Pebble Smart Watch now shipping, first reviews in

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Reviews by The Verge and engadget are up.

The Verge
After using the Pebble for a few days, I realized that I was daydreaming about it: I wanted it to do more. That’s unusual — I rarely trust new products to work correctly, especially new products from unproven companies. But the Pebble’s charming simplicity and fundamental competence inspires confidence. It’s so good at what it does now that it’s easy to imagine all other things it might do in the future. There’s no reason it can’t replace a Fitbit or Nike Fuelband, for example, and I’d love to be able to send replies to emails and text directly from the device. And Pebble’s promised app support means we’ll eventually see even more uses for it.

At $150, the Pebble isn’t cheap, and it’s definitely not yet a must-have device. But it’s close — if the Pebble team can deliver on the rest of their promises, they’ll have created the first mainstream wearable computing platform. And even if they don’t, the Pebble as it exists right now will make a lot of people very happy.
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Full review (video review included): http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/28/3924904/pebble-smartwatch-review



engadget:
We've really enjoyed our time with Pebble so far -- it's not a fashion statement, necessarily, but we wouldn't be surprised to see it pop up on many wrists in the weeks and months to come. Functionality is still quite limited at this point, and considering how fresh the device is, that's to be expected. The features that are already available work well, and the smartwatch has been a pleasure to use.

Taking price into account, Pebble is an excellent value, especially for lucky Kickstarter backers who were able to take advantage of $99, $115 and $125 pre-orders. We're very optimistic for the device's future -- our chief concern relates not to the hardware, but how it will affect behavior: If you thought that friend who glances at his smartphone every few minutes was rude, just wait until they own a Pebble.
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Full Review: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/25/pebble-smartwatch-review/



Can't wait for my Pebble :)
 
So close now. I just hope it doesn't interfere with my bluetooth in the car. No one in the tech media drives, apparently. Bunch of New York hipsters. :P
 
I got the shipping confirmation E-Mail this morning which means that my Pebble will be shipped in about 48h. So excited :).
 
Sen²;47075091 said:
I got the shipping confirmation E-Mail this morning which means that my Pebble will be shipped in about 48h. So excited :).
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Lucky! Let us know what you think and post some pics.
 
Tweet by Pebble:
Great in-depth feature on wearable tech and an interview with @ericmigi in DISTRO. Check it out! http://ow.ly/hjVKI
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It's fairly interesting though not spectacular.



By the way, I misspoke earlier. I didn't actually get a shipping confirmation but was rather asked to confirm my shipping address so they could ship my Pebble, sorry for that. I'll post my impressions once it arrives :).
 
I got my shipping confirmation a few days ago but it still doesn't appear to be registered by the Singapore mail company. Plus it's going all the way to France so shipping delays may be impressive. I'll keep you guys posted.
 
GamePnoy74 said:
It might not have all the bells and whistles of the Pebble but I'm liking Casio's G-Shock bluetooth smartwatches a little more...they just used their familiar classic silhouettes/molds and added smartwatch functions to it.

Casio G-Shock GB-5600AA and GB-6900AA

9BLHS.jpg


It's also nice that these watches can last at least TWO YEARS on a standard CR2032 watch battery as well =)

Edit: Yes I'm kinda biased towards G-Shocks lol =P
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When I was younger, I used to think that the Timex Indiglo watches were awesome. I had both of these models at some point in my life:

20thAnniversaryFront.jpg


timex_indiglo_800x600.jpg
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I still have that Ironman Triathlon watch, it's like 16-17 years old now and the stupid thing still works (if I put a new battery in it that is :P) . But when I think about it now, I don't actually wear a watch anymore. I haven't in like 5 years. These days my phone is just my watch. The pebble watches do look pretty cool with the e-paper displays. But not something I am really into.
 
neptunes said:
They could have added NFC
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I thought about that as well. I think they might look into that for future versions but at the moment NFC doesn't seem to be widespread enough to be a viable replacement for BT.




Edit:
Wohoooooow, my order status has just been updated :)
E4a7g7U.png




Also, Android Police has a review up which, I think, has not been posted yet:
The Good
- Easy to understand and operate
- Easy, consistent Bluetooth pairing
- 5-7 days of battery life
- Tough and waterproof
- Lots of notifications out of the box

The Bad
- Not an attractive watch
- Very few apps available
- No way to check previous notifications
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Full review: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...w-a-rough-diamond-in-need-of-a-little-polish/
 
My buddy got his the other day, I'll mess with it this weekend. I got a white one and have yet to get a shipping notice. I backed very early too. Hmm...
 
Chopper said:
Can I buy one of these in the UK if I'm not a backer?
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You can preorder on getpebble.com for 150 USD. However, they are shipping to their Kickstarter backers first and so far they've only produced around 6k watches. That means everyone who preorders now will have to wait quite some time for his watch to arrive...
 
Sen²;47176443 said:
You can preorder on getpebble.com for 150 USD. However, they are shipping to their Kickstarter backers first and so far they've only produced around 6k watches. That means everyone who preorders now will have to wait quite some time for his watch to arrive...
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mf.luder said:
The list is pretty long right now. I think they sold roughly 85K watches and have only shipped around 2K.

I think my order went in around the 25-30K mark.
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Ha ha. Okay. I can wait. Thanks guys.
 
This watch seems cool, but I'm not sure I understand the purpose of it? I understand that you connect it to your phone and the watch can displayt text messages and more, but everyone carries their phones with them nowadays. What function can the Pebble watch do that your phone can't?

I'm not trying to be provocative. I'm honestly wondering, because I feel as though there's something I'm missing. The watch seems neat, but I feel as though I only understand it's very base features.
 
Summary Man said:
This watch seems cool, but I'm not sure I understand the purpose of it? I understand that you connect it to your phone and the watch can displayt text messages and more, but everyone carries their phones with them nowadays. What function can the Pebble watch do that your phone can't?

I'm not trying to be provocative. I'm honestly wondering, because I feel as though there's something I'm missing. The watch seems neat, but I feel as though I only understand it's very base features.
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The point is convenience. I wear a wristwatch because if I want to know what time it is, I don't want to have to fish my phone out of my pocket. I have the time right there on my watch.

So with a Pebble, you can now have other info right there on your watch. Text message coming in? No need to go to your phone. Phone call? Calendar alert? Email, facebook update, whatever? Right there, on your wrist.

Convenience.
 
Just checked out the pebble kickstarter page. This is the first time I heard of it. I was about to pre-order when I saw the price tag. Its a cool watch but I'm gonna have to wait on it. That biking feature is really cool though.
 
Droid Life posted a short hands on article as well as a video.

Article: http://www.droid-life.com/2013/02/01/pebble-e-paper-smartwatch-first-look-and-hands-on/
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Igbiz81f3Pk#!


Droid Life said:
On a first impression basis, I’d say that Pebble is off to a good start, but it’ll take some time for me to fully review and decide if you should drop $150 on one, which is the retail price now that it’s out of Kickstarter and on its own.
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Ri'Orius said:
The point is convenience. I wear a wristwatch because if I want to know what time it is, I don't want to have to fish my phone out of my pocket. I have the time right there on my watch.

So with a Pebble, you can now have other info right there on your watch. Text message coming in? No need to go to your phone. Phone call? Calendar alert? Email, facebook update, whatever? Right there, on your wrist.

Convenience.
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Yeah, I can understand that. Though responding to a text requires your phone, so the conveyance is partly nullified in that case. All your other examples were pretty interesting though. If I made more use of the notifications on my phone I'd definitely be interested in the Pebble. :)

Thanks for the clarification.
 
Summary Man said:
This watch seems cool, but I'm not sure I understand the purpose of it? I understand that you connect it to your phone and the watch can displayt text messages and more, but everyone carries their phones with them nowadays. What function can the Pebble watch do that your phone can't?

I'm not trying to be provocative. I'm honestly wondering, because I feel as though there's something I'm missing. The watch seems neat, but I feel as though I only understand it's very base features.
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It would be handy for work so I don't have to get my phone out every five minutes to check new emails.
 
This thing is cool. Cool idea at least. If the iOS pairing/app gets better by the time this is available for non-backers I might pick one up.

I wonder though if Apple is going to take a look at this and do something very similar with an iPod-like device, like the old nano you could strap to your wrist. If they had taken that and ran with the iPhone bluetooth connection idea that could have been very cool.
 
Summary Man said:
This watch seems cool, but I'm not sure I understand the purpose of it? I understand that you connect it to your phone and the watch can displayt text messages and more, but everyone carries their phones with them nowadays. What function can the Pebble watch do that your phone can't?

I'm not trying to be provocative. I'm honestly wondering, because I feel as though there's something I'm missing. The watch seems neat, but I feel as though I only understand it's very base features.
Click to expand...
At the price I won't be buying in, but working in a lab all day with gloves on I would really find this useful assuming it will display sms etc without user interaction, as I wouldn't have to take off my gloves and leave the lab to read a random sms.
 
Summary Man said:
This watch seems cool, but I'm not sure I understand the purpose of it? I understand that you connect it to your phone and the watch can displayt text messages and more, but everyone carries their phones with them nowadays. What function can the Pebble watch do that your phone can't?

I'm not trying to be provocative. I'm honestly wondering, because I feel as though there's something I'm missing. The watch seems neat, but I feel as though I only understand it's very base features.
Click to expand...

I want one because when at work, I don't have my phone in my hand or pocket, I am sitting at a desk and the phone is in a drawer, so checking for messages and emails on my watch is pretty good.
 
Summary Man said:
Yeah, I can understand that. Though responding to a text requires your phone, so the conveyance is partly nullified in that case. All your other examples were pretty interesting though. If I made more use of the notifications on my phone I'd definitely be interested in the Pebble. :)

Thanks for the clarification.
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It's certainly not for everyone.

You're right that to reply, you still need the phone. The point of the watch is to determine if you want to reply before fishing in the pocket. You can decline calls from the watch as well.

Also, changing the watch face whenever you want should be fun. At the very least, it should be a neat tech toy.

LiK said:
so when can i buy one at a retailer?
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The CEO stated during the CES conference that they want to sell at retail, but it won't be anytime soon. They are focused on shipping all the Kickstarter orders and then fulfilling the website preorders.
 
Weenerz said:
I want one because when at work, I don't have my phone in my hand or pocket, I am sitting at a desk and the phone is in a drawer, so checking for messages and emails on my watch is pretty good.
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Couldnt you just buy a cheap dealextreme iPhone docking station and put it right next/infront of your computer monitor? thats what I do.


-----

Anyway, I really want this watch mainly because here it snows pretty bad and being able to tell why my Phone is vibrating in the depths of my snow pocket is a pretty cool future, specially since some times I only really want to respond right away if it is an emergency.

Regardless, this thing is way too much money for that alone, I look forward for prices to lower on devices like this, I will definitely get one when they are less than $50 or they release one with a more contemporary design like a Fossil watch or something.
 
Sparkyb (a user on getpebble.com) reviewed Pebbel. His main points:

sparkyb said:
The unit itself feels a little larger than my previous watch, but I think it may just take some getting used to. the Process to get it set up couldn't have been simpler and I was amazed how fast it did the firmware upgrade.
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sparkyb said:
Right now, when a message comes in, I can press back or select to dismiss it. However, if another messages comes in before I've dismissed the first, it shows the new one and the first one is gone. If 2 emails (or an email and an IM or whatever) come in almost at the same time, I might not even know there was a second one I didn't see.
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sparkyb said:
The music app is pretty basic, but it seems fine. I really only use 2 apps for music on my phone, Rhapsody and a podcasting app (not technically music, but still needs music-like controls). Neither of them worked perfectly with Pebble, but I mostly blame the app makers and not Pebble. I'll have to see if I can get them to fix their apps. Neither app displayed what song/podcast was playing, but this is a bigger problem with Rhapsody. They both could play/pause.
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sparkyb said:
The area where I think Pebble needs the most work is its overall UI. The home menu seems to be in a kind of arbitrary order. The built in apps are arranged the way they assume I'd want it (watch faces, music, alarms, settings), but then additional watchfaces go at the bottom. Since screen space is limited, I'd really like to be able to customize both what appears on this menu and in what order. This is a task I'd be find with doing from the phone app. More than on my phone I think it will be important to be able to hide/uninstall some of the preinstalled apps/watchfaces that I'm not going to use.
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sparkyb said:
I do like how the home screen shows a small clock in the bar at the top. [...] I hope this top bar that briefly shows the app name and then a clock is standard across all app when the SDK comes out.
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Full review: http://forums.getpebble.com/topics/1370



I'm really concerned about the bolded part. Hopefully the Pebble team fixes that somehow.
 
Sen²;47205903 said:
I'm really concerned about the bolded part. Hopefully the Pebble team fixes that somehow.
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It's not ideal, but I don't see it as a big problem. The notifications are still maintained on the phone, so it's not like they're lost forever.

Anyway, I would assume they will address the issue if possible.
 
zephervack said:
Couldnt you just buy a cheap dealextreme iPhone docking station and put it right next/infront of your computer monitor? thats what I do.


-----

Anyway, I really want this watch mainly because here it snows pretty bad and being able to tell why my Phone is vibrating in the depths of my snow pocket is a pretty cool future, specially since some times I only really want to respond right away if it is an emergency.

Regardless, this thing is way too much money for that alone, I look forward for prices to lower on devices like this, I will definitely get one when they are less than $50 or they release one with a more contemporary design like a Fossil watch or something.
Click to expand...

The place I work at are real cunts when it comes to having phones on your desk.
 
Neuromancer said:
Will Jeff Gerstmann be reviewing this watch on Giant Bomb?


It looks really cool but no backlight kind of kills it. I know they say the time will be visible in most lighting conditions, but that's not good enough for me. If I can't see it in a dark movie theater, forget it.
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Why do you need to know the time during a movie?
 
I want one of those but I feel like what I really want is like the revision and at a slightly cheaper price point. $150 while not crazy seems a tad much for what I'd want to pay for this. Plus I hate buying 1st gen products these days unless they price drop.

I'm interested in getting something like this to go with my Android phone though.
 
I'm not a man who wears watches, but lately I've been giving consideration to a smartwatch. I've spent a fair bit of time looking at Sonys watch, but it did seem a bit "meh" to me. Unfortunately so far I haven't seen one that I can tell myself I want to plunk down money for, the Pebble included. I don't know what I'm waiting for as far as features go, I just suppose I haven't seen one that's wow'd me enough yet.

Out of all that I have seen though, I think Sonys is probably the closest to what I want... I just wish the battery were far better. I'd read they will have a new one this year, so maybe it'll be enough to finally push me to buy one.
 
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