other smart devices, smart watches usually connect via Bluetooth.

Note: Some smartwatches may not connect to all smartphones and others may lack compatibility with various operating systems (not all are compatible with iOS and Android).

Why do I need a smart watch?

If you don’t like checking your phone every 5 minutes and you fancy the idea that your watch can alert you when you receive emails, keep up with important news, check your social feed, or other important services that you may be subscribed to, then the Smartwatch is the perfect device for you.

Basically, you will be much less distracted than you would be when checking a smartphone, you will not be interrupted in your work and when an important notification arrives, you will know it. In addition to all this, smart watches are widely used for their fitness applications.

Apps like RunKeeper will monitor your heart rate, count steps, measure your stress level, and how many calories you have burned.

Hopefully, we managed to capture their interest, so let’s take a look at one of the best and cheapest smartwatches available, the Pebble Smartwatch.

Note: The Pebble SmartWatch was born thanks to a very successful Kickstarter campaign that managed to raise more than $ 10 million in about five weeks.

Design and display

At first glance, the Pebble Watch looks like a normal watch. It has a simple yet elegant look, without being bulky or heavy. The case is made of plastic and has a comfortable and sturdy strap.

It weighs 38 g and its dimensions are 50x32x11mm. On the right side you will find the up-down and select buttons and on the left side a single menu button along with a set of pins for the magnetic power connector.

The Pebble Smartwatch is not fragile and is capable of withstanding temperatures between 14 and 140 F and will work even if submerged up to 160 feet in water (This is great for explorers!).

The screen features a 1.26-inch 144 × 168 Sharp Memory LCD e-paper, is black and white and is covered by a plastic lens that can reflect light. Although the viewing angle is not a full 180 degrees, you will be able to view notifications or any other running screen app without the backlight during the day quite easily.

Compared to its competitors, the screen is a bit low, but it does its job properly.

Performance and battery life

The Pebble Smartwatch features an ARM Cortex-M3 processor and 512KB on-chip storage that will be able to hold some customizable watch faces and apps. In addition to the main specifications, the watch has a magnetometer, an ambient light, and a three-axis accelerometer.

Applications should take advantage of all these features and create a great user experience.

Thanks to its small, low-resolution screen and 140 mAH battery, the Pebble watch is capable of sustaining up to 5 days of extensive use and more than a week of occasional use.

Note: the Pebble watch does not have a battery indicator.

In order to be waterproof, the Pebble watch can be charged by connecting a custom cable to the small magnets on the side of the watch.

iOS and Android

What is really interesting about this watch is that it is compatible with the iOS and Android platform.

After downloading the Pebble app, we first tested the watch in conjunction with an iPhone. It was a bit of a hassle to get it working, as iOS doesn’t really seem like it tried to do good management for Pebble, but after we got it set up correctly, the clock worked perfectly with the iPhone.

We were able to download new watch faces or access contact support, but it seems like it all happened at the iOS level (iOS acted as a placeholder).

The Android experience is quite different. The configuration of this platform seemed to be more in place and the applications made more sense. Compared to iOS, Android seemed more open and with many more apps to choose from.

In the end we were able to sync with both platforms and we were able to receive email alerts, income calls or text messages and thanks to the Pebble store we were able to successfully customize the screen, download cool apps and even some games (like Flappy Bird) no matter if it was made on iOS or Android.

Note: The Pebble Smartwatch is compatible with iOS 6 or higher and Android 4.0 or higher.

As a conclusion we can say that Pebble did not make the same mistake that many manufacturers make when trying to build a smartwatch, they did not try to create a small smartphone with a wrist strap. Instead, they made one of the best smartwatch setups, creating a lightweight, simple, and capable device that placed smartwatches on the list of one of the most sought-after devices in the world right now.

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