I bought the original Pebble on Kickstarter. I jumped on the Time on Kickstarter when it was announced. I changed my order to the Time Steel when it was made available. I bought an original one for the wife, I bought her a Time as well.
And I'm going to wait on this one. If they're going to delve into the fitness category, I'll be looking at Garmins (of which I have several, albeit older ones with no smart watchy stuff) which are more durable (my $DEITY, does the Pebble get scratched up), go forever on a charge, and I'm willing to bet just plain do the job better because Garmin has been at it for a while.
Given the hurdles on iOS that Pebble can't seem to overcome (for which they are not entirely, if at all, to blame), I'll also wait and see what Apple has on tap. Apple has some shortcomings to eliminate, maybe they'll do that next round.
It's not because I'm unhappy with my Pebbles, I love my current Time Steel. But if I'm going to spend money on a watch that does what Pebble is currently advertising, my options open up to include established competitors in that space. I'm not willing to bet real money that Pebble can outdo those competitors right out of the gate. So I'll wait until it hits retail, see what it really does and what the experiences of others are. Maybe I'll get one, but it's not guaranteed like it was for previous versions.
I think Garmin is way underrated as a (hardware) technology company.
Given that they were a GPS company that people wrote off as being irrelevant in the age of smartphones and Google Maps they have done a great job carving out multiple niches in sports devices (and that ignores their "Smart Glass" airplane business).
I have 2 Edge cycling computers and a Garmin running watch and love them all.
The Edge 520 is the type of device that I'd see the specs of and expect to be a half-implemented heap of junk (connects to my phone to receive notifications while I ride? Automatically uploads rides when I finish them? This will never work). And yet it really is rather good.
Their motorcycle products have gotten much worse over time (specifically, Zumo 550 to 350).
They've lost physical buttons (it's much, much safer to get back to map view via tactile sensation) and added horrible drag-based panning to the overhead map view. The device can't reliably distinguish between a tap to initiate a drag and a tap to select a point. Selecting a point recenters the map. The two fight one another, usually going in the wrong direction.
It no longer supports an ad-hoc routing workflow. Before, you could select start and end points to your journey, then randomly select waypoints to visit from the map view, and they'd be added in the most sensible order. Now, if you manage to force the map view to point at where you want to go, then it forces you to select the insertion point of the new waypoint in a list, where you can't tell whether you'll be doubling back on yourself. I have to do all my routing in Google Maps now and then add villages to the route using the city finder. Ad-hoc routing by the roadside looking for curvy roads used to be a 60 second activity. Now I need to take off my gloves, pull out my phone, try and find relevant waypoints by name, type them in - it takes 10x as long.
The hardware is woefully underpowered. It feels just as slow as the Zumo 550 first released ten years ago. It can't route distances longer than about 400 miles if it doesn't involve motorways. Recalculation takes up to several minutes. Redrawing the screen in the middle of London after a zoom change can take nearly a minute.
My wife got a pebble time last year after upgrading her OG pepple. It scratched like crazy and had tons of issues.
She bought a Garmin Vivoactive after xmas and both of us havent looked back. We get 2-3 weeks pf battery with moderate gps use. Alerts work way better then the Pebble watch. I highly recommend the garmin. I forget I have to charge it, but it takes 2 hrs to go from 20%-100%.
Also, I only know one person who wears a pebble, and it was a hand me down. Eveyone I know who owned a Pebble switched to Appl, Android Wear, Microsoft Band or Garmin.
Alerts are my primary reason also; the only time I do any vigorous exercise I certainly won't wear a smartwatch due to the risk of damage, so that functionality isn't of much use. I don't want to wear a watch in bed or in the shower either. I'm not keen on biometric data being collected anyway so it's good that the latest version of Android Wear allows denying sensor permissions.
What would be ideal would be a smartwatch that can manage to set Google reminders without having to have Google Now turned on; that, plus the occasional text message and even more occasional use of navigation, are all I use it for other than looking at notifications.
I wear a Pebble. I had the OG Steel, and now have the Time Round. I love mine, and haven't had any of the issues others have experienced (and neither of mine are covered in scratches, and I'm not particularly cautious with them?).
Unfortunately I can't second that. I own an Edge cycling computer with which I'm happy in general, but which already had multiple severe bugs (like simply displaying "memory full" and not resetting itself in a loop) which required either hard resets or even reflashing the firmware to recover. Things which the average consumer might not be able to do.
I guess I'll be the lone naysayer. I use a 620 and have had a 910 and 405. Each one had major bugs that make me shocked that they shipped. It seems that the general feeling from my friends who use their products, is that Garmin does a less awful job than Polar at providing fitness tracking for athletes.
Just one example, it's a common and known issue that putting the 620 on the charger will sometimes drain it completely. There's magnets that hold it in place so there is no chance the proper connection wasn't made to produce a charge. Even if there wasn't any charge, it shouldn't drain it, but numerous times when I've gone to grab my watch off the charger, I've found it dead. For perspective this is a $500 top of the line watch that they offer.
Garmin's bike computers are the technology of 5 years ago, today! IMO the 520's display and user interface are garish and outdated. It's too bad they don't have any good competition in that space.
They do have competition (Wahoo for one) but the thing is most people who buy those devices don't care too much about the other bells and whistles of modern gadgets. They just want to see the numbers and have the GPS be stable.
I know I might sound against the current, but back in the age of portable car gps, in Europe Garmins were utter garbage compared to TomToms, maps were lousy, navigation perhaps worse.
Has anybody experienced the same?
Agreed. I am glad they conceded that people use Strava. If I am going to upload and track results somewhere I would rather use Strava then their implementation.
My wife bought a Garmin Vivofit because it was water-proof and runs for months on a battery. I ended up buying the Vivofit 2 which has a better clasp, a backlight, and is supposed to sync automatically with my phone.
When I wore a watch, I would take it off as soon as I could because it got in the way. I'm really happy with the Vivofit 2 - I haven't taken it off in (literally) months because it doesn't need to be charged and does just fine in the shower or swimming.
I've been disappointed with the automatic syncing not working. Other than that, it's a great product.
PS: my parents-in-law were given Fitbit devices with HR monitors which they had me set up for them. I'd like the HR monitoring but not at the cost of having a thicker device and having to deal with a proprietary charge connection (one end is standard USB).
Heart rate and GPS take significant amounts of power, unlike MEMS accelerometers, Bluetooth low-energy, and watch displays. A thin, non-rechargeable battery is a possibility for watches without these features.
For watches with these features, it needs a rechargeable battery and a very thin water-proof connection to that battery.
The Vivofit looks really good in the sense that you don't really need to sync it with a smartphone to get the relevant information, it's just there on your wrist. You want something that will tell you at a glance how many steps you've done, and whether you really should be moving around now. I don't think the long-term stuff is so effective. It's a shame it's a bit obtrusive though, I'd prefer if it had the same indicators, but looked like a watch.
Not sure if it's of any interest (or if you've already seen it), but Garmin does have something comparable in an analog watch form with their recent Vivomove tracker.
But that requires changing your $600 piece of hardware in order to better serve your $200 one - let alone the other disruption changing platforms would bring.
Don't get me wrong, Android is the clear answer here but it's still difficult to justify switching. It would be great if Apple just opened up their smartwatch functionality, but alas...
Believe it or not, I actually went that route. My Pebble experience was better, but there's a reason I'm back on iOS. In retrospect, it was incredibly stupid to change my mobile OS just to support a watch. Shoulda just bought a different watch.
True, yet as someone who went from the Steel to the Time Steel (and had his Steel stolen), the display readability was a big downgrade;the old Steel was simply far easier to read.
The new Time 2 fixes this, from what I can see, in addition to making the display bigger (two sides of the same coin, but still worth the distinction).
Adding the HRM feature, and the fact that I love everything else about my Time Steel (the readability being the exception), I buddied up for a 2x order.
It's worth mentioning that the Pebble team have been doing some fantastic work on the OS on the past few months; the continuous updates are great.
Also I still get 9+ days from each charge with my always on display; nothing else in the smart watch market comes close.
I have a garmin forerunner 235 which is perfect for running, and functions as my everyday smartwatch with all day heartrate monitoring and basic notifications from my iphone. Do you still wear your pebbles?
I'm not OP, but I've had the opposite experience: I'm not using mine anymore.
I have both the original Pebble and the Pebble Time, but I've abandoned them in favor of a Suunto Ambit 3.
It functions well enough as a basic smartwatch (it can receive notifications, and that's about it) and fitness tracker, but is far better as a running watch: it records and displays more metrics, with far greater accuracy. Since it is also my fitness tracker, I'm wearing it every day instead of the Pebble, because I don't want two sets of incomplete data.
It's far more important to me to have a watch that functions as a running watch than one that has smartwatch features.
I got the original Pebble from the Kickstarter, and the Time as well. I don't use them for fitness* but I do like the sleep tracking. I've pretty much had a Pebble on my wrist 24x6.5 (I charge it overnight once a week-ish) - after pretty much stopping completely wearing a watch shortly after I got my first cellphone with a clock in the '90s.
Wearing it as I type right now. But that's because all of my Garmin watches (610 and 910, IIRC) are old enough to not have the smart watch stuff. If I had a 920, I'd ditch the Pebble. I just can't yet justify the $400 simply to aggregate my wrist-worn devices.
What's the battery life like? I heard it's not quite as good as reported and honestly it's a bit hard to believe a device without an e-ink display would fair as well.
It's decent, but using it in outdoor running mode (the only exercise mode I've tried) depletes the battery quite fast. I enable the optional GLONASS, I'm not sure how much effect that has.
Big handfuls, you'll get about 8 days out of it, less a day for every 30 minutes of running.
Garmin have released a few firmware updates for the watch which may account for the difference between my findings and those of early adopters.
GLONASS on most devices that speak both is enabled only when GPS signal quality is poor enough, and it just uses it to improve the accuracy of your position.
It uses more battery life, but in a lot of cases it's the difference between accurate positioning and not.
So, yeah, I'd try doing same day runs on clear days, with GLONASS on and off, and compare drain rate.
To be honest, it doesn't bother me enough to run any sort of rigorous trial. Going by some trusted reviewers, GLONASS sucks an extra 20% during activities. I'm never so far away from being able to charge it that such a small difference bothers me.
You can see 3D renders for existing products and the B/W Pebble 2 at https://github.com/pebble/pebble-3d. I'd assume that's where the rest of the renders will go.
Agree, but in a device in a minimal form factor it's probably better to have a single high speed bus exposed as opposed to trying to break out everything.
Well that's great but let's talk about the previous Time, it also has some exposed pins. I don't recall anything ever happening with these except for vapor-product talk online. I'm a second time backer but since the previous stuff seemed to just get lost and forgotten about I've given up on wanting to chase this.
Is it free 3G? I wonder what the (if any) catch is, and I don't see any place to pop in a sim card. Looks awesome.
Pebble is so underrated. I've tried out so many smartwatches and activity trackers and always come back to the Pebble Time. It just keeps getting better and better! Kudos!
> 3G Connection: Streaming over 3G, sending emergency SOS messages over 3G, or any other 3G-enabled features will require a data-enabled SIM card from a supported cellular carrier.
Ting (choice of Sprint or T-Mobile) is $6/line, plus usage. Google Fi (uses both Sprint and T-Mobile) allows subscribers to add data-only SIMs to their existing plans at no additional charge (other than data usage).
In Canada, FWIW, you can get tranched plans from most carriers starting at $5 month (it is their "tablet" option). The bills go up pretty quickly if you use it much, but still a decent option.
Love it, but I can't imagine battery life would be too good. With the small form factor, the only way I can see it lasting longer than a few hours is to have the 3G off most of the time, and turn it on periodically.
Well there aren't any pictures of the bottom, or very good pictures of any of the sides either. I would guess it has a similar sim tray on one of the sides as many phones do.
Just this afternoon there was a consumer magazine making a full section on faked non user repairable claims from manufacturer. I agree with you, the core appeals to me much more thinking I can tweak it if needed.
I'm a little confused reading the page. Is the Core for Running and Core for Hackers the exact same hardware? THat is, if I pledge $69 do I get something that I can hack?
I don't care about Core for running, I just need the hackable version
Same here! The "Core for Running" side helps me justify the money (running with my watch + my phone has annoyed me for a while), but I'm actually more excited by the "hackable" aspect :)
I like that it's one step closer to having some nominal level of communication ability without a phone. I would love to have a Pebble style watch allowing me to be fully untethered even if it meant being receive-only most of the time.
I don't know much about the pager protocol, but I think it doesn't require transmit power on the endpoint. I'm imagining a mode where the Pebble goes out of range of the Core, and then goes into passive pager mode maybe with some kind of SMS to pager gateway.
Pagers use special frequencies, and are most often transmitted in the open. If you live somewhere that has a pager service provider, you can likely pick it up using a RTLSDR setup.
Sad they haven't announced a new Pebble Time Round - I got one after giving up on smartwatches for a long time and it's fantastic. I get compliments on it as a watch before anyone even knows it has smart functionality built into it. At the end of the day, smartwatches are still fashion accessories and the PTR is the only one so far that doesn't look supremely awkward to me.
I find it strange seeing non-pebble smartwatches on people's wrists where the display is off by default. I don't think having a device that is passively in sleep mode by default is very fashionable. Kind of like looking at an elaborate painting frame minus the painting. When I hear about people spending top dollar for the higher-end Apple watches, I just think it is so strange that the expensive fashion accessory they are wearing will be seen by others as being off most of the time.
Agree 100%. My PTS gets 9 days+ between each charge and the display is always on, whilst doing steps and sleep tracking and integrating with my S6 Edge.
I love the fact that the Pebble is such a focused device; I'd never trade it for an "screen on demand when shaking it around" iWatch, even if they threw an iPhone in for free.
They will likely announce a new round before the end of this kickstarter -- similar to how they announced the Time Steel. There's a video of Eric wearing a round watch with a smaller bezel.
That was explained on the Pebble Dev slack as a pre-production Pebble Time Round. They originally had a smaller bezel for that, but had to expand the size due to manufacturability issues.
That's plausible, but it could also be a convenient explanation to keep a new design under wraps until a big announcement.
I currently have an original Pebble Steel. I pre-ordered a Time 2 today, but I'd love to be able to upgrade my order to a Round 2. That watch is, by far, the nicest looking smartwatch so far, from any manufacturer.
Backing a Kickstarter is not "pre-ordering". Kickstarter is not a store. Maybe you feel more confident because this is Pebble, but the distinction remains. Buying something from Kickstarter is not placing an order for something. It's investing in an idea.
I understand this is how kickstarter markets itself, but "campaigns" like this sure make it look like a new-tech store. And in this particular case, what idea are people investing in? The newest version of a watch from a company that's doing $40M-$60M of dollars in revenue each year?
Kickstarter does not market itself that way. Kickstarter is misleading about what it does and how it works. That people say things like "pre-ordering" indicates it.
There are significant differences between a pre-order and backing. There are accounting differences for Kickstarter and there are less guarantees for backers than for pre-orders. You aren't entitled to any of your money back, support, or timeliness. Pebble Time showed up at Best Buys before backers got their watches. I bought my Pebble Time from the pebble website and people were still complaining about having backed the kickstarter.
With a kickstarter you're shooting your money into the void and hope something comes back to you. With a pre-order you're legally entitled to a product or your money back and receive benefits from the various federal and state laws that govern how businesses do commerce.
> You aren't entitled to any of your money back, support, or timeliness
Fair point about timeliness, but where did you get the idea that you're not entitled to your money back or support? From the Kickstarter page:
> We stand firmly behind our products. Each Pebble product includes with a 30 day (after you receive it) money back guarantee and minimum 1 year limited warranty.
I'm sure he understands the difference, but with two successful campaigns for the pebble, and this new one already at 2.5m, one can understand his faux pas.
I'm also sure he doesn't need us to tell him the differences between kickstarter order and a true pre-order.
There is no investing going on here. This is absolutely a pre-order. It doesn't matter what Kickstarter says in their ToS, you're pre-ordering a product.
I really love my Time 1. The battery life is outstanding and while most apps are not pretty, there is a lot of functionality here. Even if you limit it to text/email notifications it's pretty great.
I just went on a 6 day vacation and didn't even bring my charger. Worked like a champ.
Same same, yeah, seeing a lot of squares for emoticons, but getting 12 days of bat life easily (just avoid often updating watch faces like with a seconds-hand.)
My lower button does start to feel a bit mushy... It still clicks but not as nice as the upper one. If it stays like this, no problem, I'm just a bit afraid I will stop working exactly after the warranty runs out, and I can't see how I would be able to fix that myself. I'm hoping to get at least 4 years of usage out of this watch.
I'm going to join in since I've been using a pebble for years with great enjoyment.
I treat it as a secretary. I think of different communication media as having different urgencies / time constants. Emails are a daily report. My phone's notifications are an hourly report. Notifications which I forward to my watch are the instant things. Be sure to mercilessly "mute" most apps from bugging you on your wrist. With this setup, I never feel the urge to check my phone. If there is something important, it would've buzzed my wrist.
Here are my subjectively appreciated apps
Homescreen: Fairweather. It is information dense display of weather, sunset time, pressure, vis., etc.
(Top) Button shortcut: Forecast weather. Shows a probability of precipitation over the next 24hrs (I donated for data from forecast.io). Great for avoiding the rain when walking the dog / biking home / etc.
(Bottom) Button shortcut: A bus/train stop info panel. It uses the phone's GPS to tell you when the next buses/trains are coming. Handy for when there is a stop within 100 feet of the bar and you can know if you want that extra beer or not.
Timer/Multitimer are great. Alarms for waking up are great. 7minute workout app is great.
- Compass - for compass and the ultra-cool switching between normal and "in-flight HUD" display depending on your wrist orientation.
- GPS Bookmark - lets you bookmark the location you're standing in right now, and later display the direction and the distance to that location. It uses the compass on your watch and your phone's GPS. It works on GPS coordinates, so it doesn't require you to have any Internet connection. I found it extremely useful when I was in Shenzhen, China - I bookmarked my hotel and work, and used the third bookmark slot (you have one slot per button) to record temporary locations like the metro station I just got off from. It was really invaluable for finding my way back from wherever I ended up going.
- PebbleTasker - like the name suggests, it lets you call Tasker tasks to Pebble. I.e. you can make Pebble buttons do pretty much anything on your phone, without having to write an app yourself. You can bind some to each button, and then also use a list menu for more. The bindings can also be dynamically configurable from within Tasker, if you feel like making e.g. location-aware actions on your watch, or something.
- AutoPebble from AutoApps plugins for Tasker - something similar to PebbleTasker, but more advanced - you can dynamically configure the contents and behaviour of the watchapp from Tasker. A bit more difficult to set up, but also much more powerful. It's probably the best option if you want to have whatever the data you want on your watch, and in the way you want it.
2. Kickstarter money is technically a donation, so you can spend the money right away if you need to. (taking a typical pre-order is little tricky from an accounting perspective if it's considered revenue)
Donation is the wrong way to think of it from an accounting perspective (though perhaps not from a legal recourse perspective.) Preorders are not recognized as revenue. They are a debit (increase) to Cash and a credit (increase) to a liability that's usually Unearned Revenue. As you ship, you credit (increase) Revenue/Sales and then debit (decrease) the Unearned Revenue liability account.
Edit: renamed 'Prepaid' to 'Unearned' -- had to brush up on my GAAP nomenclature
Just in terms of law: it's not an investment, it's not a purchase (since there's no guarantee of backers receiving their rewards), it's not a loan. It works exactly like when your local public radio station offers t-shirts to donors. IANAL but it seems pretty clear that kickstarter revenue would be a donation from a legal perspective.
As a backer, I'd treat Kickstarter just like setting the money on fire.
As a project, I'd be unlikely to offer a complicated physical device that I was not yet able to produce. I might put weaselly bullshit about a reward being a great sticker and up to 1 device.
I think the actual litigation that has already occurred -- e.g., the Washington State and FTC consumer protection suits -- have treated it mostly as a purchase (money exchange for a specific obligation), and certainly not as a donation.
It's certainly not portrayed as a pure donation (money given with no specific reciprocal commitment) in Kickstarter's terms.
Working capital on better terms than equity or debt. They have a proven track record, so it's not very risky to backers, and they get working capital at a very low cost.
Edit: Other comments referencing marketing make a good point. PR value is big for a massively successful kickstarter.
Seeing how fast backers are adding, they probably save a lot of headache by leaving the scaling to others. Kickstarter handles the traffic from user signup to charging the credit cards at the end. And Kickstarter already figured out how to do this on that scale.
Also, for the Core at least (the one I'm interested in) it's an early 2017 projected release date (and I have bought enough Kickstarters to know that this slips). Seems to me that a normal retail experience simply would not support this kind of anticipatory release (and it is a dealbreaker for me)
They've historically done all pre-orders on Kickstarter and were one of the first massively-successful projects to come out of it (and they shipped, too!). I'd assume it's entirely due to marketing and the ability to maximize pre-order sales.
I didn't pay anything extra for duty? I bought my wife a "Round" back in January, and while the Canadian dollar was crappy, I only payed 25% in CDN dollars over the websites listed price. So, not sure if I got lucky or you just didn't. :(
On a side note Canadian shoppers can find the watches at their local Best Buy... at least the current ones anyway. You might not get the style you want though, as they seem to be a bit limited that way. Pricing is usually close to the US price. I paid the extra to get the style I wanted for the wife.
They wanted to charge GST last time in Australia too, if you chose expedited shipping, even though the individual unit cost was well under our $1k limit. Reason was that the bulk of the lot was shipped to Australia, leaving it to Australia Post to organise delivery to individual backers.
It was a bit of a farce, they should just have shipped directly from HK or wherever; I sorted myself out by reverting to standard postage.
Reminds me of how here in Norway the postal service demand a flat fee for these things. Thus you risk paying more for the fee than the duty if the item is price just right.
It's crazy to me that Pebble manages to crowdfund most of its operations like this. I assume that since the delivery dates are so close they've almost finished development on the products? So really this more of a pre-order than anything else.
Worked twice will work again.
You can pay and know ahead of time how the demand will be. Should lower your purchasing prices as well if you can pay upfront.
Its a smart move and they will do it again and again with every new product they develop.
And they have filled order books which will help to raise money if there is a need for it.
Yup, a preorder without the legal restrictions that come with preordering (in some US states you can't charge a credit card before the order ships). So this way they can use the money from their "preorders" to actually manufacturer the product that is being shipped, where traditional preorders are more about gauging market demand and possible using that as leverage to acquire funding to go to manufacturing.
I was using a FitBit Charge HR but eventually just grew fed up with having to charge it - the cable is (afaik) proprietary and the one they included in the box is hilariously short. So I would often forget to grab it in the morning since it wasn't by my bedside (rather bed-floor). But I did like one thing about it - having the time on my wrist.
So I just bought a cheap Casio and couldn't be happier.
I'm intrigued with the Pebble 2 and Time 2 - like that it's always on, and can go a long time between charges. But how does it work with iOS? From The Wirecutter, it looks like it's not a pleasant experience http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-smartwatch-iphone/#peb...
Any other opinions?
My Charge HR lasts 4-5 days between charges. I assume the charger is proprietary because the watch is water resistant, so I'm ok with that. I keep the cable at work, and set a vibrate alarm to remind me to plug it in Friday afternoons. If you do need a spare charger, they're $5-$10 on Amazon. Cheaper than your Casio watch I bet ;)
Looking fwd to the Pebble2 though. IMO all smartwatches should be eInk and hackable.
Also curious about this. I'm considering a switch from Android back to iOS, and a cursory googling couldn't find whether Pebble's iOS integration will let me archive gmail messages directly from the watch notification.
Tried Pebble, liked Garmin Fenix 3 MUCH better: it's round, it has GPS (inside, not with an additional gadget), has superb battery life and feels indestructible -- it may not be, it's just how it feels.
It's more expensive but well worth the extra money IMHO.
Garmin does a nice job bridging the cap between the "smart" watches like Pebble and the Apple watch, and the more serious fitness devices like those from Polar and Suunto.
I have much "nicer" watches, but this one is just far more utilitarian, especially for an active person.
It's also very sharp looking in comparison to the cheaper/plastic looking option.
GPS works almost everywhere (including on planes!); compass works absolutely everywhere, including near big metal objects, on the subway, etc. It's really really great.
That said, software could be improved, and that's an understatement. The mess that is "basecamp" is a disgrace, esp. for a company like Garmin which is associated with navigation...
Man! I hate Basecamp too! I haven't bothered trying it with my Fenix, but I used it on my Colorado handheld GPS for a few backpacking trips, and it was terrible. Especially the early versions.
I also have a Forerunner 235 and I think it's the most underrated smart watch out there. It has superb battery life (up to 11 days), always on display and heart rate monitor as well as a tight integration with iOS (notifications, apple health).
One of the biggest issues for me with the Forerunner is the fact that it seems to have a rather laggy heart rate monitor. Looking at my friend heart rate tracking with the watch, shows rather abrupt increases and decreases in the heart rate, most notable at the beginning and end of a run.
Based on the cost of the Forerunner, if the new Pebble Time 2 is as accurate or better, the cost alone might have me buying it. That said I'm on Android so I would get all the benefits unlike the iOS crowd.
Are there other devices with wrist HR measuring that are appreciably better? My understanding is that if you want very precise monitoring, you're going to need a chest strap.
I'm not sure, to be honest, they all seem a bit meh, but if the Pebbles is close or better than the Forerunner it'll be worth it on price alone I feel.
This seems like a pretty interesting device. I'm an avid runner, and my option is either to wear a clunky GPS device or to carry my smartphone and pair it to a lighter-weight and sleeker device. This basically enables both use cases without having to lug the phone, plus it adds some interesting features with the built-in storage and streaming 3G.
I think that a lot of people will buy if Pebble can price this competitively. Their closest competition is the $250 TomTom Spark Cardio + Music, and it seems like they will undercut that. With that said, 6 months is a long time, and I wouldn't be surprised if new and better devices come out before this ships.
I love the concept of the Core, because I often leave my phone at home. Unfortunately it requires a country whith a mature and affordable mobile internet infrastructure, neither of which applies to Germany.
Open Hotspots in Germany are incredibly rare (due to a just recently lifted law that made Hotspot providers liable for criminal activities commited over their connection). The use cases you described can be covered with an iPod Shuffle or similar MP3 player. The interesting part is really the mobile internet connection, which is hard/pricy to come by in Germany and probably other countries. Especially in rural areas you won't get a good enough connection for Spotify.
Another useful use case would be an emergency button for elderly people. Current devices are rather expensive and/or only work at home.
I don't think you need to use open hotspots - assuming you have your own WiFi at home, you can just do your syncing once you're back at home after your run. Also the core has GPS, which the iPod Shuffle doesn't.
I didn't find Germany's mobile internet too expensive, I was quite happy with Congstar prepaid when I was last over there. Certainly comparable with Australian mobile internet pricing. On the other hand, Australia now has free mobile Spotify streaming (on Optus), not sure if Congstar does.
I recently switched to 1&1 here in DE. They offer 1.5gb for 17eur with unlimited calls (without contract). You can get better/cheaper plans with a tarif though https://mobile.1und1.de/
As somebody who doesn't use Spotify, I wonder how open the Core will be, e.g. for other audio providers like PocketCast. If I could just tell it to play the latest podcasts from my PocketCast, this would be the perfect fitness tracker for me.
I can do next/previous, play/pause, and change the volume when using PocketCast on Android from my pebble time 1. When PocketCasts was the last used audio app, it opens and start playing when I go to music and hit play on the pts.
Oops, now I see what exactly the core is... Maybe a bit different.
They state in the Kickstarter that the Core runs Android. So basically it runs the Spotify android app. Chances are that support could be added easily for other apps.
I was an original Pebble backer, but since moved to an Apple Watch. Though it's not Pebble's fault, the lack of proper iOS integration (iMessage, HealthKit, etc.) is really a bummer after using Apple's complete package. I wish my Apple Watch had some of the features that Pebble does (water resistance, long battery life), but the Apple ecosystem lock-in is a powerful force...
I wish Eric & the rest of Pebble the best of luck-- they really are one of only three viable smartwatch platforms, which is pretty incredible for such a small company. It'll be interesting to see how they can fit the core into the activity monitor space as well.
Yeah, it's more of a peace of mind thing. The new Pebble is water resistant to 30m, which is really, really deep water. Though I could probably swim with my Apple Watch, it's not something I particularly want to risk since it's not an advertised "feature".
I don't see a lot of folks mentioning it, but what jumped out at me in reading it is that the Core will act as a PAN (Personal Area Network) Internet gateway to provide 3G connectivity to other devices via Bluetooth tethering. That could be a really nice touch for "always-connected" devices without having to tie them to a phone.
I wonder whether Google Project Fi will support this. Fi is already very reasonably priced and recently began offering data-only SIM cards extending a base plan with a pay-as-you-go rate.
I was a Pebble fan, but recent changes are bad. They stuff more and more into their Pebble Health cloud offering.
Just today I opened a support call to figure out what data they transmit to their servers and how long they store it.
I'm also currently unconvinced that you can use the Pebble to track steps/your sleep without uploading your data (i.e. it seems that you either opt into Pebble Health and Pebble gets your data or .. you don't get it either).
Depending on the reaction of the support call I will either dispose of this thing or use it offline - new products from Pebble aren't exactly interesting for me at this point..
Pebble engineer here. You can absolutely disable data upload and continue using pebble health. The support team will guide you though it. In the future, we hope to make the settings options to do so more explicit.
The only feature that currently requires analytics to work is voice transcription.
Thank you, that's awesome and reassuring - although you might take away that it's near impossible to figure out in the settings right now.
You even got a reply on this random board from another pebble customer who's still confused (and usage log doesn't seem likely to me, that sounds like telemetry? "User likes to access feature A" vs "All the sensor data").
In short: I'm looking forward to the support reply. Initial reply was 'forwarding to tech, might need more time'. Please consider making this more explicit, if you're in a position to bring this issue up.
Edit: In fact, this comment of yours convinced me that Pebble (vs all the other watches) IS the right choice - I just backed the campaign for a Time 2 / Core combo). Thanks.
Is this the "Usage logs" option in the settings? That disables sending health data to Pebble servers as well?
Personally, if it were an option, I would like to disable sending health data but still send voice data for transcription. I can understand if you're using Google's voice recognition APIs, but IMO there's no reason the two have to be linked.
Could you elaborate? I've been looking at the FBCHR as an Apple Watch that I don't have to charge every night and thus could take advantage of sleep tracking. Also unlike WATCH I understand the FBCHR automatically detects runs/workouts without having to start a workout app. Thanks.
- They advertise 5 days charge but I get maybe 3 days. 4 at best.
- The heartrate reader is only accurate when you're at rest. Any sort of sweat or physical activity and the reading becomes wildly inaccurate or just stops working.
- The app takes like 5-10 minutes to sync every time and it won't sync in the background. So when syncing, I have to move my finger around on the phone so my phone doesn't lock and mess up the sync. I live in China so that might be the issue here. YMMV
- It does auto detect but I have a Vespa scooter so everytime I ride my scooter, it counts it as me walking a shitton of steps and I have to manually go on the website to delete those activities. This is also occasionally an issue in cars.
Overall, just dissatisfied with how this product works.
The Charge HR sync is garbage in the US as well. It never syncs for me unless I explicitly open the app, and even then it takes forever. "All day sync" is enabled, I've tried resets etc. no dice.
I'm OK with the HR accuracy, but the sync issues make it more trouble than it's worth. I still wear the thing, but only bother to sync and look at the app perhaps once a week at most since it's so damn slow.
Question: I've been deliberating getting a smartwatch so this is good timing. However, I've been trying to cut down on screen time and distractions. Is getting a smartwatch a good idea?
> I've been trying to cut down on screen time and distractions. Is getting a smartwatch a good idea?
You make it sound like those desires are at odds, when in fact a smartwatch supports your goal. Thanks to my Pebble, I only take my phone out of my pocket when I intend to use it. I don't even take my phone out of my pocket to reply to text messages sometimes now, since I can do it from my Pebble. Ditto for changing/pausing the song on Spotify, or of course checking the time, which I used to use my phone for before I got my Pebble (first first gen, then Time). Not to mention it's great to be able to send calls to voicemail if I don't want to answer them or don't recognize the number, and I can do that without stopping walking.
I'm sure I'd frequently fire up Twitter or Hacker News if I had my phone in my hands after replying to a text, so I think my Pebble saves me from a lot of distractions.
Pebble Time owner here: The watch has reduced my "take out the smartphone and fiddle" occurences from 40+ to maybe 4 or 5 times a day. Notifications are no longer an excuse to glue the phone to my body, so I just put my phone somewhere in the house/on my desk most of the time.
I use mine solely to make sure I don't miss calls texts, and appointments. But you know yourself. Would you be tempted to load flappy bird onto it right away? Would you forward your facebook notifications to it?
Fortunately, there isn't enough screen real estate and input methods to get a lot of gaming going.
I have a time and whenever I get a email or text I can read it on my watch first and determine if it's worth getting out my phone for. Before, whenever I got a notification I'd have to take out my phone and could get drawn into other things on it. It depends on how you use it, but I find it really good for that exact purpose.
I think it can be depending on the way you use it. It allows you to instantly see if something is worth attention or not. If not, push the button on pebble and the notification will remain open on your phone. This means you will be reminded to respond when you do have the opportunity to get your phone out. I mute my phone, Pebble is all I use for disturbance and it is less severe than a phone.
If the pebble would do 3G an I could answer calls? I think I'd even hardly ever use my phone anymore.
Core is super cool, but I feel there's a big miss for tracking heart rate. I suppose you could cobble it together with Wahoo Fintness TICKR X and merge the data after the run, but it would be awesome to combine those two products.
Also would be great to see it tie into other devices like cadence / speed sensors for bike rides.
Does show that these types of devices are just around the corner, which is exciting. For me, I'll keep on trucking my phone with me until I get full integration with tracking heart rate and cycling metrics.
"Leave your phone at home -- We all love our phones. But when you’re out for a run, strapping a big phone to your arm isn’t much fun. We built Core for a better running experience, to give you the benefits of your phone with none of the inconvenience."
HR trackers need to touch your skin or be wrapped around your torso. This would severely impede on the devices ease of wearing/ease of use/lightness, which is it's main focus.
And here I just bought a Pebble Time. Guess I know why it seemed so cheap.
Hopefully this won't fragment the app marketplace and it will maintain universal app coverage across all the Pebble watches.
I wonder if it would be possible for an Android Wear watch to do something similar to the Pebble: Long battery life, no touch screen, e-paper display and run alright. I imagine the colour space differences between e-paper and LCD would cause issues though.
Android is a much beefier OS than Pebble, which is an RTOS and doesn't scale down nearly as well. Pebble can produce products at such low prices and high-battery costs because they squeeze every drop out of their low cost hardware.
Most Android apps require more system resources than the entirety of a Pebble watch.
Aside, I'm continually impressed with Pebble, and disappointed with Android Wear products. Taking a phone OS and cramming it on a watch seems lazy, not innovative, and the experience has never felt great. What Pebble has done feels really innovative and polished -- they've come a long way.
It's also much bulkier than the watch and has no screen. It has a lot less to deal with and they can carefully control what apps it's running since the user has no input.
Yeah, their lighter platform seems to be a win for battery. But their cheapest product is going to be an Android widget, presumably because that is an easy path to a broader range of features.
I agree, every Android Wear watch I've seen has the same issues of lag, screen time-out time and battery life. They feel like they're trying to be something that can't exist yet because of power limitations, whereas the Pebble watches embrace their limits and don't try to be more.
I also don't understand why Google and Apple don't pursue the Pebble market. I think they made the perfect choices given all constraints. Screen always on, at least 10 days bat life (pts), not to big, water resistant. It's a nice watch as it is and then you get the smart part as extra.
My only complaint is that the buttons are all merged into one on both the Pebble 2 and Time 2, like they are on the Pebble Time. One of the things I liked about my original Pebble compared to my Time was that the buttons were separate, making it easy to press one without accidentally pressing another one.
I'm a runner, but I generally listen to tech podcasts or audible books while doing so. When someone gives me a watch with the ability to listen to these, combined with built-in GPS, I'm on board. Until then, I'll begrudgingly continue to lug around this phone...
From what I've read it supports streaming music... To stream podcasts it'll have to have an app for that, and for using Audible it'll have to support, well, Audible.
Add to that the fact that it requires its own 3g connection, which will add a monthly cost. I'd much rather have built-in storage sufficient to store audiobooks and podcasts...
It's not perfect, but I just use an iPod shuffle for audio while I run. I find that preferable to bringing my phone. I don't do audible books, but it is supported.
I already have bluetooth headphones, but a watch with built-in GPS and internal storage allowing for podcasts/audiobooks has eluded me. If you know of one I'd appreciate the info.
The Bragi Dash has no GPS... just accelerometer tracking as far as I can tell.
The dash / similar hadphones have internal storage for audiobooks and podcasts with no gps. You could then use gps on a running watch (this is the setup I use to listen to music and podcasts running)
I had one for a few days, it has GPS and internal storage. I passed on it because of the backlit LCD screen, replacing it with a watch that has an OLED screen but no GPS -- but then I cycle, and always have my phone with me.
Pebble CEO, Migicovsky, says about the Core, "Look, when you go for a run you can take this instead of taking your phone."
I think the Core is really interesting but his hopeful "instead of" vision might be naive, based on the Core's capabilities.
Leaving a smartphone at home when it only weighs as much as a gulp of water (e.g. a 4 oz iPhone) seems like a step 20 years backwards in convenience and peace of mind when you can't call or message from a Core.
Unless you're a marathoner or involved in serious training, a run is usually going to last 45m-60m tops. Many people, myself included, consider that time to be sacred and personal, in which getting calls or messages is the last thing one would want to be involved with.
I have never in my life taken my phone with me on a jog, and I would never want to. I put my Fitbit Charge HR in exercise mode, and if I want music (which I usually don't), I'll take an iPod shuffle. Connectivity to the wider world web is not on my agenda, and something like the Core is likely the extent of technology that I'd want on my person.
It's the coolest product I've seen lately in the fitness sphere.
...on a side note, one of the reasons I enjoy jogging without music is that it gives me a chance to let my thoughts flow, and I find myself coming up with all sorts of neat ideas while my heart rate is high and I'm out and about with zero distractions. I've long wanted a voice memo recorder while out on a run, and the fact that the Core includes that makes it even more enticing!
Frankly, to me a smartphone with any kind of fitness activity feels like a step 20 years backwards to the times of Discmans with "electric skip protection".. they are devices I end up having to babysit. No rain, no sweat, too massive to carry comfortably without the wonky looking massive arm straps or bike holders, unstable apps, a user interface requiring complex interaction patters not at all suited to fitness activities, and most of all, horrible battery life.
Meanwhile, my Garmin 810 sits on the bike and can go 12+ hours with GPS and display on. It has hardware buttons for the important stuff and a touchscreen that still works in the rain with a zero chance of ending up in some freaking "Google now" screen accidentally.
The only reason I have my phone on me while I'm exercising is for fitness tracking. It's a pain in the ass to have it while running unless it's strapped to your body because it bounces around if it's not strapped down. The core can just clip on exactly how I currently clip a bt headset when I run. And I'm not going to take phone calls or send messages while I'm running.
Although I'm happy with my Pebble Time using watchface ForecasWatch by RCY, I pledged to the Pebble Time 2. It's pretty much the same product with bigger screen, heart rate, and more battery life. I was planning to buy another Pebble to give as gift this year, then I'm just upgrading mine and I'll give my older one as a gift.
One thing did (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/800343142/tylt-vu-pulse...), and unfortunately Pebble just kind of screwed them over. I can't imagine there's any malice involved; integrating HR was an obvious step forward for the product. Backers got an update today advising us that Pebble and Tylt have collaborated such that the Pulse will be able to feed HR data to Pebble Health, so it looks like Pebble have probably been good to deal with.
Still, I imagine it leaves a sour taste in the mouth of anyone else looking at making "Smart Straps".
The first Pebble met their goal within 2 hours, the second within 1 hour, so it's not terribly surprising that this one met its goal within about 2 hours. Still definitely impressive though.
You seem to be right -- other articles mention that the Time 2 has steel casing. I'm surprised they don't mention on the kickstarter page, it was a major selling point for me.
Edit: Also interesting, the new Time 2 has an MSRP $50 cheaper than the Time Steel.
I'm currently sporting a Steel (the original) and went in for the new Time 2. Agree with comfydragon that the Time looks like the new version of the Steel line.
Wish they kept the leather strap, though, but maybe they will have different straps available down the road?
Anyway, I love Pebble, I like their approach with always-on e-paper-like screens. I do am however a bit disappointed they jumped completely on the fitness bandwagon. Is there nothing more interesting to do with wearables than sports?
Well there are a lot of apps, Google Maps navigation, I have an app that tells me from where and at what time my next train leaves, I use the timer a lot and a snowboarding tracker. It's my music remote control (inc Sonos and PocketCasts). But I agree... there still is no killer feature that really gives it a lot of value... Wouldn't know what it would be (if only...)
I suspect that heart rate/movement tracking are increasingly becoming something that wearables are pretty much assumed to have, like GPS or cameras have become in phones.
I don't mind the heart rate / movement tracking per se, but look at the marketing done here. It's targetting pretty much only people who are obsessed with fitness / sports.
Anyone have any suggestions for a Pebble Core competitor that exists today? (I don't want to wait until deep into 2017 for the Core) I'm basically looking for:
iPod shuffle, but with BT audio and ideally compatible with a streaming service.
January isn't very deep into 2017, but I've backed a good half dozen Kickstarters and they rarely hit their targets (then again, Pebble is pretty solidly established at this point).
But, even if they ship in January that is still a long ways away, and plenty of changes and new products will be launched before (in my opinion, that's the real risk with these long announcement/pay times for this kind of presale).
I enjoyed my original Pebble but I stopped using it quite a while ago and while I would love to pick up a new one they just don't look stylish enough. I mean sure they're getting better and yes this is very subjective...but why do they always have to do a double bezel? It drives me nuts! I'm glad they have improved upon it but most of their marketing shots are with a black screen next to the first, black bezel seems really misleading to me (just like they did with the original Time launch).
Anyway I'm not surprised they'd go back to kickstarter. Tons of promotion and I bet they get a special rate compared to most other users of kickstarter.
Has Pebble's build quality gotten better? I havw the original, it wasn't made very well. Had the sticky button issue, they replaced it. Then the vibration motor died in the replacement, basically making it useless as far as a smartwatch goes (since I mainly use it for notifications). They wouldn't replace it, since the replacement only had a 90 day warranty. Of course I don't wear it anymore, I would have tried to repair it but it's impossible to open.
Doesn't exactly inspire confidence if a company doesn't stand behind its products. Even Google does a better job.
They had a few really common problems with the original, notably screen tearing due to a bad connection inside of the device. They replaced my original twice with no questions asked.
I upgraded to a Time not that long ago and it's been solid. I haven't heard of a whole lot of problems with anything but the originals.
I had the tearing issue with my original. I upgraded to a pebble steel rather than replace it (international shipping isn't worth it), and the quality has been second to none. A year and a half on, the leather band is slightly scuffed, but otherwise it feels and looks completely new. The vibrate motor is much quieter and smoother compared to the original one as well.
90 days? Wow. With stuff getting more and more cheaply made these days it doesn't make sense to assume that anything will last longer than the very minimum duration they're legally responsible for it. I'd be unwilling to spend very much on something that will only last 90 days.
Why does Pebble have to go to Kickstarter? Is it because they get money without any strings attached? They are a very well established company at this point. Its a good strategy though.
Besides marketing benefit and having ordering&payments basically handled for them, I think it's a sort of tradition. Pebble was always on Kickstarter. I'd be disappointed if the new ones weren't on it too.
They didn't KS the Pebble Time Round, but that was explained because it was being marketed outside their core market; they did make a deal for PT Steel Kickstarter users to get one at a discounted price.
Never noticed that Kickstarter has live updates for money and backers.. It's crazy how fast they sell (probably in part due to the earlybird specials), almost 1k USD / second.
That being said, it almost feels like an abuse of the platform. It's their third generation of smartwatches after all. I really like the new models with heart monitor though and now they've also added a pure fitness tracker-like device.
I feel the same way. Pebble isn't kick starting anything at this point. They're just crowdfunding interest free R&D loans with pre-sales, which is fine, but the use of the Kickstarter platform for the THIRD time seems disingenuous.
I don't know. I like them using it much better than the usual use - VCs checking product-to-market fit prior to deciding whether to invest in a startup. Kickstarter is long past being used to actually kickstart anything, at least in tech projects.
The question of whether Pebble is abusing kickstarter came up last time around as well. I think it's ultimately up to kickstarter and I would guess they are okay with it given their 5% take ($35k in the last 45 minutes, ~$1M last time)
How is it an abuse of the platform? From the beginning, Kickstarter had often been used to fund individual product launches that were not company or product-line launches.
Neat. A few months ago (before I had to watch money extra carefully), I was looking to make something similar to the Core by removing the strap of the pebble and dremmeling a hole into the mount and making it into a keychain. It seemed like the perfect thing if paired with a bluetooth dumb phone.
Everyone called me crazy for wanting to do it, but it looks like that market actually exists - without a screen, even.
I like gadgets as much as anyone but I'm still struggling to find a use case for a smart watch. My preferred mode of exercise is cycling and I already have a GPS bike computer & HRM. I know I could see notifications from my phone on my wrist but that just isn't enough to tempt me. Having said that if I did get one the Pebble looks like the best option.
I wear analog mechanical watches, I really wish Pebble would release a band with a small screen. I'd like to be able to check my meeting schedule without grabbing my phone or computer.
There's one absurdly overpriced smart band on the market currently and it doesn't function well. Right now if I want one I'll need to build it myself :/
What is the most affordable way to get GSM service for the Pebble Core? It looks like it would cost $20 per month to add a "tablet line" to my current mobile plan which is way too much for me.
If you have Google Fi for your main phone (20$/mo + 10$/GB) you can add up to 9 data-only SIMs for 0$/mo + 10$/GB. The per GB is really fair (I think it rounds to the nearest MB and everything left over rolls over to the next month).
It's obviously up to them if they want to omit even 2 million potential customers.
Personally I don't get the 'not enough value in supporting it' considering the other phone systems obviously had to gain support at some point - now, more than ever considering the universal platform, Windows development makes a lot of sense.
Still, it's their choice - I'll just spend my money elsewhere.
I had Pebble 1, then switched to Moto 360, and after about 1y tried Pebble again (don't like droid notifications).
And on pebble nothing changed! No new apps, some existing apps didn't work any more, everything looked like dying platform.
Compared to droid, where i could find hundreds of watchfaces and apps, pebble app store looks like a joke.
Very sad about that, since imho smartwatch OS concert on pebble is better than droid.
Kickstarter takes 5%, so that piece is likely negotiable. The 3-5% is for payment processing and it seems like it is through Stripe or Braintree. Both start at 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction but bulk pricing is available at $80,000/month (which Kickstarter definitely meets). So there is some wiggle room on both side, but this is Kickstarters profits so likely won't cut a ton of percentage points.
And I'm going to wait on this one. If they're going to delve into the fitness category, I'll be looking at Garmins (of which I have several, albeit older ones with no smart watchy stuff) which are more durable (my $DEITY, does the Pebble get scratched up), go forever on a charge, and I'm willing to bet just plain do the job better because Garmin has been at it for a while.
Given the hurdles on iOS that Pebble can't seem to overcome (for which they are not entirely, if at all, to blame), I'll also wait and see what Apple has on tap. Apple has some shortcomings to eliminate, maybe they'll do that next round.
It's not because I'm unhappy with my Pebbles, I love my current Time Steel. But if I'm going to spend money on a watch that does what Pebble is currently advertising, my options open up to include established competitors in that space. I'm not willing to bet real money that Pebble can outdo those competitors right out of the gate. So I'll wait until it hits retail, see what it really does and what the experiences of others are. Maybe I'll get one, but it's not guaranteed like it was for previous versions.