Pebble was the first modern era smartwatch that was easily available to consumers, if you count backing the project through Kickstarter as easy that is. Overnight Pebble announced that they have headed back to Kickstarter for a 3rd time, this time with 3 new products, the Pebble 2, Pebble Time 2 and the all new Pebble Core.
Pebble 2
Pebbles first refresh to their original Pebble. Starting at $99 USD it sports high contrast black and white e-paper display, heart rate monitoring, microphone, water resistance to 30 meters and boasts up to 7 days life of one charge, it will be shipping in September this year. It will be available in Black, White, Aqua, Lime and Flame.
Pebble Time 2
The more premium refresh in Pebble’s line up, the Pebble Time 2 starts at $169 USD and comes with a Larger colour e-paper display, heart rate monitoring, microphone, water resistance up to 30m meters and boasts up to 10 days life of one charge, it will be shipping in September this year. It will be available in Black, Gold and Silver finishes made from ‘marine’ grade stainless steel.
Both of the new watches will be running Pebbles latest version of their smartwatch OS ‘Timeline’.
Pebble Core
The Pebble Core is a connected GPS activity tracker with Spotify (and only Spotify from the looks of it) streaming capabilities built in. Starting at $69 USD it can connect over 3g/ Bluetooth and WiFi and can connect to your Pebble watch for real-time activity tracking. It also features an emergency SOS locator and can sync all of your fitness data back to most popular fitness tracking services, and if it doesn’t connect to yours chances are yours integrates with one of these service, such as Google Fit.
That’s only half the storey of the Core however, Pebble is promoting a “Hacker” edition (same unit) that can access a Hardware expansion port, get access to (yet another) software development kit and can use the 2 programmable buttons on the unit.
Pebble is inviting developers/ hackers to grab a Pebble Core and see what they can achieve with it. From a hardware perspective it has, 4GB of storage, 9 hours of continuous location and OFFLINE music playback, charging via USB or an optional wireless accessory and either wired or Bluetooth headphone support. It will be interesting to see what battery life will be when you are using 3G music streaming.
It’s good to see Pebble continue to offer differentiation in the Smartwatch and now connected things market. True innovation is spurred on by competition and by having Pebble continue to drive the smart things areas forward we can look forward to more Connected wearables and things from others in the future.
As is the way with Kickstarter you will find several support options with various combinations of their latest offerings. Check it out for yourself.
How does Pebbles line up look to you? Are you ordering one or more? Let us know in the comments.
Pledged the Core and Time 2! My original Kickstarter Pebble is still going and has outlived my Moto 360. So happy to give them more money! (Sadly the 360 has expanded it’s battery and cracked the back and Motorola support are no help at all!
Isn’t pebble time 2 shipping in November as opposed to September
i see they’ve kept up the trend of not giving us useful details like how big they are