Pebble Smart Watch Review

At a glance

The Good: Stylish design and is also water-resistant to 50m, so taking it for a run or swim would not be a problem. RunKeeper integration currently available.

The Bad: Only the last notification is shown. Notifications are inconsistent and might not show at times. No battery indicator. Unable to set a timer.

Final words: The SDK released by Pebble is far from finished but shows a potential in what this smart watch can do. Further releases will allow Pebble users to utilize and do more with this watch fully, but currently this smart watch is the best in the market.

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It could be said that Pebble helped launch smart watches into the media spotlight and with 85,000 orders on the books, it is certain the most popular one around.It is one of the most affordable smartwatches on the market at the moment. While not the cheapest, it has more functionality and potential than the cheaper alternatives available. To get more cheap smartwatches at the recent time and the latest ones, visit here.

Design At 38.2 grams and 8.44mm thick, this is both the lightest and thinnest smartwatch around currently. You will not notice it until it vibrates to notify you of incoming text messages, calls or emails.

The design of the Pebble watch is minimalist with enough buttons to provide ease of use without extra clutter. The Pebble watch does not utilize a touchscreen display but navigation of the watch menu with its four buttons, one on the left side and three on the right, is simple and intuitive. The left button is used to return to the previous screen and doubles up to activate the backlight. The middle button on the right is for confirming a selection, while the top and bottom buttons are used for moving up and down respectively.

This stylish smartwatch is available in jet black, arctic white and cherry red with grey and orange options added on recently. As of May 2016, only the jet black and cherry red units have started shipping.

The Pebble smartwatch is also water-resistant down to 50m, which means that you can take you watch along with you for a swim or a run.Lastly, Pebble is designed to fit most 22mm watch bands, so you would not need to get a replacement watch band from Pebble or you can change the stock band to any other watch band you prefer.

Setting up Setting up the Pebble is easy and you should be up and running in less than five minutes. Firstly, download the free Pebble app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for the iOS and Android versions respectively. Turn on the Bluetooth mode on the Pebble and use the Pebble app to connect the Pebble to your smartphone.

The Pebble is able to utilize both Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and 4.0 which means that you can use the smartwatch with older devices (via the 2.1+EDR) but with a larger battery draw. If you are on newer devices that utilize Bluetooth 4.0, the power drain on your smart phone will be reduced. Do note that as of May 2016, the Bluetooth 4.0 functionality in the Pebble operating system has not been enabled (the functionality is available in the Pebble, just not enabled).

Notifications For iOS users, system-wide notifications will show up on the Pebble with the caveat being that they must be shown on your iPhone’s lock screen to be displayed on the Pebble. In the event that the link between the two devices breaks, you will have to manually go back to activate or deactivate the notifications that you want to show.Lastly, Siri integration is affected as the iPhone will think that it is connected to a Bluetooth speaker and tries to broadcast Siri’s replies via the Pebble. Pebble doesn’t have a speaker so you will not be able to hear what Siri says.

On Android phones, there are a number of third party apps in the Google Play Store that help push various different information to the watch.

You can also use the Pebble app to send sample notifications to your watch so that you can see what call, text message, email notifications look like on your Pebble.

Functions Once they are paired, Pebble updates itself to your phone’s local time. You can then customize your watch display by downloading new watch faces from within the app. Alternatively, you can visit mypebblefaces.com on your phone’s browser to install new watch faces.

Once the set up is complete, the watch will deliver notifications from your phone via tactile (vibrating) and visual alerts.

Text and email messages can be read on the Pebble watch face while incoming calls are shown with the caller’s name. Music playback can be controlled with the Pebble as well with song titles displayed on the watch. However, support for other languages such as Mandarin are not supported yet.

There have been reports from users that notifications can be inconsistent with notifications not being sent from time to time. Another bugbear of some users is the fact that Pebble shows only the most recent notification. Pebble seems to be working very hard to handle current issues and have a list of known issues that is regularly updated. You can follow the progress on their List of Known Issues/Bugs page.

One important point to note is that Pebble delivers on its claim of five to seven days of battery life. Even when handling a heavy load of notifications during testing, the watch could last five days before requiring a charge.

This is can be achieved because Pebble uses a 144 x 168 pixel, black and white e-paper display, which provides a nice clean readable display surface without causing a huge drain on the battery. As a watch, it naturally displays the time constantly. You might think that this is expected, given that it is a watch after all. However, on the I’m Watch, you will need to press the power button to wake the display for it to tell the time.

It is important to note that as a Bluetooth device using the Pebble will affect the battery life of your smartphone. You should see an extra battery drain of approximate 5-10% on your smartphone per day.

The Pebble comes with a special USB cable, which latches onto the Pebble magnetically, for charging the battery. It can be used like a normal USB cable to be plugged into a computer or wall USB charger.