As companies such as Samsung prepare to enter the smart-watch space, it's time to take a look at the "original" smart watch: the Pebble.
The Pebble smart watch is the most successful Kickstarter project of all time, raising more than $10 million from 85,000 backers. Last month, the company announced that it had over 190,000 pre-orders on its website, meaning that more than 275,000 orders were placed since last April.
Pebble is also available in Best Buy stores, and the company is working to make its gadget — in the words of CEO and co-founder Eric Migicovsky — "the best wearable platform."
Full disclosure: I backed the Pebble smart watch on Kickstarter within 24 hours of its launch in April 2012. Because I requested a white Pebble, my order was delayed. I ended up changing my order to the standard black pebble, and it arrived on April 20, 2013.
For the last four months, I've used my Pebble frequently, and watched its software support improve, and a nascent ecosystem of developers crop up around the platform.
Specs and Basic Features
The Pebble sells for $149.99, and features a 1.26-inch e-paper display. It's not a touch device; instead it's controlled by four buttons. The watch connects to your smartphone using Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR, and it also supports Bluetooth 4.0 LE.
The Pebble is waterproof and rated at 5 ATM, which means you can use it while swimming or surfing (though it's not suitable for diving). It works in both fresh and saltwater.
The face is e-paper; this means the device looks great in bright sunlight, and includes a backlight to view in the dark. The accelerometer on the Pebble has gesture detection, so you can flip the backlight on by flicking your wrist.
The battery life lasts around seven days, and it charges over USB, using a magnetic connector on the side of the watch.
If you want to replace the Pebble's band, you can do so with most standard 22 mm watch bands.
Notifications, Watch Faces, Apps
To use the Pebble, you need to download the Pebble app for iOS and Android. Official support isn't available for other platforms, but we've seen some developers create working Pebble apps to connect with BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8.
You can set the Pebble's time and install additional watch faces through its app. A collection of watch faces is available at http://www.mypebblefaces.com and other third-party sites. To install a new face, you must open the watch face URL on your mobile browser, and then select "open in Pebble."
Pebble firmware updates are also issued through the mobile app.
After pairing the Pebble with your phone, the software walks you through setup (depending on your mobile OS) to enable notifications.
Out of the box, the Pebble works with:
Incoming caller ID
SMS/iMessage
Email (IMAP or Gmail)
Music Controls
Depending on your settings, you can also get notifications from other apps on your phone, which we'll discuss, below.
The Pebble's music-control functionality is hands-down one of my favorite features. On iOS, it works with any music app that uses the native playback controls; so whether you use the built-in music app, Spotify, Downcast or Rdio, you can control your music from the Pebble. For me, this is most useful when I'm walking to the train in the morning, as it lets me control my music without needing to have my phone in-hand; instead, it can be in my pocket or purse.
SMS and iMessage support is near-instantaneous. As soon as a message hits your phone, it hits the Pebble. The watch is smart enough, however, to deliver messages only when you aren't actively using your phone. This is key because if I'm holding my phone, I don't need to see a notification on my wrist.
In addition to third-party watch faces, third-party app developers are building for Pebble, too. The best example of a truly integrated Pebble experience is app RunKeeper. If the Pebble is connected to your phone, your RunKeeper stats — including time and distance traveled — show up on the Pebble screen. You can also adjust the music playback within the app from the Pebble.
Watch Faces
Most of the "apps" available for the Pebble are actually watch faces. On the surface, that could just mean a customized watch face, but some developers have created really stunning work. My favorite is Futura Weather, a watch face that also includes the weather. Using a free app called Httpebble (available for both iOS and Android), the face can poll a server to get updates on weather conditions and temperature every 15 to 30 minutes.
For Android users, I recommend the Watch Trigger app, which is a watch face that acts as a remote for your phone's camera.
Third-party Mobile Apps
For now, there aren't a ton of third-party apps that integrate with the Pebble on iOS. The hope is that with iOS 7, it will be easier for developers to build apps that can integrate apps and phone services with accessories.
On Android, there aren't those kind of restrictions, which means the third-party ecosystem is already much more robust. I love Pebble Rocker, which includes the ability to take photos, browse your Facebook feed, play the classic "Chopper" game, browse Twitter and more.
I'm also a big fan of Glance, which offers an easy way to quickly see the date and time, unread SMS, Gmail and missed calls. It also includes an integrated calendar. Glance also works with a great app called Music Boss, which provides enhancements to the built-in music controls on Android.
iOS vs. Android
Third-party app support aside, the Pebble works nearly as well on Android as it does on iOS. The biggest difference is the way that notifications for apps are managed on the two platforms.
On iOS, you have to manage notifications at an app level; this means you have to set apps to use "Show Preview" and "Alerts" as the notification style. You also have to toggle support for each app you want to get notifications from. For the most part, this will work well, and I've had success with Facebook, Twitter and calendar alerts hitting my wrist. What's more, if you use Apple's mail app, email notifications work really well. What I like about this is that if you use the Apple VIP system, as I do, you can choose to receive notifications for only those messages.
If you prefer Gmail to Apple mail, however, there's a workaround. Earlier this month, the Pebble added support for Gmail and other IMAP notifications, so unread messages will hit your phone. The problem is, on iOS, this includes a 15-minute delay; that's not a huge deal, but it does mean you won't get emails instantly.
On Android, the Pebble experience is more configurable. You can control app notifications within the Pebble app, as well as do more to customize the types of mail alerts you want. Plus, you receive Gmail emails almost instantly.
Android users can certainly nerd out more with the Pebble, but I wouldn't say iOS users are left out.
The one area where I rate the iOS experience as superior is connectivity. For whatever reason, both my Galaxy S4 and Nexus 4 smartphones had occasional issues with losing a connection on the Pebble. My iPhone, however, never wavered.
Potential
When I review products, I do my best not to judge them based on what they could do in the future, but rather on what they do now.
With the Pebble, however, it's important to talk about its potential down the road. The watch has an SDK, and is working on making it especially easy for developers to create sports- and fitness-related apps.
Alhough nerdy and small, the community is growing, and we're seeing exciting stuff happening — especially on the Android side.
To me, it would be great if the Pebble would consider licensing its platform to other device-makers; this would build up the potential for dozens of Pebble-compatible devices, which in turn could mean more incentive for app developers.
I've often compared the Pebble experience with that of Google Glass. Both offer a great way to automate the delivery of contextual information. In a lot of ways, I think the Pebble and similar devices have the opportunity to be Glass for your wrist. Plus, it doesn't look nearly as nerdy.
Wearable technology as a category has tons of potential, especially as we get more advanced with our smartphones.
The beauty of a smart watch is that it tells the time, but it can also deliver the info you need — without forcing users to constantly engage with their phones.
The Rundown
The Good
Works on iOS and Android
Only $149.99
Frequent updates and improvements
Good battery life (seven days on average)
Durable
The Bad
App-notification setup experience isn't totally seamless
iOS and Android don't have feature parity
Limited number of third-party apps with deep integration
The Bottom Line
The Pebble delivers on all of its Kickstarter promises and then some. If you only used it for music control, RunKeeper, SMS and caller-ID notifications, it would still be a great deal for $150.
Images: Mashable, Nina Frazier and Pebble
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