Way before there was Android Wear or the Apple Watch, there was Pebble. It was arguably one of the more successful smartwatches on the market, raising a whopping $10 million on Kickstarter with its simple e-ink design. It’s faced quite a few challenges since then, but it came fighting back last year with the Time, a revamped version of the Pebble, complete with color e-paper screen and a redesigned user interface. Still, Pebble wanted to take it further. So this year, it has. Say hello to two new Pebbles: The Pebble 2 and the Pebble Time 2. The big new addition on both? Built-in heart rate monitors.
The reasoning behind that is simple; health and fitness is the focus for Pebble this year. Activity tracking, says Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky, is the second most popular usecase of the Pebble, right next to communications. It’s why the company added more functionality to its Health app and it’s also why it just introduced the Pebble Core, a standalone connected wearable designed for runners. It’s all part of a renewed effort by Migicovsky and team to target the health market, but with a something that’s more sophisticated than a simple Fitbit. “It’s the best of the smartwatch world combined with an amazing fitness tracker,” he says.
The Pebble 2 is the more casual of the two new models. Its style is reminiscent of the original Pebble — right down to the black-and-white e-paper display — and features a similar sporty design, albeit with a softer and more flexible silicone strap. Just like before, it’s water-resistant up to 30 meters so you can swim with it if you like, and has a quick-release button so you can swap out the strap with other 22mm bands. Though it has the same 1.26-inch display as before, the surrounding bezel is noticeably thinner, resulting in a slimmer watch overall (39.5 x 30.2 x 9.8mm) . It comes in five different colors (Black, White, Aqua, Flame and Lime) and supposedly has a seven-day battery life. Also of note is that the heart rate monitor continuously tracks your heart rate — both active and resting. Migicovsky tells me it tracks your resting heart rate every 10 minutes. The heart rate monitor on the Pebble Time 2 works the same way.
View the photo gallery and read the full article at engadget
