Pebble Time: The Most Practical Smartwatch yet?

The Pebble smartwatch, it’s embedded in all of our minds as the first specimen of notable quality in the smartwatch world. Sure, there were others, more expensive even. But the best bang for your buck smartwatch for plenty of Android users, and every iOS user is still the Pebble smartwatch today. Currently the smartwatches are available in two flavors, the regular Pebble for $99, and the premium Pebble Steel model for $199 which comes in a more compact design with a higher-end black and white display, and of course a metal body.

I received an email late last night from the Pebble marketing team letting me know to be sure to check their site today at 10AM, and low and behold, a brand new model is on it’s way and will obviously be the best one yet. The Pebble Time edition will come with a color e-paper display, the first of it’s kind in the smartwatch realm, and the best way to present colorized data on small display in broad daylight. There’s a new user-interface layout based on the idea of a timeline. So all of your curated precious data will be presented in a vertical manner, organized into three categories, Past, Present, and Future. I don’t have any doubt in my mind this departure from their traditional layout will be a welcomed change.

Lets learn a bit more

The original Pebble was a product of a highly successful crowdsourcing project spearheaded by their founder via Kickstarter. This time around for the next evolution of their product they’re once again going with Kickstarter as their window to the public eye, and since 10AM this morning, they have completely shattered their goal of $500k. This means they are definately going into production, and the neatest part is that there are still some of the Kickstarter packages left over at $179. So you save $20 and get your device – most likely in a limited edition Kickstarter color scheme – before any of your envious friends get a hold of it.

 

It supports third-party apps from all the biggest players, and potentially some Android Wear love seeing as how just recently Pebble pushed an update allowing for Android Wear app integration on their older models. But the Kickstarter doesn’t state as much, so for now I’m assuming that we should just expect the updated Pebble interface and regular Pebble apps. Fitness trackers from both Android and iOS devices, notifications from your favorite apps, and more will be included in the overall package.

The last laugh…

I’m a massive fan of this company, mostly because it’s not a tremendous corporation shoving their ideology down our throats, rather it’s a small company with a lot to lose. And because of that we can rest assured they’ve put an insane amount of effort into designing a winning product. Check out their Kickstarter here and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Also worth noting is they hired a great web design and graphic design team for their updated page. There are these adorable little “pixel characters” scattered about.

This is simply the best smartwatch

On to the tech specs, which haven’t changed that much. The battery life is still rated at up to seven days of use from their new color e-paper display, and you can expect music controls for your connected playback devices, and hundreds of custom watch faces. “Designed for real people, by real people.”, is what one of their banners says, and I think that gives a great run down of their products design and company attitude. It’s a no-frill smartwatch that gets the job done, with as few dristractions as possible. This was their goal, to make an affordable device that can simplify your life. I’m positive that it’s the best smartwatch your money can buy at this very moment. Yeah the Moto 360 is dripping with sexy, but the Pebble Time screams minimalist, ultilitarian, practicality.

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source: xdadevelopers