Last December, I’d read in some of these outdoor watch reviews that Pebble Smartwatch had a Black Friday Sale and it was only selling at USD79. This was prior to the weak Malaysia Ringgit. So I got one for myself and one for John. Means I had been using it for about 3 months and really loving it. I got the plastic one and I would recommend this one over the Steel because:
1) Price
2) Comfort
3) Flexibility
I am not normally and watch person, but after getting the Pebble, I find myself never without wearing it, means I wear it to sleep and even wear it into the shower!
I use it mainful for fitness tracking, to know how many steps I take in a day. Unfortunately, I do not walk a lot in a day! On average 3000 steps a day, unless I am out running, then I achieve 10k without a problem. I use Misfit app for this purpose and it gives me an encouraging trophy should I reach my customised 10k steps target. Misfit also tracks my sleep which I set at 8 hours a day target. This is the main reason why I wear it to sleep too. It is able to tell me what many hours of deep sleep I get a day. This is great to push me to sleep earlier sometimes. If I know I did not sleep well last night, I will try to sleep early tonight to make up for it.
2nd most important use for me is as a running watch. I actually sold my Garmin Forerunner 220 when I got my Pebble coz I just don’t need Garmin anymore, though I must say Garmin GPS is much more accurate that phone based running app. Nevertheless, it is close enough. I basically use the Pebble with Endomondo app. It will show me a really simple screen which is also customisable. I can pause and continue with the run from my wrist too. At the same time while running, I can also control music playback from the phone. The only thing is I have to run with my phone together, but it is ok as it is safer to bring the phone along anyways, in case of any emergencies.
3rd Most important use for me is for notifications. I always leave my phone in the handbag, thus a lot of times I will miss phone calls or important messages. With the pebble, I actually minimise taking my phone out, turning it on to check for anything thus I actually use less battery even though the blue tooth is on all the time. Whenever I get a notification, I will decide the importance of it before reaching for my phone. Some messages are so short I can read the whole thing on the Pebble screen itself, for eg those Instagram comments or even those Line Adverts push that I don’t really need to open and read when my phone buzzes. I also don’t miss calls easily if I am out in a noisy place and can’t hear the phone ring tone.
Battery life
Pebble has the best battery life amongst all other Smartwatches, so it has no contender. It lasts 3-5 days before needing a charge, and charging it with the provided cable is plenty fast too. Battery life will depend on how active you are socially, how many notifications you get a day. Sometimes when I am out and my Pebble reaches 20% battery and I know I can’t go back to charge it in time, I will set the notifications to “Phone Calls Only” so to preserve battery life. Whenever I do this, the battery life can be extended for a whole day. I also do not use animated fancy watch faces, that takes up battery life too and is quite unnecessary. I prefer simple plain easy to tell time type of watch faces, else I will just use the Misfit watch face.
Plastic Strap
I normally dislike wearing watches for a long time as it is quite uncomfortable for me, that is why I am so pleasantly impressed with the Pebble’s original plastic strap which is soft and smooth and just comfy. It does not feel like I am wearing a watch at all, I had literally never taken it off in weeks. In the case that the watch strap needs replacing one day, Pebble has made it so that it is a standard size watch strap which can be changed in any watch shop locally. Isn’t that awesome?
Simplistic Design
Some people might find the design too ugly, too square, too simple etc etc but I think this is just nice. It is so simplistic that it is one type fits all, suitable for male and female wearers, not too big for thin wrists nor too small for big hands. Plus the fact that you can change the looks by using amazing company Gadgetwraps is so cool. When I got my Gadgetwraps, it came with a personal note from the founders, I love personal notes, fullstop. I actually bought a few wraps, hope my Pebble lives long enough to use the other wrap one day. They even made stickers for the buttons, so to protect the buttons on the Pebble too, how neat is that.
Pebble has many other features like using it for GPS with the phone, timer, alarm, mini games etc but I don’t really use any of those. For me, it is enough to use it as a watch, a fitness tracker and for running.