Thinnest Smartwatch - Introducing Pebble Time Round
The new Pebble Time Round is the company's first round smartwatch and it will be up for grabs starting on November 8th. The price tag announced for this beautiful timepiece will be around $249 and that's a relatively small sum to pay for this classy looking smartwatch, which is said to be the lightest and the thinnest in the world.
Pebble is a well known player in the smartwatch industry, as they arguably started the wearable/smartwatch trend back in 2012, courtesy of a KickStarter campaign which raised 10 million bucks from their fan-base. Just think about their latest successes, i.e. the Pebble Time and the Pebble Time Steel; indeed, they made some waves on the wearable market (over 95,000 units sold and counting) and with this latest gizmo, I think the future looks bright for Pebble.
Looking at the pictures, I find the new Pebble Time Round smartwatch to be an elegant timepiece with a timeless design, and despite its downsides when compared to its square siblings, it still convinces. I bet that fashion-conscious wearable-aficionados will appreciate the efforts from the company to make this smartwatch to look just like a regular/mechanical timepiece. Compared to its predecessors, i.e. the Pebble Time and Time Steel), there are a couple of differences.
Pebble Time Round vs Square
The truth is that Pebble chose beauty over performance when they designed this baby, hence the Time Round has only 2 days of autonomy (battery life) and it's not as tough as its cousins when it comes to water resistance and things of that sort. But, if you're looking for a smartwatch that's thin and light and, most importantly, it actually looks like a real timepiece, this is what you were looking for. Basically, this Pebble is that kind of smartwatch even your wife or your girlfriend would wear without protesting, because it looks...how should I put it...like the real deal, a real watch, not like something from a geek movie.
Actually, according to Eric Migicovsky, Pebble's founder and CEO, the Time Round was designed especially for people with small wrists. And yes, persons with small wrists are generally speaking...women. As I already told you, the sexy and slim design of the smartwatch sacrifices battery life, but Pebble offers a quick-charge feature, to even things out. Hence, just 15 minutes of charging will offer you 24 hours of autonomy, and that's pretty cool in my book.
Proud to announce
@Pebble
Time Round. Our thinnest, lightest and roundest smartwatch ever!
http://t.co/HhNxTEhUW3
pic.twitter.com/8ZaGP0kIwZ
— Eric Migicovsky (
@ericmigi
) September 23, 2015
The Pebble Time Round weighs a mere 28 grams (that's half the weight of an Apple Watch), has an ultra-thin chassis (just 7.5 mm thick), a 38.5 mm face and relatively narrow straps (14mm for women/20mm for men, available in leather or stainless steel).
The case is made from stainless steel and it's available in three finishes: black, silver and rose gold; if you're already accustomed with Pebble's smartwatches, wearing the Time Round will feel hugely familiar. Naturally, the Pebble Time Round uses the same uber-light OS and the Timeline User Interface, along with the color e-paper screen. Just like the previous versions , the new Pebble comes with a built in microphone for voice-commands, for when used with a droid (the voice-command feature will be soon compatible with iOS also) and it's splash resistant (not water resistant).
Pebble Time Round: Release Date
You can pre-order the Pebble Time Round online, from Pebble's own website or from Target, BestBuy and Amazon. Otherwise, you can wait until November the 8'th when the smartwatch will be generally available at various online and offline retailers.