Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Pebble Time

The folks over at Pebble have just announced the next version of their smartwatch. The new watch comes with a colour e-ink display, microphone and completely new software that revolves around their "timeline interface".

You can check out the launch video over at Kickstarter. The new watch looks like it is a fairly significant upgrade to the original Pebble and the Pebble Steel in terms of usability and styling. The video shows that the team has been working on some great new animations to go along with the new colour display and software, it seems as though it is really a much more lively device than the previous attempts. The Kickstarter page shows that the highlights of the new device are:

 Highlights

  • We're announcing a new watch called Pebble Time with a new timeline interface.
  • Pebble Time features a new color e-paper display and microphone for responding to notifications.
  • No compromises on what you love about Pebble: up to 7 days of battery life, water resistance and customizability.
  • Pebble Time is fully compatible with all 6,500+ existing Pebble apps and watchfaces.
  • Three colors available exclusively on Kickstarter. Pebble Time starts shipping in May.
  • Extra special engraving for our original Kickstarter backers who support us again ♥♥♥
So it looks like the team has delivered a great new device, maintaining the factors that people love about the original pebble (7 day battery life, Android and iOS compatibility, water resistance and customizability) while adding a couple new features that should offer a greatly improved experience over previous models (colour display and microphone response). You may be thinking, what about my original Pebble or Pebble steel? Well the Pebble team says that they will be working hard to get the new software experience to the older versions (though I am sure that they will have to strip down some of the fun animations). I have the original Pebble and do love the usability and battery life of it, though the lack of microphone and colour do hold it back. I also have the Moto 360 which has very little functional difference over the Pebble other than the touchscreen and microphone which I find to be extremely nice, oh and the styling is a thousand times better.

If you are interested check it out over on the Kickstarter site, it may be just the watch you have been looking for. I however will be sticking with my Moto 360.