Pebble was one of the first success stories in smartwatches, they made the first cross platform smartwatch that worked with both iOS and Android. The first iteration of Pebble was geeky, which resembled nothing like a normal watch. You had an always-on display, a simple interface with four buttons to move though it.
This year, the company launched the Pebble Time, based on new, more "watch-like" design and a new interface, Timeline. Essentially, timeline lets you move through the events of the day, moving forward you can see what's coming up and by moving back you can see if you missed something. But that's not all, the display was changed to color e-ink alongwith more animations to make the interface look livelier, with still a week's worth of battery-life. Then came the Pebble Time Steel, to take on the Apple Watch's premium design and now we have, Pebble Time Round.
You guessed it. A round smartwatch.
Its hard to keep re-inventing yourself in the industry where Apple suddenly jumps and becomes the second biggest player. The Pebble Time Round is more of a reactionary measure. Everyone now has a round smartwatch, Samsung, LG, Huawei and well Motorola, which started it all. So why not us.
Now, lets talk about the Pebble Time Round. It has a 38.5mm face and is just 7.5mm thick making it the thinnest smartwatch in the world according to the company, it also weighs quite less at just 28 grams. There are two strap sizes to choose from, 14mm and 20mm. You can get it in either black or silver finishes while a special rose-gold variant is reserved for the 14mm band.
The watch circuitry had to be redesigned as well, its now in a doughnut shape around the battery of the Pebble Time Round. Coming to the battery-life, the Pebble Time Steel is advertised with up to 10 days of battery life while the Round, just 2 days. Blame the design for the lack of space to add in a larger battery. But it supports quick charging, and Pebble says with just 15 minutes of charging you can get 1 full day's worth of usage.
The color e-Ink display supports 64 colors, is always-on here too and the watch is splash resistant. It runs on the same Timeline software as the Pebble Time, but it has been customized to work with a round display. Pebble users will be happy to see that the company has retained the same 4 button layout on the Time Round as well. If you are already a Pebble user or just want to see what the Pebble Time Round is all about, head over to the link here, you can also pre-order it starting today for $249.99 and it ships in 6-8 weeks.
At $249.99, the Pebble Time Round is not an impulsive buy, most smartwatches aren't these days. The question is, does it offer enough over the competition. Earlier, Pebble smartwatches were noted for two things, week worth of battery-life and cross platform support with Android and iOS. Both advantages have now been nullified, you just have two days worth of battery-life here just like most Android Wear smartwatches and the Apple watch, moreover Android Wear now supports iOS as well.
The Pebble Time Round is the most impressive watch the company has made till now, but given that they gave up on one of its biggest advantages in favor of design, seems more a reactionary measure than a well thought plan.
Source: Pebble
