The new Pebble Time in color is an even better smartwatch
Batteries are the lifeblood of smartwatches.
With the advent of Android Wear and the Apple Watch, the Pebble smartwatch has been largely forgotten. Pebble is a smartwatch that uses electronic paper that was born from Kickstarter in 2012 and is still popular as a "smartwatch that everyone recommends". Because the battery lasts for about a week? Other smartwatches only last a day or four hours.
On February 24th, Pebble announced the "Pebble Time," which features a slimy moving color electronic paper display while maintaining a battery that lasts for about a week. 20% thinner and lighter, with a new design. It remains waterproof. The review video by The Verge calls it a Tamagotchi on your wrist.
The new screen uses color e-paper with good battery life and is always on. The drawing speed, which is worrisome, is sufficiently smooth with a maximum of 30fps. The backlight makes it easier to see even in bright sunlight. A microphone is also installed in the main unit, and it is now possible to use voice replies and voice memos.
We are introducing a new feature called "Timeline Interface". The buttons on the right side of the main unit are divided into past, present, and future from the top, so you can check the information in chronological order. For example, you can use the "past button (top)" to check emails you forgot to read or the number of steps you have taken so far, the "current button (middle)" to check your music player or clock, and the "future button (bottom)" to check upcoming schedules. increase. The touch screen is not installed, but it seems to be usable efficiently with this. This feature will also be compatible with existing Pebble and Pebble Steel.
It is quite waterproof, so you can swim or surf while wearing it. The bezel is made of stainless steel and the band is made of silicon. You can still use 22mm wide watch bands. There are three color variations: black, white, and red.
No need to develop new apps, just use the 6,500+ apps in Pebble's app store. The active tracking feature also works with other apps such as Jawbone and RunKeeper. It seems that it also supports Evernote, PayPal, and yelp.
At the same time as the announcement, we started recruiting investors on Kickstarter, but we achieved the target amount in about half a day. "Early Bird", where you can receive one for $ 159 (about 19,000 yen), has already disappeared, and the limited edition of 30,000 is $ 179 (about 21,000 yen) at the time of writing the article (as of 12:00 on February 25, 2015). I cut the remaining 10,000 pieces. By the way, the retail price is scheduled to be 199 dollars (about 24,000 yen).
This month, Pebble finally supports Android Wear notifications and continues to be vigorously updated. It seems that it is still loved by users who are early adopters. I would like to keep an eye on it in the future.
source: Pebble, Kickstarter
(Tomohiro Tokunaga)
