It had an e-ink display, lasted forever. It also did the core smart watch features really well in terms of showing notifications, tracking steps and sleep, answering texts. It had a ton of fun watch faces and the interface was really quirky, fun and functional.
Echoing the other comment, I loved my Pebble because it was a smartwatch that was a watch first and foremost and everything after that was added to make life easier (rather than to pile on selling points that someone might want but that nobody needs). For example, the thing had a week long battery life (irrc the first gen iWatch had something like less than a day), but even when it hit the bottom 10% of the tank, it turned off non-essentials (like Bluetooth, calendar, customizations, etc) and just kept going on a default watchface. The UI was simple, easy to navigate, and generally useful. Physical buttons meant that I never had to fight with a touchscreen to clear notifications or check my calendar.
Plus the whole thing was stupid customizable. On the software side, the community grew a fairly sizable market for watchfaces to show pretty much whatever suited your fancy
(TimeStyle was always one of my favorites, but I was also fond of this Pokemon one). On the hardware side, the watch used a standard 20mm band so you could go as far as to match it to your outfit if you wanted (I had a nice metal band to go with my Steel so I could dress it up for college career fairs (and have my calendar send me a reminder when it was time to duck off to class)).
You have to keep in mind that the tech at the time was pretty revolutionary, but dated now. The e-ink display was legible in the brightest daylight and it had a battery life of 7-10 days depending on the model. I liked the minimalist styling of it, and hope they continue with a future model.
I’ve always been curious to know how it would have evolved if it hadn’t been killed off. A newer version would hopefully take advantage of color e-ink displays and have some of the features current smart watches have. But honestly, they could make the Pebble Steel again with updated parts and I’d buy it in a second.
Genuinely curious, I was read that the Pebble was so great. Why so? What about made everyone like them so much?
It had an e-ink display, lasted forever. It also did the core smart watch features really well in terms of showing notifications, tracking steps and sleep, answering texts. It had a ton of fun watch faces and the interface was really quirky, fun and functional.
Echoing the other comment, I loved my Pebble because it was a smartwatch that was a watch first and foremost and everything after that was added to make life easier (rather than to pile on selling points that someone might want but that nobody needs). For example, the thing had a week long battery life (irrc the first gen iWatch had something like less than a day), but even when it hit the bottom 10% of the tank, it turned off non-essentials (like Bluetooth, calendar, customizations, etc) and just kept going on a default watchface. The UI was simple, easy to navigate, and generally useful. Physical buttons meant that I never had to fight with a touchscreen to clear notifications or check my calendar.
Plus the whole thing was stupid customizable. On the software side, the community grew a fairly sizable market for watchfaces to show pretty much whatever suited your fancy (TimeStyle was always one of my favorites, but I was also fond of this Pokemon one). On the hardware side, the watch used a standard 20mm band so you could go as far as to match it to your outfit if you wanted (I had a nice metal band to go with my Steel so I could dress it up for college career fairs (and have my calendar send me a reminder when it was time to duck off to class)).
You have to keep in mind that the tech at the time was pretty revolutionary, but dated now. The e-ink display was legible in the brightest daylight and it had a battery life of 7-10 days depending on the model. I liked the minimalist styling of it, and hope they continue with a future model.
I’ve always been curious to know how it would have evolved if it hadn’t been killed off. A newer version would hopefully take advantage of color e-ink displays and have some of the features current smart watches have. But honestly, they could make the Pebble Steel again with updated parts and I’d buy it in a second.
For one thing, I only changed the fucker like every 3 days