Pebble is feeling the pressures of the smartwatch market

Oct 1, 2014 07:07 GMT  ·  By

Before Samsung, LG, Motorola, ASUS and Apple, there was Pebble. The company can be considered one of the first players to make an entry in the smartwatch business.

Pebble marked one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns, raising $10 / €8 million from 85,000 backers in 2013. But since then a lot has happened in the smartwatch world and things are starting to get crowded.

Most recently, Apple introduced its highly anticipated Watch, which was designed by a team of top engineers lead by Cupertino’s design guru, Jony Ive, so pressure is on for Pebble to try and keep its customers interested.

Pebble makes a little fun of Apple

And in its most recent attempt to do so, Pebble is poking a little fun at Apple too. Hey, everybody is doing it so why not Pebble too? On their website, they have posted a picture of a watch with a writing above that says “Breathe, Jony. It’s just a watch. Chill.”

In a recent interview, Jony Ive admitted the Apple Watch was one of the most complicated projects that he ever worked on in his entire career so Pebble is probably hinting at that confession.

Anyway, apart the harmless fun, Pebble is also lowering the price of its offerings with $50 / €39. Not only that, the company is also throwing in a bunch of new features in an attempt to sweeten the deal as much as humanly possible.

So starting now, you can grab an entry-level Pebble smartwatch for $99 / €78, while the Pebble Steel can be yours for $199 / €158.

That makes both watches a lot cheaper than the Apple Watch which is expected to retail for a chunky $350 / €277 and puts the Steel model on par with some Android Wear models (like the Samsung Gear Live).

Pebble has gotten cheaper and better

Moving on, Pebble is also pushing out a software update which will bestow on the watches the capability to track your activity cycle and monitor sleep constantly in the background, while another app is running in the foreground.

This new feature will impact battery life a little bit, but given the fact that Pebble can go as far as a week without popping in for a recharge, you’re not likely to be affected that much.

Pebble 2.6 firmware also adds a new Quick Launch feat that puts shortcuts of the apps you use the most on your watchface. To access them users will have to long press up or down, which will save them the trouble of having to access menus.

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Pebble makes fun of Apple too
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