'Pebble Time' Debuts on Kickstarter With Slimmer Design and Color Display

[xraydoc]

Personally, I like my Pebble Steel. Not sure why people hate on Pebble so much.

It certainly does things like custom watch faces, always-on display, long battery life and water resistance... things people are clamoring for from the Apple watch.

The Pebble (original) isn't that great looking, but the Steel looks I think quite nice. Maybe not as good as the Apple Watch or even the LG G Watch Urbane, but it's certainly not a ginormous flat tire like the monstrously, comically large Moto 360.

While I wait for pricing details on the Apple Watch, I've put in a reservation (which I can cancel if I choose) for the color Pebble. Should make a nice upgrade from the Steel and with a metal or leather band, I don't think it'll look too bad.

 

[SirCheese]

No, more like it's a decidedly un-fancy watch with very limited functionality, soon to be surpassed by something much more upscale like Apple Watch. I'm not even going to buy an Apple Watch but even I have to say it blows Pebble away. Who's buying this stuff?

Obviously the people who are buying it, are buying it for what it does. To say that Apple blows it away when they aren't doing the same functionality for the most part is, well, silly.

 

[Treq]

Who's buying this stuff?

Me and 27,000+ others in the last 4-5hrs since it went on sale.

 

[samcraig]

Obviously the people who are buying it, are buying it for what it does. To say that Apple blows it away when they aren't doing the same functionality for the most part is, well, silly.

Also - who here has used the Apple watch. You can say you like the design better of the Apple Watch. Or even think that the UI looks better. But to say one blows the other away seems premature.

 

[LordVic]

No, more like it's a decidedly un-fancy watch with very limited functionality, soon to be surpassed by something much more upscale like Apple Watch. I'm not even going to buy an Apple Watch but even I have to say it blows Pebble away. Who's buying this stuff?

What blows the pebble away?

The estimated 1 day battery life versus Pebble's 7 days?
The always on display versus Apples gestures?
the estimated $200 more expensive device?

its a usage based scenarios. The Apple watch will check the boxes off for some people, and the pebble will be better suited for others.

so "whose buying this stuff"... over 1 million Pebble users have purchased a Pebble watch in the first two years. for a company that had to find it's own financial backing to get started, isn't worth billions of dollars, doesn't have the logo to assist in sales, I'd say people are buying these things pretty dang consistently to already disprove your statements

 

[APlotdevice]

A watch is actually more about design than about function. Apple got that right. The other contenders went too far the other way.

Bull. Though it may be that the only reason most people wore a watch in the last decade was for fashion purposes, due to the fact that people could easily check the time on their cell phones, traditionally watches were extremely practical devices. I myself wore a cheap plastic one as a teenager, at a time before phones were cheap enough to give people at that age.

From my perspective, we are seeing the return of the "practical watch".

 

[samcraig]

What blows the pebble away?

The estimated 1 day battery life versus Pebble's 7 days?
The always on display versus Apples gestures?
the estimated $200 more expensive device?

its a usage based scenarios. The Apple watch will check the boxes off for some people, and the pebble will be better suited for others.

so "whose buying this stuff"... over 1 million Pebble users have purchased a Pebble watch in the first two years. for a company that had to find it's own financial backing to get started, isn't worth billions of dollars, doesn't have the logo to assist in sales, I'd say people are buying these things pretty dang consistently to already disprove your statements

I think you should just summarize by saying that only cheap people who can't afford the Apple Watch and have no sense of design, utility or smarts. Because clearly that's who the OP must have meant

 

[fitshaced]

What blows the pebble away?

The estimated 1 day battery life versus Pebble's 7 days?
The always on display versus Apples gestures?
the estimated $200 more expensive device?

its a usage based scenarios. The Apple watch will check the boxes off for some people, and the pebble will be better suited for others.

so "whose buying this stuff"... over 1 million Pebble users have purchased a Pebble watch in the first two years. for a company that had to find it's own financial backing to get started, isn't worth billions of dollars, doesn't have the logo to assist in sales, I'd say people are buying these things pretty dang consistently to already disprove your statements

If you put all the electronic accessories common to the latest top of the line BMW into an Opel Astra, would the Astra be a better car? No. The BMW would still blow it away. Not just on a race track either.

 

[SirCheese]

If you put all the electronic accessories common to the latest top of the line BMW into an Opel Astra, would the Astra be a better car? No. The BMW would still blow it away. Not just on a race track either.

And yet, another stupid car analogy. Congrats!

 

[fitshaced]

Bull. Though it may be that the only reason most people wore a watch in the last decade was for fashion purposes, due to the fact that people could easily check the time on their cell phones, traditionally watches were extremely practical devices. I myself wore a cheap plastic one as a teenager, at a time before phones were cheap enough to give people at that age.

From my perspective, we are seeing the return of the "practical watch".

Right, well done to you. But for most watch wearers, they are more about design as telling the time, as you say is down in your phone. Most people who wear watches are not walking around with the most basic design watch. They buy what they think looks good on their wrist. Telling the time is a given. A watch is like clothing.

 

[LordVic]

If you put all the electronic accessories common to the latest top of the line BMW into an Opel Astra, would the Astra be a better car? No. The BMW would still blow it away. Not just on a race track either.

but this train of thought is just asanine.

nobody is saying the Pebble equal the Watch in regards to build and pure feature list, or build quality.

what we're saying is that theres no "better" when it comes to suiting peoples distinct ifferences in needs/wants.

if I were someone who wanted a smartwatch but required 4-6 day battery life due to long time travelling away from the ability to charge it, An Apple watch, despite the advanced software, taptic engine, and other fancy marketting lingo, would be completely unsuitable for my needs.


To go back to the Car Analogies (which always fail).

I have a specific requirement to carry 3 people and 3 sets of sports equipment.
I don't go out and buy the Ferrari. I go out and buy the Camry. Because it suits my requirements and my needs.

Similar is the case back to watches. There are several features that have key differences between these products. it is NOT a case of "one size fits all"

 

[fitshaced]

And yet, another stupid car analogy. Congrats!

Hardly stupid. They represent different points of the market. Some will buy an Astra as it meets their budget and gets them from A to B. Car lovers are more inclined to buy a higher end more expensive and more premium BMW.

 

[SirCheese]

Hardly stupid. They represent different points of the market. Some will buy an Astra as it meets their budget and gets them from A to B. Car lovers are more inclined to buy a higher end more expensive and more premium BMW.

Completely stupid....but to each his own.

I love cars, I won't buy a BMW so that is another fallacy.

 

[windywalks]

I got a Pebble as a birthday present and it's been a great companion to my iPhone.
My ringtone is always muted and I never miss calls thanks to the Pebble since the iPhone vibration motor makes more noise than vibration on my iPhone 6 plus.

Message notifications are also pretty useful although interactive notifications would be better. Guess I won't get those where I'm living with the Watch since Siri seems stuck with her language learning abilities And I already look weird asking Siri to set the timer in a US accent.

The activity tracker is a good indicator of how much or how little I've moved during the day and combined with Endomondo gives a nice jogging, biking, skating computer.
Timers are very useful for all sorts of things - workout intervals for instance.

It's waterproof so I don't have to worry about going to the shower after gym and can still be alerted about calls and messages, even though my phone is in the locker.

The display may be simplistic but at least it's readable in bright daylight.

The battery life... This one is just great. Charging a watch every night? I'm pretty sure it's going to be quite a chore for first gen Watch owners

The design? Beauty is in the eye... I have a few fashion obsessed friends who at times wear clothes worth twice my iPhone 6+ and then some and they seem to
all be taken by the understated design - I have a black on black original Pebble.

I'll wait and see how the Watch turns out. It's definitely going to be a "great product" as they all seem to be at Apple nowadays and there are going to be lines and people beating each other senseless to get one. The final price for all editions and straps hasn't either been disclosed, but $300+ for a newfangled watch is quite steep imho.

 

[fitshaced]

Completely stupid....but to each his own.

I love cars, I won't buy a BMW so that is another fallacy.

Well your BMW comment is stupid as obviously you can recognise them to be premium car builders.

People need to stop seeing the smart watch as function over design.

 

[APlotdevice]

Right, well done to you. But for most watch wearers, they are more about design as telling the time, as you say is down in your phone. Most people who wear watches are not walking around with the most basic design watch. They buy what they think looks good on their wrist. Telling the time is a given. A watch is like clothing.

I'm guessing you're fairly young. Since anyone growing up in the 90s or before would remember cheap watches being commonplace.

 

[LordVic]

People need to stop seeing the smart watch as function over design.

And people need to stop trying to dictate to others what their opinions should be based on their own personal opniions

Get this.

Humans are relative beings. What I think is "beautiful" is likely not the same as yours.

If I want form over function, don't you dare tell me i'm wrong for thinking that way (or vice versa).

Considering that many of us also think that the Apple Watch design is hideous, the whole "form over function" argument isn't very usefull, especially if you're saying as a "watch" first, form should be important.

From a traditional watch user, the Apple watch is ugly as ****.

 

[SirCheese]

Well your BMW comment is stupid as obviously you can recognise them to be premium car builders.

People need to stop seeing the smart watch as function over design.

I assume you responded to the wrong person as I never used a stupid car analogy.

And sorry, but most people prefer function over design

 

[Treq]

Well your BMW comment is stupid as obviously you can recognise them to be premium car builders.

People need to stop seeing the smart watch as function over design.

I see everything as form following function. I think if you look at it the other way, you end up with people dressed like Lady Gaga.

 

[Arran]

Thats possible. Has pebble ever announced exactly what display technology they're using?

We keep calling it e-ink cause it appears similar to e-ink, but they're not actively calling it that. They're calling it "E-Paper". This implies to me that it's not actually made by the e-ink people either, but perhaps another company that is making similar display technology. There was a company a couple years ago that made a tablet with an e-paper display (not made by e-ink) that had fluid 30fps display and colour (but still suffered from washed out colours, I just can't remember the name of it)...

Are you thinking of the Compaq iPaq PDA? I owned one back in the early 2000's. Washed out color was it's thing.

It had a sunlight-readable color LCD that wasn't very clear. It also had a backlight you could turn on manually - which improved things - although it was still a "milky" display that sucked battery. Here it is, with the backlight off. It's legible, but not great.

 

[LordVic]

Are you thinking of the Compaq iPaq PDA? I owned one back in the early 2000's. Washed out color was it's thing.

It had a sunlight-readable color LCD that wasn't very clear. It also had a backlight you could turn on manually - which improved things - although it was still a "milky" display that sucked battery. Here it is, with the backlight off. It's legible, but not great.

No no, that was just very old LCD tech... I had a couple of those old PDA's. Just your standard non-capacitive touch screens.

FOUND IT!
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/mirasol

P.S. you can't post that here! it's a full screen touch device that came out before Apple's iPhone. Don't you know that Apple invented the very notion of the fullscreen touchscreen device. Nobody was even considering making them before. Geeze, DONT YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?! /s

 

[APlotdevice]

Thats possible. Has pebble ever announced exactly what display technology they're using?

We keep calling it e-ink cause it appears similar to e-ink, but they're not actively calling it that. They're calling it "E-Paper". This implies to me that it's not actually made by the e-ink people either, but perhaps another company that is making similar display technology. There was a company a couple years ago that made a tablet with an e-paper display (not made by e-ink) that had fluid 30fps display and colour (but still suffered from washed out colours, I just can't remember the name of it).

But my original comment is still valid. There HAS been colour e-ink in the past. It has just never gotten mass market appeal due to a real lack of real world usage scenarios

The current Pebble uses a Sharp MemoryLCD. Sharp did announce a color version of their memoryLCD technology a few months ago, so that's possibly what they are using in this model.

 

[fitshaced]

I'm guessing you're fairly young. Since anyone growing up in the 90s or before would remember cheap watches being commonplace.

Very mature comment to say I must be fairly young. Because you say 90's I think I might have a decade or two on you. I remember the cheap watches with light up displays, alarms that beeped (maybe Back to the Future was before your time), calculators, even infrared remote controls. But they all came with a design that 'looked cool' on your wrist. Their design was not as high end a watch as an electronic watch such as the Apple watch is today but they didn't have to compete with them.

 

[dampfnudel]

7 day battery life, works with IOS or Android, light weight and fairly inexpensive.

I would say a winner for some one who wants a simple watch and not the expense of an Apple watch.

Over 1 Million in funding already. Wow.

Yeah, that 7 day battery life will make any Apple Watch owner jealous as they hope & pray their Apple Watch lasts the day.

 

[fitshaced]

And people need to stop trying to dictate to others what their opinions should be based on their own personal opniions

Get this.

Humans are relative beings. What I think is "beautiful" is likely not the same as yours.

If I want form over function, don't you dare tell me i'm wrong for thinking that way (or vice versa).

Considering that many of us also think that the Apple Watch design is hideous, the whole "form over function" argument isn't very usefull, especially if you're saying as a "watch" first, form should be important.

From a traditional watch user, the Apple watch is ugly as ****.

You're obviosuly extra sensitive. I didn't argue that you will see one thing more beautiful than me. I was stating that if a product that is worn more as a fashion accessory today is putting function over form and sacrificing on the latter, it is going int he wrong direction. The function is important as otherwise you'd just buy a regular watch that you like. But the design sells the watch. As it is, the Apple watch doesn't do enough to justify function over design. Neither do any smart watches.