From my own experience and reading that of others, it's the device that no one can justify until they get one. Then it becomes the device that the vast majority love and some can't live without.
When Pebble sold out to Garmin* and refunded my pledge/order for the last version, I spent some of that money on a second hand mechanical watch - I really don't miss much from the "smart" features I'd gotten used to... (Probably the only thing I miss is the "silent vibration on my wrist when I've left my phone on my desk but am still nearby"...)
Edit: * It was FitBit not Garmin, as pointed out in replies by dugfin and spike021. Thanks.
They were acquired by Fitbit, not Garmin
My experience has been the opposite. I bought a Pebble so I could know whether I had to put down my tools, pull out my phone, and answer a call from my boss; or if I could just ignore yet another call from an idiot coworker.
>When Pebble sold out to Garmin
I wish. Garmin might have done something with it. They sold out to FitBit, whose major motivation was the elimination of a competitor.
I wish Pebble had managed the business side of things better, because I like(d) the product.
I used a friend's for a few minutes and was even LESS enamored with it. It felt freeing, "great, now I don't need to bother buying one!"
But then, something happened, and I stopped wearing watches regularly.
I had a business trip coming up, the Apple Watch 2 was still in limited supply, and I wanted a toy to play with. Went to the store, couldn't find one in the US. But I found the last one one at an Apple Store in Germany, bought it as an impulse buy, and haven't looked back. It's absolutely something you can live without. There is no killer app. But I just LIKE it, and it's useful every day. It replaced my Fitbits that keep dying. I use ApplePay on it which is amazing, I just wish it was supported more places. I use it for boarding passes. I use it for notifications. I use it to ack PagerDuty and Okta 2factor alerts for SSO and VPN.
I just think, because it's a new(ish) category, and it does many somewhat useful things but nothing you need, it doesn't drive people to lust after one. But once you have it, you really like it.