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Though Kickstarter has been around since 2009, the Pebble E-Paper Watch broke the funding record in April 2012, raising over 10 million dollars for the promise of a watch that would interface with your cell phone.
It took almost a year for the first watches to arrive, but the initial backers are beginning to receive them. I contributed to the project and my Kickstarter edition Pebble watch recently showed up on my doorstep.
I’ve been using the watch for almost a week – here are my impressions:
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Setup
The watch comes in a flat box with white interior packaging. It reminds me of the box a new Kindle comes in. It’s very barebones – you’ll get the watch, a USB charging cable and an insert with instructions to go to Pebble website to setup your watch. The initial setup is painless. You charge the watch, load up the official Pebble app on your iPhone or Android and you’re off and running. I had to do an upgrade of the firmware right after powering it on, but the iPhone app helped walk me through this.
Impressions
The watch is very comfortable to wear. I’ve heard others say it feels cheap, but it’s a plastic watch with a rubber band – I’m not sure what they expected. I think it looks fine on my wrist. I’m not a “fancy watch” person anyway, and it’s pretty neutral and unassuming. The band is standard and can be replaced by another band of you desire.
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The watch defaults to showing you the time. The button on the left goes back, and the button on the right goes forward. There are two more buttons on the right, one above and one below. Those buttons move up and down in the menus. Those menus include Music, Set Alarm, Watchfaces, and Settings.
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The functionality is fairly limited at this point, especially for the iPhone. I don’t have an Android phone to test this, but I’ve heard that app offers more options. You can control your music on your phone via Bluetooth, check your alarms and change your watchface. You have to load a playlist on your phone and then you can control it. It also works with other audio programs. I’ve tested it with the podcasting app iCatcher along with Spotify. This is great when you are driving, as it’s much faster (and probably safer) to click a button on your wrist instead of accessing the phone.
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There are a variety of watchfaces available, in both 12- and 24-hour formats. I like the default one, but it’s fun to change it up once in a while, especially one called “Fuzzy Time” that says things like “half past eight” instead of 8:30. It’s a neat way to look at time and is an example of the kind of interesting features the watch could have. More faces should be coming soon.
Eventually, the company promises interaction with running and cycling programs. The SDK for the watch will allow developers to make more apps. However, the fact that it tells the time and allows me to advance, pause and go back through my playlist is enough for me to feel satisfied with the purchase.
In addition to controlling your music, the watch displays text messages as they come in. The watch vibrates to notify you. You can’t do anything but dismiss them, but it saves you having to dig your phone out of your pocket. It will also display caller information when one comes in. If you have jailbroken your iPhone, you can install an app that will allow more notifications. For example, direct messages from Facebook and Twitter can also appear on the screen. If the message is too long to see on the screen, you can scroll around with the right side buttons.
The Settings menu allows you to check the Bluetooth connection, set the date and time, turn the backlight on/off, turn on/off notifications and change the font size.
You can set an alarm as well, which causes the watch to vibrate.
The screen uses a 1.26-inch e-paper display, which is easily readable. The image is black and white and the backlight is fairly subdued. It shouldn’t cause too much of a distraction in a movie theater or other darkened space. It’s comparable to any other watch with a light-up face.
I haven’t had any issues with the Bluetooth connection between my watch and my phone. I’ve walked away from the phone, and when I return the connection reestablishes after a few minutes. Once the connection dropped for no reason, but it only took a few clicks on my phone to get it connected again.
The iPhone app is barebones, allowing you to download new watch faces and test the messaging functionality. I anticipate the app will gain new features soon.
Conclusions
While the watch isn’t as exciting as I had hoped right out of the box, it does do what it does well. It controls my music easily, offers customizability with the watchfaces and it’s less distracting to check my watch during a meeting when a text or call comes in as opposed to pulling my phone out of my pocket. I’ve received several compliments on the watch this week from different people. I am hoping more functionality comes soon.
Unless you were an initial Kickstarter backer, the watch is only available for pre-order. There are also additional colors in the works, including white and red, but those will come later as the company works out manufacturing issues.
Overall, if you are looking for a neat watch with some interesting functionality, I recommend the Pebble. Just be aware that it does have its limitations.