Smartwatch Connected Pebble

For your iPhone or Android smartphones, Pebble smartwatch this is from a Kickstarter project and promises to be the favorite watch geeks. As we have appreciated but are a little less appreciative that his first testers.

Watch connected Pebble: not as "brilliant" as the geeks shoutAfter two weeks of use, our conclusions on the Pebble shows are mixed. Effective in its simplicity, it is still frustrating in many areas.

Pebble More Details

Launched on Kickstarter Pebble show was a hit with fans. Geeks have paid to have it on their wrist preview, and they are of course! amazed by the object of their investment. We wanted to havenet heart, and appreciation is a little less enthusiastic.

Side finish, it is far from the Gear from Samsung or even the Sony Smartwatch 2. The watch case is assembled very acceptable manner, but some are rough-machined ends. Its design is very basic - simple - but not really sexy. Materials exclusively plastic, are even less charming. 

The rubber strap is not really comfortable. The advantage is that the watch is very light and thin (although it is still a bit cumbersome). It remains far from manufacturing quality watches classic brand: Pebble is regarded more as an infringement of Swatch summarily made ​​in China ...

Pebble surprised us in several ways. First of all, it crushes watches Sony and Samsung in terms of autonomy. It has survived more than 7 days (180 hours) on the first cycle battery and instead appears to calibrate 5 days after a few recharges. This watch is really tight then 5 atmospheres. It is therefore possible to swim or take a shower with no worry. Watches with Samsung and Sony, the shower is just accepted.

Then she does a good job, however limited it may be. It vibrates for all notifications smartphone, without exception: LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, call, etc.. This feature is very convenient, because it avoids having to leave his smartphone from his pocket every 5 minutes. It is possible to read on the dial of the bulk content of notifications, only long messages are not displayed in full. Only problem: it is difficult to effectively control the notifications to display or not. All basic applications loaded on the standard watch, work well, even if they are very limited. On the software side, Pebble is closer to the Sony SmartWatch 2, uverte all developers and a similar simplicity. At Sony, applications are more numerous (Android) although not consistently accomplished.

Last good surprise: permanent connection (Bluetooth 2.1) to the smartphone hardly consumes battery (5% at most). To be honest, our Galaxy S3 testthe impact of Pebble self smartphone was totally imperceptible.

The defects: not really necessary, still limited

Overall, Pebble let the user hungry. Typical example is the application control the music player does not even leave the possibility to adjust the volume of the device, or even navigate in the list of albums.  We can just pause and move to next and previous tracks. You have to pay $ 1.42 on the Play Store for more features (for Pebble Boss Music application).

The display of the watch is simple and almost no energy, but its quality is really too basic and does not touch. The equipment of the watch, meanwhile, is very poor, especially compared to the Gear Samsung and Sony Smartwatch 2. It is possible to install only eight applications simultaneously. Many of them are still in development and have a lot of bugs (on Android). Furthermore, it is terribly easier to list the 10 most useless than the 5 most essential applications applications! Then note that each application installed on the watch also runs continuously on the smartphone. The assembly thus consumes a lot of RAM. Devices with 1GB of RAM could then suffer (our Galaxy S3 would often charge the home menu rather annoying).

While the charging cable is magnetized, and very convenient to use. But its proprietary format imposes never lose! A micro-USB cable would certainly simplified things. Many other small details, yet easy to fix, have embarrassed us. For example, the watch does not follow the time change of the smartphone when changing time zones. Orit becomes impossible to read the contents of SMS as soon as it happens more than one.

Finally, the biggest problem this watch DIY is the basis for its operation on Android: it uses the system accessibility (for the disabled) developed by Google. With a Samsung smartphone, this causes a trick that enables voice synthesis for blind bug. A bug that can bypass it seems, but the procedure did not work (obviously) not in our Galaxy S3. Google would have to organize a special communication interface for watches connected to Androidunless the firm prefers to reserve for glasses?

Our Opinion

 In short, this watch Pebble be, cause it is ultra-simple, is one of the most effective time. With its autonomy, it surpasses Gear Samsung and Sony Smartwatch, yet they have a much greater potential in terms of features. It is hoped that the software environment Pebble improves rapidly on Android (it is already more successful on the iPhone, but also more systematically fee). Available around $ 150 for a European (shipping and customs included)this watch is a little too expensive for our taste. A price of $ 119.99 seems better suited to its materials, finish and functionality.