Since the launch of Apple’s Smart Watches; the market has literally been bombarded with different companies trying to follow the trend! Now although, it is actually good for the common man (because Apple still remains a luxury item), but with so many options becoming available, it is also becoming hard–as–hell for a person to make a choice!
Competing in the same bracket; we have a company called Pebble!
Now don’t be mistaken; Pebble is no similar to the “crowd”! If anything, Pebble has a track record of developing one of the best smart watches with unmatchable performance and works with both – iOS 8 and Android.
Pebble, as a company; began in the year 2012 with a primary goal of “being a watch first and then being smart!” Since then & till date; the original Pebble remains the third most-funded project in Kick starter’s history.
In addition to that; Pebble has released yet another version – Pebble Time, which again “is not similar to the premium Apple Watch,” and is just a better-looking, better-functioning version of the original Pebble!
Shockingly, since Pebble’s announcement of the new ‘Pebble Time’; the watch has managed to raise a Whooping $16M+ in Kickstarter sales from 65,743 backers within just a week and still has 20 more days to go.
And as far as the stats go, below is the latest list of the highest funded projects via Kickstarter: (source: theverge)
- Pebble Time $16,636,703
- Coolest Cooler $13,285,226
- Original Pebble $10,266,845
- Exploding Kittens card game $8,782,571
- Ouya $8,596,474
- Pono high-fidelity music player $6,225,354
- The Veronica Mars movie project $5,702,153
- Reading Rainbow $5,408,916
- Torment: Tides of Numenera (video game) $4,188,927
- Project Eternity (video game) $3,986,929
About Pebble Time
Pebble Time at heart, is the new colour e-paper display watch, which has an easy to read, always-on, an extremely user friendly display for incoming notifications and blissful watch face.
Launched on Kickstarter; Pebble Time is currently available for $179 which will later increase to $199 otherwise and should be delivered by the month of May 2015!
Now the company has been in the market for almost 7 years now and has primarily catered to one ultimate goal – of making Pebble an indispensable tool in everyone’s daily life by helping one accomplish more each day.
While at it; pebble has come across many problems as well such as; during the development of the software for the original Pebble, the company figured that apps were an unproductive way to interact with a smart watch and as more apps were added to increase the functionality, everything got jammed. And it became even harder to find the solution to it.
The only solution was to make Pebble infinitely more useful by adding an expandable system for organizing information and interactions. And this gave birth to ‘Pebble Time’.
Pebble Time comes with a display technology that is far better than the most, with a minimal amount of power consumption the watch leads a battery life of up to 7 days. The watch is fully compatible with all 6,500+ existing Pebble apps and watch faces.
The company has also added a new microphone to the device that lets its users send voice replies to incoming notifications or for that matter can be used for taking short voice notes. These voice replies function well with all the major Android apps such as SMS, Hangouts, Gmail, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp and many more. But for iOS operating systems, sending voice replies is currently limited to only Gmail notifications and should be enabled for many other apps in the near future.
Pebble Time has been made out of the latest technology which allows it to be water resistant and can be used while swimming, etc. although, it is not recommended that you use it for talking while underwater!
Features
Pebble Time is the next best smart watch after Apple for the common man and holds literally multiple features attached to it, some of them being: –
- CNC-finished 316L stainless steel casing
- Premium leather and stainless steel strap
- Battery Life of up to 7 days
- At 9.5mm; Pebble Time is 20% thinner than the original Pebble
- Has an ergonomic, curved design that fits comfortably on either wrist and slides easily under dress shirts too!
- It comes in two different types – Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel
- Both are stylish and durable and come along with lenses that are crafted from scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass and a bezel made of stainless steel.
- Just like earlier, this edition too is water resistant
- This edition has a more personalized touch to it which includes:
- A soft silicone band with each Pebble Time
- A fine leather band for Pebble Time Steel, but any standard 22mm watch band can also be used.
- All the new Pebble watch bands include a quick-release pin. Using this pin one can swap bands in less than 10 seconds.
- As mentioned on Kickstarter; the new watch is offered in three different colours:
- Black watch case and silicone band with black PVD stainless steel bezel
- White watch case and silicone band with silver PVD stainless steel bezel
- Red watch case and silicone band with black PVD stainless steel bezel
- Whereas Pebble Time Steel is available in three stainless-steel finishes, i.e.:
- Silver coloured head with a stone leather band
- Gunmetal black coloured head with a black leather band
- Gold coloured head with red leather band
- And all Pebble Time Steels come with both a leather and matching metal band.
- Pebble is organized on a principle wherein the notifications, news, reminders and events are laid out chronologically depending on your schedule, instead of being trapped inside separate apps.
- The timeline connects to calendars, alarms, apps, etc. which can help in organizing all the necessary information along with quick actions.
- You can also recall the past history by scrolling back in time to see what you may have missed
- Other than that; the timeline has also been instilled with a system that dynamically loads and caches all the apps as & when needed.
- And because all the Pebble software is built on an open platform, where you can allow apps and developers to add ‘pins’ to your timeline, to keep a track of upcoming events, sports, weather, traffic, travel plans, etc.
- And lastly, some of its other features include; a daylight readable screen with a great backlight, Silent vibrating alarms, Step tracking with Misfit and Jawbone, Language and international character support, etc!
Image Credit: www.kickstarter.com
