The Pebble Smartwatch broke records when it’s initial Kickstarter campaign reached over nine million euros in 2012. Three years later, the Pebble is back from a second helping.
With 28 days remaining of the brand new Pebble Time Kickstarter campaign, Pebble Time has already achieved almost eleven million euros with around 10,000 fewer backers to date – it’s understandable why.
While a large amount of the Pebble Time’s latest Kickstarter success can be attributed to the record breaking initial campaign, the sheer beauty of the Time has sent wearable tech fans into a spiral.
Pebble Time Features
Colour ePaper
Pebble pioneered the use of ePaper in their wearable time pieces. ePaper is very similar to the eInk display found in the Amazon Kindle. The benefits of ePaper are manifold, namely combining long battery life and ease of viewing in any lighting conditions. The first Pebble Smartwatch was restricted to a black and white screen. This restriction has been lifted, making way for a gorgeous colour ePaper screen. Although the screen will be vastly improved, battery life is actually set to be prolonged by a further two days.
Microphone
Many Pebble users were crying out for a colour screen, but the second innovation comes as a bit more of a surprise. The Pebble Time will feature a built in microphone, but still maintain it’s water resistance rating (the mind boggles). This will likely be a feature which grows over time, but will initially support all major Android apps such as SMS, Facebook, Whatsapp and hundreds more. iOS will initially be a little more limited.
Timeline Interface
Okay so these Pebble employees look like they are in a cult, but they know this feature inside out.
Once again, this should be a really nice feature when the Pebble Time launches, but will grow as more developers jump on board with the new device.
Android Smart Lock
Okay, so admittedly, Pebble aren’t really responsible for this one. The recent Google update to Android 5.0 was initially quite underwhelming. That was until we discovered the Smart Lock feature. Smart Lock is a genius bit of design. When you have a bluetooth device conntected to your smartphone, the handset disables the lock screen code, assuming that when the device is nearby, you are too. This works perfectly for the likes of Pebble and of course now, Pebble Time, as when you walk away, you are less likely to leave your Smartwatch sitting beside your device than another item like Bluetooth Headphones.
Since upgrading to Android 5.0 Lollipop, this has by far been the best feature to appear, giving new value to wearables.
How to get the Pebble Time
Kickstarter
The Pebble Time will retail for $199 when it ships in May of this year. Many of the “early backers” packages on the Kickstarter campaign have already been gobbled up, but get over there now to see if you can save a few bob and get a limited edition “Kickstarter Edition” Pebble Time.
Just make sure you factor in the €30+ you’ll need to pay on customs!
Retail
Unfortunately, it will likely be quite some time before the Pebble Time reaches Irish Retail Outlets. If you want to go down the route of purchasing the original Pebble, which is still a great watch, it can be found in PC World along with the sleek Pebble Steel.
