New Pebble Steel

It’s All Geek to Me Dept.

It’s been a long time since I did one of these types of posts, but as I am a gadget junkie yesterday’s Pebble watch news was of interest.

The good news? Pebble introduced a new design, called the Pebble Steel. It’s made of… wait for it… stainless steel (regular or black matte). It also has slightly different button spacing and profile, a reconfigured charging port, is waterproof to 5 atms, significantly less border space around the face, and comes with both a matching steel band and a leather band.

The bad news? It’s $250.

I get a lot of comments on my original Kickstarter Pebble. People recognize it as “that one watch thing”, and ask me how I like it. I like it for what it is. It’s a watch that will tell me I’ve got a call, text, calendar event or notification without my having to make sure my pants aren’t buzzing. I can read the texts on my watch, see who’s calling, find out what that upcoming meeting is all about when the reminder alert happens, and in general keep my phone in my pocket in situations where it’s not appropriate to take it out. I also never miss calls or texts this way… my buzzing pants don’t always buzz enough to let me know my phone needs attention. That’s some pretty convenient stuff for a watch to do. Oh, it also tells me what time it is.

Beyond that, it doesn’t do much. It needs the phone nearby to work at all. I can’t interact with the phone except to decide to answer or reject a call. It’s not really a “smart” watch. It’s more like the Lenny to the iPhone’s George, it’s useful in that it does what it’s told to do (mostly) as long as it’s tasks are not too hard, but it’s not too bright on its own. It is what it is, and I find it useful.

The new Pebble Steel does all that as well, and nothing additionally except look a lot better on your wrist. The original Pebble is an ugly plastic lump, but it also didn’t cost me $250.

I like the look of the new Pebble Steel. I don’t like it $250 worth, but I do like it. I do wish my original Pebble was a Pebble Steel, but not enough to buy a new one.