The Gen XY Lifestyle
Pebble Gets its Time in the Spotlight
Crowdfunding success Kickstarter has just released its latest Pebble Smartwatch, Pebble Time in Singapore.
Pebble smartwatches are lauded for their long battery life and having the right balance of features and usability. The new Pebble Time sticks to the same formula, but it now has an always-on, colour e-paper display with a 5-to-7 day battery life like their earlier watches. It is also 20 per cent thinner than its predecessors at 9.5mm, and sports a stainless steel bezel and scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass face. Also new is a water-resistant microphone (Pebble Time is water resistant to 30 meters) that lets you send voice replies to incoming notifications or take short voice notes.
The Pebble Time has a creative timeline interface
Pebble Time features a new interface that organises relevant information like notifications, weather, news, travel, and reminders chronologically – you can easily see the meetings that are coming up next on your schedule, and conversely, you can also scroll back to see emails that you missed, your step count for the day, or last night’s football scores. The idea of this layout is to take out the extra step of opening up an app.
Its most promising feature is a built-in smart accessory port near the base of the strap that allows straps with built-in sensors to interact directly with the apps on the watch. Pebble Time supports apps like Swim.com, Jawbone and Misfit, and can do some rudimentary tracking with the onboard sensors; but in theory, you can have different straps for different purposes.
A representation of how third party accessory straps will work
You can use one Jawbone-compatible strap with heart rate sensors and other specialised sensors for your runs, and swop it out into a specialised strap for measuring laps at the swimming pool. However, as this is still new, there aren’t any accessories available yet. But that may change pretty soon, given Pebble’s clout. If it takes off, the Pebble Time will be a true modular smartwatch.
Pebble Time works with iOS 8 on iPhone 4s and above, and all Android 4.0+ phones, and is now available in three colours. It retails at S$329 at Challenger, Epicentre, Newstead, City Chain, Sprint-Cass (Changi Airport), Decibel, Moby, Courts, Busybody, Mstation and other outlets. The release date and price for Pebble Time Steel is yet to be determined.
