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Pebble Unveils Pebble 2, Pebble Time 2, and Pebble Core Smartwatches (kickstarter.com)
Pebble on Tuesday unveiled its latest line of wearable devices. The company announced the Pebble 2 -- a sleeker successor to the company's four-year-old Pebble watch -- and the Pebble Time 2, which comes with a large colour display and steel frame. Both the devices are up on Kickstarter, and scheduled to be shipped later this year. The company also announced the Pebble Core, a square-shaped timepiece which supports 3G, GPS, and Bluetooth connections and lets users stream music using Spotify and make emergency calls without the need of a smartphone. The Pebble 2 and the Pebble Time 2 come equipped with heart-rate sensors, a feature that was missing from the earlier Pebble smartwatches. The Pebble Core runs Android 5.0 Lollipop, and also has a 4GB storage which users can use when they don't have a flash drive in handy. The Pebble 2 is priced at $99, whereas the Pebble Time 2 will cost you $169. The Pebble Core is priced at $69. Pebble's new devices will be up on Kickstarter for 36 days, should you feel the urge to support the company. However, it is worth noting that in within hours, Pebble has received more money than it had asked for.
One of the things I don't like about my Pebble Time is how small the display is. More real estate would allow more legible watch faces and apps.
I was really excited when the Pebble was first announced. I was tired of taking my phone out of my pocket for every little message/alert and when I wanted to know the time. It was sleek, lightweight and seemed to have support for my iPhone. I never ended up buying one, mostly because I couldn't afford it or justify buying one, as it's kind of a luxury, I guess. This new model looks even sweeter, I might have to buy one. I don't think I have any use for the Pebble Core, but I think the Pebble guys got the smart watch right, unlike a certain fruit based company that made a mostly useless, but fashionable piece of hardware. It looks great in photos, but in real life, on your wrist, I think it's not very impressive, or useful. I hope these start shipping sooner than later so I can give it a whirl.
640k ought to be enough for anyone.
Why should I care about this?
You absolutely shouldn't, but that doesn't mean other people don't.
They're obviously far inferior to the Apple Watch.
I don't think that's the point as far as Pebble is concerned. Not everyone needs all of the functionality of an Apple Watch. I have a Pebble Steel, and it does exactly what I need it to...passive notifications delivered to me with a battery life spanning multiple days. I don't need a color display, speech control, or a touch screen.
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wonderful 7 to 10 day battery. easy to read screen. built in health monitoring. excellent price. my only complain is that they didn't announce a steel model, which i still use. If i use a display that only updates once per minute and no notifications, battery lasts 2 weeks.
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my pebble steel (black) looks classy with my long sleeve shirt and tie. sadly no steel product was announced today, all other models do look as toys as you stated.
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Why should I care about this? They're obviously far inferior to the Apple Watch.
Having owned both Pebble* and Apple Watch, and I even much prefer the Apple Watch over the Pebble, um, no, it's not as clear-cut as you make it. Pebble is significantly cheaper, the battery life is waaaay better, and it works on Android. I mainly prefer the Apple Watch because it actually shows you the complete messages you get and not just the notifications on a screen that's much more readable.
For me the question of whether you want a smartwatch or not depends on how heavily you keep up-to-date with messages etc. Price and battery life are huge factors in that decision. Based on the questions people have asked me about smartwatches I'd more often recommend a Pebble Watch over an Apple Watch even though I think the Apple Watch is far more useful. So, yes, I do think you should care about this. It's always good to know about the alternatives.
* I"m only talking about the first gen Pebble, I haven't used the later ones.
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The Time 2's are all "marine grade stainless steel". They've consolidated the Time/Time Steel into a single line.
If you look at the videos, all of the devices seem kind of large still.
But the devices obviously have a draw to them, already nearly $3 million and just started. It's amazing how they can keep going back to the Kickstarter well, and pull up another bucks filled past the brim with cool clear funding.
I have to admit that even though I have the Time and ended up preferring the Apple Watch instead, I like the ideas Pebble has and the directions they are taking the product. Especially the pebble core seems like an interesting idea, almost like a portable Amazon Echo - the only thing I think is a mistake there is it should also have some kind of heart monitor, if they really mean for it to be used in exercise.
I' considering getting the Time 2 and the Core, but it;s nice to see Pebble will carry on whatever I decide.
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I was wondering about the steel model myself, but looking at the specs it appears that the Time 2 is steel, though with a standard plastic band out of the box.
The description near the top of "about this project" on the kickstarter says:
"A premium heart rate enable stainless-steel smartwatch with an updated color display"
My current pebble supports standard watch bands, so I'd imagine the Time 2 will also. I've ordered a Time 2 and will just get a nice steel band for it (or take one off of one of my older watches).
The others are just new generations of Pebbles. The Core however is something altogether different.
It looks like a device to take the whole "talking to the network" functionality off of your "phone" and put it into is own displayless device. The implication of this is that there's now no need to "upgrade" this component constantly. The only time you'd need a new one is when there's a newer faster cell network tech you want to connect to. But even when that happens, its only a $69 upgrade.
If you want to do stuff like run apps, or surf the web, you can do that with a separate device, which you can "upgrade" whenever you want a new display technology. That device could have the form-factor of a phone, or a full-blown tablet, or something in-between. Whatever you want. But it now has nothing to do with a cell carrier whatsoever. The Cell carrier only interacts with your $69 Core unit.
This completely changes the way we (well, I at least) think about cellurlar tech. Its going to take some time to fully wrap my head around it.