Pebble Time review: an underdog among smartwatches
engadget.com
engadget.com
* Pebble Time can't match the saturated colors of the Moto 360's screen indoors; however always-on and sunlight readability are far more important. I definitely prefer the Pebble Time screen for a watch.
* 7 day battery life: Don't care. I don't sleep with my watch on and with wireless or magnetic charging it's not a hassle to charge nightly.
* The Moto 360 touchscreen is slow and unreliable. I much prefer the Pebble's physical buttons.
* I prefer the Pebble's vibration motor to the Moto 360's.
* I find the Moto 360's voice commands to be mostly useless. My phone has always-on voice activation and it's faster and more reliable to talk directly to my phone even while it's still in my pocket. I wouldn't miss this feature switching to Pebble Time.
* I still prefer the Moto 360's design over any other smartwatch including Pebble Time. Most people assume it's an Apple Watch. That said, I think the Pebble Time looks reasonably good. Certainly better than any of the square Android Wear watches.
I owned an original Pebble for a while, and the vibration motor was absolutely awful. It felt bad on the wrist, and it was very audible. In quiet meetings, people would hear it and it would make me look like an idiot with a childish toy. I stopped using the Pebble after a week or two for a number of reasons, but this was the main one.
If the Pebble Time has a better, lighter vibration (or better yet adjustable; the original Pebble's vibration as an alarm clock is perfect but not at all for notifications). then I may be tempted to pick one up.
On the 7 day battery life though... The Moto 360 battery life sucks. I can't make it from sun-up until bed time without the Moto 360 dying if I try to actually use it for anything useful such as using the music streaming or even the stopwatch when I'm at the gym.
I have had to revert to using my iPod for music at the gym and an old fashioned stop watch.
As the health aspects of the Moto 360 were the primary selling points to me; it's really been a waste of money.
With only the notifications you mention the Moto 360 will last about a day and a half.
Music streaming over bluetooth from the watch or the screen being continuously on will chow through the battery in less than 2 hours. So if I get up in the morning and work out for an hour, using the watch to play music and time my set and rest intervals the watch will be at around 33% life when I'm done at the gym. This is not enough remaining battery life to get through the work day.
If I go to the gym after work then the watch will die 20 minutes into my workout.
Given that people are thinking a round watch is an Apple Watch, I'm not sure that says much about their judgment in watch design.
For me, that's actually a pretty big selling point for a variety of reasons (namely that charging isn't always going to be a possibility - i.e. if I'm out hiking/camping or otherwise "off the grid").
Why do companies think that it is okay that devices, that customers carry all day long on them, phone anywhere unless they are told so and controlled by the user?
By default, I do not agree to collection of any data about me, not even anonymised.
I'm increasingly concerned that it seems that hardware companies try not to only sell the product, but also to never give up control of the individual products. What can we do about that?
I'd happily buy an even considerately more expensive iPhone, if it'd only put me in ultimate control.
This is not really new (how many people, even today, are aware that most color laser printers embed their serial number on every page they print?) but the rise of ubiquitous mobile computers equipped with a camera, an always-on microphone and permanent net access raises grave privacy concerns.
We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code,
area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone
where a Pebble product is used.
We also may collect information regarding customer activities on
our website, Pebble Android App, Pebble iOS App, account.getpebble.com
services and from our other products and services.
We may collect smartphone device-specific logs which, for example,
include your hardware model, operating system version and unique
device identifiers.
I want devices I bought to solely work in my interest. So, the system must not send data on its own anywhere unless I was notified and I agree. Please note, this issue is ideally orthogonal to software freedom, even though in practice they correlate positively.
Not everybody agrees with me on this and it's fine. However, there could be a more diverse market, I think. I could imagine two versions existing: one "normal" and one privacy-respecting version. I wouldn't even mind if the latter would be more expensive.
Use a firewall that blocks or MITMs all outbound network requests by default. It's the only way to know what every app is calling home to and reporting about.
Think about it, which scales better? Raise your point of view with the developer of every app you want to use, or putting blanket protections in place at the gateway level one time and performing minor whitelisting tweaks (that you can do yourself!) over time?
I just fear for all those who don't know any better.
Use a MITM proxy and see for yourself.
My firewall blocks outbound requests by default so when I found I wasn't able to configure my pebble without allowing this traffic, I just said fuckit and left my pebble unconfigured. If I knew about this before I bought it I never would have agreed to the purchase.
Edit: Pulled the host that it wants to talk to from DNS logs, zalew.net.pl. If I don't allow traffic to that domain, I can't configure my pebble.
Edit: This is from an Android phone, I can't speak for the iOS app.
The domain name seems belong to this gentleman: http://forums.getpebble.com/discussion/4453/light-enable-int...
Though, without allowing that traffic, I don't seem to be able to remove that watchface, and cannot get into the Settings screen in the Pebble Android app to configure anything else.
I want to find out if it needs to make the same requests to zalew.net.pl as the official Android app in order to configure my Pebble!
I hope that someone really nails the circular smart watch and embraces the rotating bezel as an input modality, like the 1st gen ipods or, more recently, Nest. I would love that, coupled with a traditional diver or tool watch look:
http://cdn.monochrome-watches.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04...
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/75/b2/bf/75b2bf2d9...
Maybe motorola will get it, but I wonder if their design sensibilities are too modern...
I don't believe that people will buy a computer, a smartphone, a tablet and a watch. Assuming that each of these devices remain widely used (as it is the case today) I think that people will make a choice to reach a balance.
In that scenario, it is easy to see how an expensive watch that replicates smartphone's functionalities would be a commercial failure.
Pebble on the contrary opted for having a finite, and comparatively small, set of functionalities but excel at those. Their choice of limiting the watch functionalities has two obvious positive effects:
- It keeps the price low. I want a product that will last, that I can forget about (great battery life comes into play) and that does not cost an arm. I can't afford (or don't want) to pay for both a smartwatch and a smartphone costing >200$USD. In comparison I got my Pebble for 50$USD and it's working great.
- It eliminates the redundancy that occurs between smartphones/smartwatches. Instead you have a "central nervous system": your phone and an assistant that makes interacting with that CNS easier: the watch.
I would like to see some drastic improvements in the design though. It's kind of terrible and remind the early 2000s with the ave of Palm Pilots etc... Also, it would be great to improve the sensors so I can use my Pebble as a monitor of health (and my sleep!).
I would actually spend money on a product that would monitor my sleep, bpms and wake me up in the morning at the "best" time.
I think in the case of watch and luxury products, this is different. Buyers don't buy watch for the functionality of checking time, but the design, status symbol and other values from luxury goods.
Well not all of them! Look at the wrists of the people around you. When I do so, I mostly see regular watches. Sometimes some of them have a fancy design but they all share common characteristics which are:
* easy of use; doing one job very well; inexpensiveness
The watch industry is so well established that almost anyone can afford an aesthetically pleasing watch at a reasonable price.
I don't think that people will spend so much money on wearables that are so redundant with their already complicated smartphones.
On the other hand, Pebble have a good product that does a great job at making everyday tasks easier. It's not a smartphone on my wrist, it's just an aid.. exactly like my old watch used to be. As I said above, the watch is solid and pretty inexpensive. IMHO I think that the only missing pieces are: variety of designs available, better embedded technologies.
I will address the case of the "watch connoisseur" in the following paragraph. I will assume (safely?) that they although those consumes have a huge buying power, they are the minority.
They buy watch for their personal pleasure and because they appreciate the often mind-blowing technologies that they embed. A high-end watch is more than a useful device, it is a piece of human craftsmanship. It is both a symbol and a status that has prestige. See Patek Phillipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGPjFFMD3c0
I don't think that watch luxury brands are threaten by the ave of wearable devices and I would definitely not consider Apple as luxury company. To me they are kind of in the worst position: not expensive/complicated enough to appeal to the collectors and not cheap enough to appeal to "most" people unless they are already loyal to the brand.
> In that scenario, it is easy to see how an expensive watch that replicates smartphone's functionalities would be a commercial failure.
I've thought about this problem for me personally and agree that I definitely don't want all four. I'm fine with three of them, though. In my case, I've decided I'd actually much prefer a smartwatch over a tablet, in the sense that I think a tablet is actually more redundant on top of the phone than a smartwatch. I've actually completely lost interest in tablets over the last year or so.
I had a Moto 360 and there were moments when I felt a glimpse of the genius of a smartwatch. The rest of the time I was frustrated with the incredibly laggy interface, the pixelated screen, the flat tire at the bottom, the general massiveness of the watch, and the extreme unreliability of the fitness tracking options. From what I've seen of the Apple Watch, it's a huge step forward in terms of basic quality, both hardware and software, but I'd have to switch to an iPhone to use one.
The Pebble Time has a quirky appearance, but it looks great in terms of usability and software quality, so I'm definitely excited to try one when I can get my hands on one.
Adding a personal anecdote to this. The deployant strap on my 360 broke last week, so I had a week of enforced vacation from the 360 to compare before-after and see how much I really liked it. Too tell the truth, I'd actually been feeling kind of "meh" about the 360 and wondering why I really needed it, if I even did.
Here are some things I noticed:
1. Phantom leg vibrations stopped when I got the 360, but once I stopped using the 360, they came back with a vengeance. (I've never had phantom wrist vibrations.)
2. It really is a lot more disruptive to pull out my phone at dinner etc. if I get a call or e-mail from work (devops). The 360 lets me judge things quickly and relatively unobtrusively. Related, I also missed a lot of notifications for people trying to get ahold of me by chat (which I encourage people to do instead of phoning, since I have profound hearing loss).
3. The Fitbit HR (I wear it on my other wrist) is way better for telling time. I can hit the button and see the time faster than the 360 -- this has to change in some way for the 360 to be a smartWATCH.
4. I really missed being able to reply quickly by voice on the go when I wasn't able to pull out my phone.
This I find weird with both Moto 360 and Apple Watch - how can those be even considered as a useful watch if they don't show the time all the time? As a regular watch wearer I find it absolutely mandatory that the time can be seen always, even from small angles, without needing to touch the watch or do any wrist movements.
Any normal watch of course does this. Pebble, LG G Watch R and some other Android Wear watches do this.
The simple answer for me is that before I started wearing a watch again, I never really wanted a watch. So the reason I gravitated to a 360 is that I wanted the "smart" more than the "watch."
Of course, having a watch on my wrist made me want fast, instantly visible time/date...
I actually feel the total opposite... I hate using my phone, and love being on the tablet. At the moment my phone is basically used for WhatsApp and an occasional map search on the go.
I would prefer to have a 4G hub that connects all my devices to the internet. Even better, make the hub intelligent and move all the processing power to it. Then make the tablet and phone act as a screen and it would be perfect :)
I'm not targeting you in particular, but you brought up something that confuses me when people who say this about a smartwatch.
It seems like a lot of people who are getting into smartwatches aren't too aware of traditional watch geekery and prices; $200 for a watch is relatively cheap as far as nice watches go.
I'm not denying that if you want something functional, a cheaper price is always nicer -- just offering up for consideration that watches are traditionally a pretty expensive accessory. :)
- Tell the time: No need for a smartwatch but it's still great to be able to leave the cell in the pocket
- Don't miss calls: I always have my phone on no sound/just vibrate and tended to miss a lot of calls. Fixed for good now
- Quickly check Mail/IM: To see if there's something important to answer to. I feel a lot calmer because I always felt the urge to check my phone constantly. I now glance at the watch every now and then and feel a lot less "addicted". I actually use the quick reply stuff a lot for IM, too.
- Maps navigation: I am travelling a good bit and usually ran around the cities with my cell looking all touristy. Maps on the watch is a lot more discrete
- Timer: I use it as my Pomodoro Technique timer since my old one can't be used in a multiperson office without annoying people
Battery time is ~2 day, 1.5 when I use it more. As long as it stays above 1 day I'm fine because I take off the watch when I sleep and just put it on the charger.
p.s.: the Pebbles never did it for me style wise but kudos for them for pushing smartwatches further along.
The terrible problem for Pebble is they are an add-on to platforms owned by others, who now have their own add-ons. Historically, this doesn't end well for the pebbles of this world - even though they were first and did everything right - but it might.
I think they should be able to integrate with Google Gear, and MS would be receptive too.
Smart watches do not fill that void. They may make certain tasks easier, but there are other available options (like just pulling out your phone to look at the time or to see who is calling).
I'm not saying there isn't a reason to buy quality headphones -- I spent like $80 on mine and love them -- but "nice headphones with noise-cancelling and extra padding and increased fidelity" doesn't seem like an outlandish comparison to "watch with extra stuff and it tells you the weather."
The Pebble doesn't even support things like reading emails, browsing the web, etc. and I wouldn't want to use such a feature. The battery life is good and it charges quickly -- mentally it's more in line with my Kindle than my phone as far as how much I think about its charge. If it runs out of batteries it isn't the end of the world anyway.
My goal in getting it was to spend less time fiddling with my phone and concentrating more on life around me, while still not missing situations where a friend or loved one needs to get in touch urgently. A secondary motivation was to miss fewer calls (I am somewhat hard of hearing & frequently keep my phone's ringer off anyway for professional reasons, and I do not always feel my phone vibrate through my jeans). The Pebble has been very successful in that regard and I consider the $99 well spent.
My hope is that even though Pebble is pursuing a somewhat higher-end market with the Pebble Time that they (or some other manufacturer) continue to produce a line of cheap, durable, minimalist smartwatches. I hope to be able to replace this one if it gets seriously damaged or becomes completely obsolete (if Bluetooth goes the way of the dodo, I guess). I have no interest in higher-end smartwatches.
So, I was thinking that the Apple phone would be something like this projected keyboard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_keyboard) but as a touchscreen that is suspended in mid air.
No idea what the tech behind that could be. Closest I could come up with is the watch shooting out a fog when you want the virtual display.
I definitely thought the Apple Watch would be a little bit further ahead of other smartwatches than it is. I thought it would be to other smartwatches what the iPhone was to other smartphones at the time.
While the price may need to come down for mass adoption, anyone that is already into watches shouldn't have too much trouble with the current prices. If you can afford it, they are totally worth it, IMO. (I had the original Pebble, liked it, and now I have an Apple Watch, and I'm also happy with it.)
Parents will be able to know where their kids are at all times. Someone being attacked could shout into their watch that they need 911 and the GPS will route help to the scene. Health monitoring will become much more sophisticated. Women will enjoy going out without worrying about putting a phone in a pocket that doesn't exist. The heating and cooling of your car, office, and home will adjust to your body's temperature. Society will go cashless.
The biggest potential in smartwatches doesn't depend much on the screen interaction.
That said, Pebble has raised more than $30m [1].
They've raised 15mil, and had 2 really successful kickstarter projects.
I appreciate it while driving and while riding my bicycle.
That's 95% of my usage and I'm thankful I can go a full workweek on a single charge. One less charger to carry (and lose).
And in those times where I don't want the notifications buzzing (in meetings) I turn off notifs, or I shut off bluetooth on my phone.
You might want to rephrase that.
Checking your watch while in a meeting / talking to someone is also rude, at least to me.
When the Steel came out I backed that on day 1 as well. Its been my sole watch since it was shipped (the original now serves as a screen for Strava/RunKeeper on my bikes).
When I saw the Time announced I was horrified by the design - it seemed so backwards and basic. I'm clearly at the polar end of the bell-curve when it comes to the design assessment of this watch as I feel as if it was almost a joke, a toy. I know that there's some specific technical improvements under the hood. But for me it's like trading in a Lexus for a Lada because the Lada has a better car audio system.
Each to their own, now i'm awaiting the delivery of my rose gold Halograph - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/watchismo/the-halograph...
Fairness: I backed Pebble twice on KS, am wearing one, waiting for my new Time to arrive, and still marvel at the OLPC XO-1, also derided as a toy but one of the most amazing computers ever built. I like viewable screens :)
Sorry, I was with you until the moment you described a pretty standard AMD Geode GX2 SoC with a pretty poor transflective LCD as "most amazing computer ever built". Let me guess, you worked with Nicholas? the self-promoting self-described father of web tablets who claimed to have saved millions of children when really he just chewed up millions of UNDP funds that could have gone towards genuinely life-changing projects?
I'm talking about the water proof, sandproof, nearly indestructible laptop with the always viewable screen over there on my shelf with awesome user serviceability that "retailed" to me for less than $200 USD. By comparison my modern Chromebook (via CodeStarter), similar street price today as XO-1 then, has a much nicer processor, raw specs but can be easily killed by cat, coffee, or child and is useless outside (screen vs sun) or more than 1 day from a power tap (batteries) and is almost unrepairable by users. I like it but it's not the same kind of thing at all, and it's out-of-the box Linux is much less hackable and educational ... hence CodeStarter.
There's plenty of discussion around about the software stack (Sugar), the newer hardware (XO > 1), and no end of people discussing the organizations in Boston, Florida and elsewhere all over the Internet if that's what you were looking for ... but that really has nothing to do with what I said.
A visualization of how much sleep I'm lacking in order to satisfy some basic sleep requirement would help towards alerting me to go bed earlier.
Also if I'm doing something to improve my quality of sleep (meditation, no digital devices an hour before sleep) it is rewarding to see that I'm sleeping longer and deeper.
Your reasoning can also be used to dismiss exercise tracking. You just exercised and you know you feel like you put in sufficient work. What's the point of knowing if you "competed a circle"?
For whatever it's worth, there are some studies that suggest that even if you work out every day, sitting for a consecutive 8 hours a day will still shorten your lifespan. So a watch might remind you that you've been sitting to long and to take a 5 minute stroll.
I don't know how well this works in practice, but I know that's the primary purpose of similar functionality in Sleep Number mattresses ("You didn't seem to sleep well; you should bump your number up to 63 and raise the back about 2 degrees more"), and I figure it would be the same with a smartwatch counterpart (though probably with less precision; it can detect the tossing and turning, but probably can't detect pressure points the way a smartmattress theoretically can).
Because scratching at your wrist like a heroin addict trying to find a vein is the new cool? I don't get it.