Pebble Time - Better than the Apple Watch?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,702 words · ~8 min read
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so while the Smartwatch Wars have definitely heated up a fair bit with
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heavyweight Apple allegedly selling more of the first generation Apple watch
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within days of its launch than every other Smartwatch maker combined ever
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pebble's original concept of offering notifications on your wrist at a
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reasonable price with crossplatform compatibility is something that nothing
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else addresses in quite the same way which is why the original Pebble
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continues to be available in spite of its lackluster hardware specs and
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decidedly lesser build quality especially when you hold it next to
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something like an Apple Watch or a Moto 360 but that doesn't mean pebble's been
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sitting on ass and today's video is about the Next Generation Pebble the
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pebble time by the way we're mostly back on track as far as production scheduling
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goes so throw a like below the video if you're stoked to finally see our
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Skylight coverage John is hard at work on that as we speak
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drop is offering a killer deal on a DJI Phantom 3 so if you're into Jones scroll
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down and check out that link in the video description to get yours now so
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let's start with what Pebble hasn't changed since the original the pebble
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time is still water resistant to 30 m only this time but it works for reals
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I've gone swimming with mine lots of times although I did that with the Apple
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Watch 2 and had no issues it features multi-day battery life with an all
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always on display always showing you the time they say seven days but in practice
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I get closer to four or five since I'm a bit of a heavier user it features
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backwards compatibility with the rich third-party app ecosystem for the
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original Pebble with everything from GoPro remote control to ringing your
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phone remotely to find it to fitness trackers that use the onboard sensors to
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pretty advanced music Control usable whether the app has been updated for the
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new color display or not pretty cool now
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let's get into the things that are different the big one as I just alluded
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to is the display the original Pebble used a 144 by 168 resolution eaper
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display which because eaper requires no backlight to function and only needs to
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be powered when the image is changing is what made it readable in direct sunlight
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and allowed it to achieve such monstrous battery life compared to its competitors
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at the time of which there weren't really any and in fact compared to its
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competitors now but being low resolution and monoch in the year 2015 is just not
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as cool as it was in the 1980s so the pebble time features a color eaper
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display unfortunately from my experience with the pebble time the viewing angles
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are so poor sometimes and the color is so washed out that it feels a little bit
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more like a novelty not to mention that the resolution itself has not been
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upgraded meaning that text is just plain not very sharp although this was done to
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preserve that backwards app comp compatibility that I praised like a
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minute and a half ago so I guess I could
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live with that if they could at least fix the viewing angle issues there are
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more improvements though the pebble time features a super easy to ous band
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swapping system that will even allow custom add-on bands to enhance
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functionality in the future with ideas like extended battery packs that could
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last for like a month and additional sensors like GPS being available for
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upgrading the pebble time after the fact the next big one for me is the
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microphone unlike Android Wear you can't just gesture and start talking at your
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watch to or start a navigation to wherever I want to go and you definitely
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can't hold a conversation just through your watch like the Apple watch thanks
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to its surprisingly good mic and speaker
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but honestly what I mostly use the mic on my watch for is for quickly
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responding to texts or emails something that the pebble time handles really
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really well I find that for the most efficiency it does require the use of
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both of my hands since it waits quite a while to stop listening if you don't
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press the button again to indicate that you're finished talking but voice
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detection was quick and accurate compared to other devices that I've used
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which leads us to some general analysis of my experience with the pebble time
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versus its competitors being platform agnostic is great I had no difficulty
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controlling my Google Play music connected to Sono speakers right out of
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the box something I couldn't do with the Apple watch Facebook authenticator was
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was Flawless out of the box it popped up a notification gave me the context
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appropriate option of opening on my phone and popped the number right after
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the lock screen and all of my Google junk worked flawlessly with even fairly
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deep options for actions that I could perform on things like my Gmail messages
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I also absolutely love tactile buttons I
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mean I cannot say this enough this is a huge thing that's missing with other
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SmartWatches for me which require you to be looking at them to do something as
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simple as change a song something I do with my watch a lot if you can memorize
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a couple of button presses then you can actually perform certain controls
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without ever even looking at it which you might argue doesn't matter I mean
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lonus how much time are you really saving by not looking at your watch to
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press next track to which I would respond this thing is made for people
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who bought it to save the 4 seconds it takes to get their phone out of their
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pocket of course it matters the pebble time isn't perfect though the animations
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between menus are actually kind of annoying remember Pebble this is a
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product for impatient people and some of them are so long it just feels like
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they're kind of stalling so as you scroll through your timeline it's quick
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but as you move between days it's like this little
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Sun pops up or something it's like they're stalling to get more time also I
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really don't like the way that the time gets really tiny or even disappears
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outright when you're looking at different screens the calendar being one
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of them that did irritate me although the good news is that Pebble has been
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updating it actively I got an update even while I was reviewing it that
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significantly improved it so maybe they'll see this video and maybe change
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that but uh the last thing though is that this might just be my unit or it
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might be a power saving measure to allow for that fancy color screen but I really
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need to flick my wrist to illuminate the back light for viewing in the dark
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something that I didn't really have to do on my original Pebble so the bottom
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line then am I switching to the pebble time no it
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was so close it was so close but I just
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can't get over the screen I could live with the kind of washed out colors and
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the hard to activate backlight I could even live with the low resolution but I
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will take the tradeoff of extra bulk and charging every night with the gatch r in
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exchange for being able to read it from any angle I think if Pebble could figure
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out how to get their panel closer to the front plastic this issue would go away
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for me and I think they could convert me back but for now I'm an Android Wear
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user really for now although if I was on
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the iPhone I'd probably go for the pebble time to be perfectly honest poor
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Apple watch and it's kind of a shame that I
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won't be switching to the pebble time permanently because it means I won't get to wear this super sick debrand skinned
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orange Pebble time anymore the guys over there did me up an orange one because
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they knew I loved my original orange Pebble so much and uh the pebble time is
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not available in that particular color but of course that's what dbrand exists
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to deal with although it's good for other stuff too because having a skin
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means that even careless people like me are less likely to scratch their
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sensitive Electronics I whacked my watch so hard at one point that I got a bunch
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of paint and drywall bits embedded in the orange skin but I guess the fact
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that I was able to clean it off is a testament to the durability of dbrand
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skins and to the functionality thanks to the vinyl wrap the watch housing wasn't
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damaged at all so check out dbrand.com
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oh crap what is it Pebble lus Pebble
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Linus Pebble thank you for that Nick to check out all the different devices they
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support and to see the colors they have that aren't orange I know not everyone
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is into that don't mind the man behind the
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curtain thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right to
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check out our moving Vlog which actually ended up being surprisingly entertaining
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thanks guys and I'll see you again next time