Well, we know it: Pebble is no more. The company has had an enormous influence on the development of smart watches and deserves much credit for it. Now Pebble itself has disbanded and although some operations moved to Fitbit, the current smart watches are only supported limited time. Time for an alternative to the Pebble. What are the best new smart watches for Pebble owners?
Alternative to Pebble 1: Fossil Q Marshal
The original Pebble was a plastic watch with no frills, a square screen with only black and white colors, and fairly limited functionality. You could receive notifications from a smartphone connected via Bluetooth. You also got some basic fitness information, your steps were counted and thus the calories consumed were calculated. The best part of the original Pebble, however, was the ‘community’ that immediately arose around it. It proved fairly easy to write software for the Pebble and the app on your smartphone allowed you to browse through the inventions of other Pebble owners.
This allowed you to expand the functionality of it. It was through third-party apps, for instance, possible to look through the Pebble to live image from the camera on your smartphone, and print photos remotely via the Pebble which is very useful at print management companies. Very handy for selfie-makers who once did not want to be with one hand in the photo. Furthermore, all kinds of people were engaged in the most eccentric dials for the Pebble. In short, you can not be bored quickly with the first Pebble.
We actually haven’t seen something similar. The closest is still Android Wear, where software developers now also have produced quite a few apps and dials. We, therefore, propose as an alternative to the first pebble: the Fossil Q Marshal. This brand new wrist jewelry not only looks very nice but is also one of the cheapest Android Wear smart watches of the moment.
Price: $295.00
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Alternative for Pebble Steel: Huawei Watch
We can be brief for an alternative to the Pebble Steel. This watch was the second device that was produced by Pebble. Instead of a plastic case, this watch had a look with a metal cabinet which resembled more like a real watch. The leather straps and steel were also introduced. However, the software and the hardware were exactly the same as that of the first plastic Pebble.
So if you want a software experience a bit similar to the Pebble Steel, but if the looks also count, look for a Huawei Watch. This Android Wear watch has a sapphire crystal screen, a round dial, and leather or metal straps of your choice. You may also want to look at the recently released Asus ZenWatch 3, which runs on the same operating system.
Price: $294.99
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Alternative to Steel Pebble Time: Fitbit Charge 2
The Pebble Time Steel was the Pebble smartwatch that lastest longest on one battery charge: ten days. We only find such battery life in fitness trackers. For example, Fitbit Charge 2.
An advantage of the Fitbit Charge 2 is that it also has some smartwatch functions. For example, notifications of email, WhatsApp, SMS etc. are displayed on the screen of the Charge 2.
Price: $148.94
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Alternative to Pebble Time Round: Samsung Gear S3
The Pebble Time Round was the first of Pebble smartwatch focusing more on appearance than on the software. Furthermore, it was one of the first smartwatches with an e-ink color display. With a round face, this smartwatch should meet watch wearers who put value on a watch that looked like a watch, rather than a small wrist computer. The downside was that the original software that was written for the earlier Pebbles, often no longer worked at the Pebble Time Round. And software developers were obviously not very concerned with this smartwatch so that the number of apps and dials remained very limited.
A good alternative to the elegant Pebble Time Round is Samsung Gear S3. This also round smartwatch looks nice, but the number of apps and dials is somewhat limited at this wristwatch because it runs on Tizen. This operating system is almost exclusively espoused by Samsung. If that doesn’t bother you, the gear S3 is an excellent replacement for the Pebble Time Round.
Price: $299.00
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Alternative for Pebble 2: Fitbit Blaze
The Pebble 2 is a further development of the first Pebble, with a added heart rate monitor and more fitness functions. With this rectangular watch, looks are also some less important. The Pebble 2 is hard to find. The watches were just on the market, then Pebble announced to close the business and stop selling.
The Fitbit Blaze is the most comprehensive fitness tracker Fitbit has to offer. While the battery life is somewhat disappointing and does not exceed five days. However, the options and appearance are similar to those of the Pebble 2, with two main additions: GPS and an excellent heart rate monitor. In addition, the Blaze has been a while since entering the market, and now has become cheaper.
Price: $198.95
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None of these are good replacements for the Pebble. Pebble’s appeal was its simplicity and the fact that it did not try to be something other than a watch with some added functionality.
All of the current smartwatches strive to be devices that current technology is not capable of effectively emulating. What we are left with are clunky, oversized watches that are frustrating to use and provide nothing that a cell phone cannot provide 100x better.
Since we paid $150-$500+ on our new wrist gadget we fool ourselves into believing that it is useful or even needed in conjunction with a cell phone. The fact is we are in love with the idea of a smartwatch more than the usefulness of one or the comfort of wearing one.
That is what we lost with the demos of Pebble. They were low-profile, didn’t pretend to be space age ‘smart watches,’ and excelled at the few functions they did provide.
Furthermore, to recommend a Fitbit branded smart watch to an ex-Pebble user is very out of touch. I don’t know of any Pebble user that doesn’t feel betrayed by the Fitbit buyout. Pebble slapped us in the face by selling us out and Fitbit brought down the sword to decapitate the remaining crippled mess.