Pebble Time vs Apple Watch

As regular readers of this blog will know I am a huge fan of the Pebble smart watch. So it was a great disappointment when the the company collapsed and the assets were bought by Fitbit. Pebble did at least return the money that had been pledged on Kickstarter for the next generation and, due to currency fluctuations, I actually received marginally more back than I put in. However, that’s not much consolation for not getting what was looking like a great watch.

For a few months I persisted with the Pebble Time but as time went on it … Read the rest

Pebble Health Review

As I have said a couple of times before I use a Fitbit to record my steps and have toyed with Misfit on my Pebble when that became available. My issue was that the gap in number of steps recorded was too great. So when Pebble Health was released I was keen to see whether this might finally be a replacement for my faithful Fitbit.

Pebble Health is a native watch app that does all the same step and sleep tracking as other fitness trackers such as Fitbit and the on-Pebble Misfit. Difference being that as this is developed by … Read the rest

New Pebble Time Thoughts

Just thought I would put down my initial thoughts on the new Pebble Time. I’ll do a fuller review, including the same tests that I ran with the old Pebble, in a few weeks when I have captured more data.

I’ve had my steel version a couple of weeks now and it really like both the look of the watch and the new interface itself. In fact Apple seemed to like the timeline too so they pinched the idea for their watch!

When you pledged via Kickstarter the Steel variant comes with both a leather and steel link straps. … Read the rest

Hitting $1M in Pebble Time

I waited a long long time for my Pebble to arrive after backing it on Kickstarter. But since the arrival of iOS8 and several updates to the watch firmware it was worked well and I really like the watch.

My only gripe would be that the font size is a bit small (even on the largest setting) and I wish that they would make it bigger. Apart from that it is just about perfect.

With all the news about the Apple Watch I had wondered what Pebble’s answer to it would be and yesterday we found out with the … Read the rest

Fitbit vs Misfit on the Pebble Smartwatch

I’ve been a happy Fitbit Flex user for some 18 months now but when Pebble released an update that allowed activity tracking I thought that I would give it a go to see how the two compared.

The first thing to point out is that I am only interested in two things: accuracy and battery life. The second thing is that while I am happy with both the watch and fitness band on my (non-dominant) wrist I would prefer it all in one package.

I chose to run the test over a couple of weeks. The first when I would … Read the rest

Happy 1st Birthday Pebble

So I’ve now had my Pebble smart watch just over a year so I thought that it would be a good time to reflect on the aims and whether they have been met.

For those that don’t know the Pebble is the darling of the crowd funding site Kickstarter, the first and to my knowledge still the only project to have raised over $10M. This was significant because it was only aiming to raise $10,000 and showed  what a huge demand there was for smart wearables.

I, along with thousands of others, pledged my support and settled down for … Read the rest

Why Pebble might not be a Best Buy

IMG_6746Let’s get this out of the way right at the start. I love my Pebble watch – that’s mine on my hairy wrist to the left.

I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever about putting my money down and making the project happen through Kickstarter.

Also, as a small business owner, I know that you have to do everything that you can to make a success of your business and bring the cash in through the door.

That out the way I really worry about the recent news that from this weekend you will be able to walk into a US … Read the rest

Two Way Communication on the Pebble

IMG_6746Regular readers will know that I am a big fan of my Pebble watch, warts and all.

While there are still some parts of the basic functionality that don’t work as advertised (notifications for example) some of the promise that attracted me to the project in the first place is now beginning to be realised.

The Runkeeper integration works well and I have managed to compile the authenticator app and get that working (in parts) too.

However, to date, all interactions have been one way from the phone to the Pebble but now with an update two way communications are … Read the rest

RunKeeper for Pebble

Pebble have slowly been making good on all that was promised when the watch was announced on Kickstarter. This week saw the launch of RunKeeper integration, as you can see from the image below.

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It is incredibly easy to use mainly because there aren’t options whatsoever. When you start an activity the details (time, distance and pace) are all clearly displayed on the watch. The centre button allows you to pause and resume the recording, which is useful, but that’s the lot. It works well.

Since delivering the watches the team at Pebble have been steadily delivering on a number … Read the rest