The original Pebble came out in 2012 and revolutionized the wearable scene. In one fell swoop, Pebble essentially made smartwatches mainstream, finding much more success than the efforts at the time from the likes of Sony and Samsung. The evolution of this family eventually led to the metal-clad Pebble Steel, along with the color-screened Pebble Time and its own Steel version, as well as a round one. Now, Pebble is bringing out the long-awaited Pebble 2, along with a more pared-down variant called the Pebble 2 SE. The Pebble 2 continues in the footsteps of its predecessor, boasting an e-ink screen for long battery life, and a number of advancements that make it a worthy upgrade from the original Pebble.
For starters, the Pebble 2 features seamless integration with the Pebble Health app, allowing users to monitor things like their heart rate, steps, sleep patterns, and calories burned right from the watch. The app and watch can also sync easily with other solutions such as Google Fit or Apple HealthKit. Since the Pebble 2 lasts up to seven days on a charge, users can take advantage of full-night sleep monitoring, and the watch can even tell when a user is in deep sleep. The Pebble 2 can send off a vibrating alarm to wake a user at a given time, or when the user is out of deep sleep, making it easier to hop out of bed and get on with your day. Pebble Health will feed you periodic at-a-glance summaries of your health and sleep information, making it easier to keep track and make changes as needed.
The Pebble 2 retains and builds on a lot of features that made its forefathers great, such as the ability to choose which notifications end up on your watch, and deal with them directly. Users can use their voice to respond to a number of different alerts on the Pebble 2, or use predefined responses. The Pebble Timeline gives you your calendar, events and weather, making planning a snap. Finally, the whole package is water resistant and rugged. The Pebble 2 costs $129, while the Pebble 2 SE, which is essentially the original Pebble with new software and the Pebble 2’s health features, will only cost $99. The Pebble 2 is available for pre-order on Pebble’s site now, and the Pebble 2 SE will be available in November.
