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

[Shanley]

I applaud those of you who must drink 5-Hour Energy by the gallon or are on crack. You clearly need a smart watch that can last an entire week.

However, I do this thing every night. It's called "sleep" and it allows my body to recharge. And just before I do this "sleep" thing, I will put my Apple Watch on its charger so it will be recharged when I wake up. This nightly ritual won't hurt the usability of my Apple Watch because I don't need to refer to it while sleeping.
Image

Be careful about being dismissive of sleep tracking. Apple Watch will be in direct competition to trackers that do measure your sleep. So either Apple is giving up on that category, or it needs to step its game up. Apple seems to be charging more and not offering all of the features that other wearables have. If apple is really going to sell the watch as a fashion accessory, then maybe sleep tracking isn't important to Apple. Of course, if it is just a fashion accessory, why have a screen or a battery at all? I think Apple wants to have the best wearable on the market, which means it needs the features that the other wearables have.

I don't know what the Apple watch is trying to be, but I can't wait to see one in person. So far, it doesn't do what I thought it would (doesn't have the rumored sensors), and what it does do (track steps, tells time and gets messages from the phone), it doesn't do for long (less then two days).

 

[Nuvi]

why would anyone invest into this kind of crap. Yu could by watch from 90's or invest into watch.

I might ask why anyone would buy Apple Watch when it has ridiculous 24 hour battery life. Seriously, take a few days business trip and you need a yet another charger with you. Forget it and there is no way of charging it since it has proprietary connector. Apple needs to come up far better smart watch than their forthcoming model to get me interested.

 

[bbeagle]

So you've never spent a night or two away from home when you didn't have any prior ability to bring your proprietary charger with you?

Never been stuck in an airport for 24+ hours? never just forgotten to charge some device? Ever just want to have to NOT constantly have to remember to plug in more and more devices and want stuff to just work for maybe longer than a day?

When I was younger, yes, there was a time where I never knew whose house I'd be at in the evening. Just go with the flow with a group of friends.

But now, I'm always home and have a life where everything is structured. Every day charging is not something I necessarily 'like', but I can deal with it.

I've got a phone charger in my car. I charge my phone every day going to and from work, and that's enough to keep my phone charged all week. I'll have to get some sort of a system for the watch as well. Do I like it? No. Can it be managed? Yes. So, for me, 1 day life is not the end of the world like it is for some people.

----------

I might ask why anyone would buy Apple Watch when it has ridiculous 24 hour battery life. Seriously, take a few days business trip and you need a yet another charger with you. Forget it and there is no way of charging it since it has proprietary connector. Apple needs to come up far better smart watch than their forthcoming model to get me interested.

People do this all the time with cell phones. They forget their proprietary charger, and their cell phone dies on their trip. Happens ALL the time to people I see. Then they're at these airport kiosks buying a new replacement charger, or asking people to borrow theirs.

It's one of the caveats of getting an Apple Watch. I can deal with that caveat, maybe some people can't. This is a good selling point for the Pebble Watch. Luckily, nobody is forcing anyone to buy either watch.

 

[LordVic]

When I was younger, yes, there was a time where I never knew whose house I'd be at in the evening. Just go with the flow with a group of friends.

But now, I'm always home and have a life where everything is structured. Every day charging is not something I necessarily 'like', but I can deal with it.

I've got a phone charger in my car. I charge my phone every day going to and from work, and that's enough to keep my phone charged all week. I'll have to get some sort of a system for the watch as well. Do I like it? No. Can it be managed? Yes. So, for me, 1 day life is not the end of the world like it is for some people.

as I was saying, it works for some and not everyone. the problem that happens in discussions, especially on the forums here is the simple "if you don't like it, there's the door". There's zero ability for many users to even think for a moment that someone elses requirements are not the same as someone elses.

for example: as you've stated, as you've gotten older, you can predict your day to day activities better. So you can manage to fit in a 1 day charge into your routine.

But not everyone lives the same way. You yourself had said when you were younger, you could see it being a problem.

What that means is that with only a 1 day life, the Apple watch might be a serious non-starter for many people whose lives do need more than 19 hours battery and do go day to day without knowing always where their next charge will come from.

The Pebble watch on the other hand, with almost a week battery doesn't suffer from this restriction. sure, you can charge it every night if you so choose, but you CAN also go longer. Not an option on the Apple watch (or many of the google ones right now).

However, Holy crap is this Pebble watch uggly. I was excited to see what the 3.0 would be, and i'm entirely disappointed. The Steel was the right direction for a good combination fo form and function. This though looks like it's going back to the 1.0 version for looks.

 

[rdlink]

Sorry Pebble

You already burned me once. If you would have offered it up for sale on your website, with a full refund policy maybe. But I no longer trust you to deliver what you promise on a KS campaign.

 

[bartonjd]

For those who wondered what the pebble time looks like with a metal band...

 

[mateytate]

I applaud those of you who must drink 5-Hour Energy by the gallon or are on crack. You clearly need a smart watch that can last an entire week.

However, I do this thing every night. It's called "sleep" and it allows my body to recharge. And just before I do this "sleep" thing, I will put my Apple Watch on its charger so it will be recharged when I wake up. This nightly ritual won't hurt the usability of my Apple Watch because I don't need to refer to it while sleeping.
Image

But that plan only works if it lasts until you go to sleep . What happens if you want to go out after a work to a club, or stay up late, or are travelling? I for one am not tucked up in bed at 8pm every night putting my watch on charge. Don't get me wrong, I'll be getting one and living with its failings but I can't defend them and try to spin them so they seem trivial which is what gets to me.

When the Samsung watch came out, how everyone mocked its poor battery life on here. Then the Watch is announced and its battery life is no better and the tune suddenly changes to the typical fanboi school of thought that if they produce something with the same failings we must resort to defending them.

IMO a watch that cannot guarantee to last a day is not a trivial failing and not to be brushed aside lightly, I will get one knowing the limitations and live with it but to start acting like its no big issue? No.

 

[Vidd]

I want to like it but that screen to bezel ratio just looks horrible.

I'd rather have a circular screen if so little's going to be usable anyway. Disappointed.

 

[johncarync]

Bezels!

I'm getting the extra-special, Extra-Bezel version!

 

[igneousc]

I really do like my pebble, I'm on my second because the first one's vibration motor died(they covered it under warranty), but yeah theres nothing compelling here even with the color screen. Competition is good, but I'll be getting an apple watch at launch for sure

 

[dannyyankou]

For those who wondered what the pebble time looks like with a metal band...

The band looks nice, but the face itself screams "vtech" to me.

 

[bartonjd]

The band looks nice, but the face itself screams "vtech" to me.

agreed

 

[Meowmeow123]

Pretty disappointing that it is going from waterproof to water resistant.

 

[firewood]

Real SDK

The fact that Pebble already has an SDK for native app development was enough to get me to back this project. I have an older Pebble for which I don't need to remember to charge everyday. And the new one adds a color display, microphone and better Bluetooth LE support (possibly for external heart rate and GPS wearables).

The Apple Watch only acts as a display for iPhone app extensions, although they do hint at providing a native app SDK at some unknown time in the future (WWDC 2015?). So I might wait on Apple's native SDK before dropping some unknown and likely much larger amount of money on one of the nicer ones.

----------

Pretty disappointing that it is going from waterproof to water resistant.

That's just the legal water rating. You couldn't dive with the old one, and they still say you can swim with new one (and I have with the older Pebble).

 

[Keirasplace]

I am buying one, I'm not an Apple basher - I'm just tired, tired, tired of reading posts from people who almost religiously refuse to admit there is a single shortcoming with the Watch at all and that the Pebble is total garbage thats not going to sell well. I just wanted to put my point across that the Watch is not perfect.

There's about 10000+ posts saying the Apple Watch is garbage or variants of this on this site over the last 4 months (there's many in this thread, some from you). I'd say there's a lot more negative comments about the Apple watch than Pebble around here. So, you're tiredness seems kinda ill conceived.

BTW, you went beyond saying the Apple Watch is not perfect. That's what I'm stating.

 

[Urban Joe]

I think this thing/company has a chance.
They are hitting a nice combination of functionality vs. battery life vs. price point vs. useful life etc.
This pebble overall just feels like a watch. The Apple Watch feels more like a miniature iPad strapped to the wrist ... perhaps too ambitious in some ways and neglecting key operational aspects.

Still hate the idea of a watch that you're always worried about running out of juice...the idea of that stresses me out!!

It's enough to have to upgrade a phone at least every 2 years but I'm not ready to buy into nearly doubling that cost by adding an Apple Watch.

Pebble seems to be a more practical and functional option right now. In time I'm sure Apples watch will come around but although it's beautiful and sexy it's half baked. It pains me to say so but that's my honest opinion.

 

[Treq]

Fastest kickstarter ever to make $5mil. Glad I got mine as an early bird!

 

[AronDraws]

Im bummed that the graphics seem to have lost their pixel charm. I'll be getting the original Pebble, but I will pass on the new one.

 

[iPadCary]

Fool me once ....

 

[StyxMaker]

Anyone can drive any of those cars.



Only iOS users can use the Apple Watch.



Car analogies never work. Unless you're actually talking about cars.

Or, you should learn more about the use of analogies. The analogy was to to emphasize one particular attribute of the watches, it does not mean that either watch is similar to either car in any other way.

 

[pdaholic]

I've had a Pebble watch for a few months now. I agree that the Pebble battery life and water resistance are huge selling points over the Apple Watch. But what many people don't know is that the current Pebble and future Pebbles will have a problem that the Apple Watch won't: deep integration with the OS. If you download an app for the Pebble, that app has to keep running in the background for it to stay active. Open another app for the Pebble, and the initial app will be killed and the watch won't receive info from the first app until you open it again. I've learned to deal with the shortcoming, but I'm pretty certain Apple Watch won't have this issue. That said, I may be even more annoyed having to take off and charge a watch daily. For now I'll stick with my Pebble and wait to see what Apple conjures up.

 

[shabanga]

Am I the only person who has a huge problem with companies who were wildly successful on Kickstarter going back for multiple rounds? It just seems to me that the whole point of Kickstarter is to START a company with a great idea. Once your idea takes off, and your product is available in mass markets, it should be your responsibility to re-invest your profits in r&d for your next product, or at a minimum, use the success of that product to secure real VC money.

 

[Nungster]

A small company that just made $1million in 30 minutes is over.

They will still need to deliver.

 

[Treq]

I've had a Pebble watch for a few months now. I agree that the Pebble battery life and water resistance are huge selling points over the Apple Watch. But what many people don't know is that the current Pebble and future Pebbles will have a problem that the Apple Watch won't: deep integration with the OS. If you download an app for the Pebble, that app has to keep running in the background for it to stay active. Open another app for the Pebble, and the initial app will be killed and the watch won't receive info from the first app until you open it again. I've learned to deal with the shortcoming, but I'm pretty certain Apple Watch won't have this issue. That said, I may be even more annoyed having to take off and charge a watch daily. For now I'll stick with my Pebble and wait to see what Apple conjures up.

I don't know about other apps but the fitness app "misfit" runs in the background. It constantly tracks my steps no mater what I'm doing.

 

[Mainsail]

The hate on this site for pebble and its products is just bizarre. No doubt the same people will be glossing over the Apple Watch's shortcomings when it is released. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing how Cupertino's offering ends up working in day to day use and will likely buy one, but I am under no illusions that battery life will be somehow mystically longer than other smart watches that have gone the high power and touchscreen route.

I have been a pebble backer since the launch edition, then bought a steel, and have now backed the Time too - I think they are great little devices and the importance of the fact that the battery can last days between charges cannot be underestimated. Sure most days I do charge it overnight, but if I go away on a trip or visit friends overnight etc, being safe in the knowledge my watch will keep going till I'm next home is very useful. I won't be surprised if on some longer days the Apple Watch doesn't quite make it all the way through till the end of the night, and that will be a major downside.

Guess it just comes down to what compromises you are willing to make, and I for one am pretty happy with pebble's designs and feature sets.

I tend to agree with you. Individual wants/needs are different, and I think there is a good sized market for a sporty thin budget (less than $100) "smart watch" that tells time (alarms, stopwatch, etc), records steps, and displays basic notifications (email, text, calendar, reminders) with 5 day battery life. I am not sure if this type of product is on market yet, but it should be feasible pretty soon.

Personally and for my needs, I have a hard time justifying $350+ for a smart watch (which will become obsolete in a few years) that requires frequent charging and that requires I carry my iPhone to perform most of the advanced functionality. If I need to carry my phone anyway, I would rather have something inexpensive, simple, lightweight with longer battery life that provides notifications, and then if I need to reply to a message, I'll just remove my phone from my pocket.....which is what I currently do now.

A smart phone was a game changer that significantly altered the way people do things because it provides almost unlimited access to information and opportunities for communication anywhere you can get a cell connection. A smart watch is more of an accessory that adds some convenience, but does not add much functionality if you already own a smart phone. And, you must own a smart phone to utilize most of the important features of a smart watch.

I think one exception to the above would be some of the health monitors (i.e. pulse). There might be folks willing to pay for the convenience of constant monitoring. However, most people (even active athletic people) really don't need this type of data to get a good workout or meet their fitness goals.