Wearable tech is a trendy topic these days and nothing is as buzzworthy as the newly announced Apple Watch. It has a touchscreen, Bluetooth capabilities, and you can even send virtual hugs to your friends with watches. But Apple wasn’t the first on the scene.
Before that was The Pebble.
Pebble watches were funded using Kickstarter and feature an e-paper display, Bluetooth capabilities, and water resistance.
Full disclosure, I own a Pebble. I love everything about it. It’s not the most functional of all the watches on the market – it’s not able to make phone calls or send texts – but it’s also not the least functional. It’s somewhere between Dick Tracy and Swatch. And let’s be honest, who actually wants to have conversations into their shirt cuffs?
I use it mostly for remote control of my music (home and car), answering calls through my stereo system (car), and unobtrusive triage of notifications (everywhere). I have also controlled presentations from it, which is really helpful for me — and for you if you do lots of presentations.
There are a few really key things you should take into account if you’re trying to choose between these two watches, though.
- Pebble is device and OS agnostic, unlike the Apple Watch.
- Apple Watch has health tracking integration (that is really robust, I might add) unlike the Pebble. You can see in the photo that I pair my Pebble with my Fitbit.
- Pebble has a battery life of up to 7 days compared to the reported less-than-a-day life of Apple Watch.
- Apple Watch clocks in around $350 compared to Pebble’s $150 (or $100 if you act fast).
So is it time to start optimizing your website for Apple watch or Pebble? Maybe not, but it’s time to consider using one.
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