- It's not like the Pebble 2 was gonna be
the best wearable of 2016,
but I might have called it the most
underrated smart watch of the year.
And now that the whole family has gone down the tubes
in one of the saddest buy-outs of the year,
it's time of the look back at the one of the biggest success
stories and now one of the biggest implosions in wearables.
I'm Michael Fisher.
- And it's Joshua Vergara from Android Authority.
What's going on everybody?
- And this is a special edition look at the last of
the Pebbles from Mr. Mobile
- [Joshua] And Android Authority.
(light music)
- [Michael] Before Josh and I get into the retrospective,
a few thoughts on the Pebble 2.
In short, it's way better than I expected.
Much smaller and thinner than the clunky original,
with trim options to let your gaudy
inner-geek shine through,
and even a little Oreo color scheme to gussy up the
otherwise pedestrian rubber wrist band.
This year also brings us new water-proofing,
deliciously tactile buttons,
and a revised vibration motor that makes notifications
much more pleasant and also means that you can
wake up to the tap-tap of revelry.
(vibration)
(laughing)
Also included, a power cable whose magnets
finally firmly hold it in place,
not that you need to charge more than once a week
thanks to the excellent battery life.
And most welcome, responsive and simple software that
deafly walks the line between geek chic and too cute.
I love this watch.
But go ahead and through everything I just said
into past tense because Fitbit is buying Pebble
for just enough money to cover its debts.
And it's no merger of equals.
While Fitbits will likely get smarter software
in the coming years, the world will almost
certainly never see another Pebble.
- And that's kind of sad, because Pebble is one of those
products that you actually wanted to see succeed.
A lot can be said about the company itself
and how everything was handled,
but for a product like this smart watch,
it thought differently from the other ones
and it was still incredibly effective.
I am very vocal, especially recently about the fact that
tactile input should be a hallmark of our smart watches,
mostly because touchscreens, while they work really well
on smart phones, don't necessarily translate
perfectly to our wrists.
Swipes and taps on Android wear tend to have a small margin
of error and you could get into some trouble there.
Meanwhile, the buttons on the Pebble in particular
were always so reliable
and got you exactly where you needed to go.
Not to mention the community that Pebble
garnered over its tenure.
So many loyal developers came to Pebble because they felt
like a group separate from those who flocked to the
giant companies and their existing fan basis.
Pebble stood alone and it supported users and developers
with a fervor that was palpable in the Pebble App Store
and in the subreddit.
And it wasn't as if Pebble was a walled garden either.
It even leveraged the open nature of Android wear
and used its backend to provide voice and
canned actions used in notifications.
And all of this fun was set to continue with an
all new piece of Pebble tech called the Core,
the Pebble Time 2 and this, the Pebble 2.
- [Michael] That's not to say that those products were
guaranteed to be great.
And even the Pebble 2 wasn't flawless.
It's display lacked color,
the heart rate sensor was as mediocre as most watches,
and the anemic feature set was always getting
criticized in the comments.
But that restraint is what I loved about Pebble.
It did a few core things really, really well,
and left the phone calling
and wrist-bound web features to other companies.
With Pebble, you got straight-forward third-party apps,
fun watch faces and rock-solid notifications
for way the hell cheaper than the big guns.
(light music)
- So Pebble is no more and we're just gonna
have to deal with that, at least eventually.
Fitbit has said that existing Pebble devices
are going to work through 2017,
and I plan on plan on wearing this
proudly throughout the year.
But especially after 2017,
where does that leave us with other smart watches.
Well, there are a lot of choices out there,
but I do find myself, because I was a Pebble fan,
looking for alternatives that have out of the box thinking,
especially when it comes to navigation.
Fully touch screen watches aside,
there is a main player I actually really enjoy.
The Samsung Gear S2 and S3.
Its rotating clicky bezel is one of the most unique and
still funnest ways of getting around a smart watch today.
Its third-party app support is a bit
anemic compared to Android wear,
but there's plenty more that you can do with it,
even take calls.
The problem? Price.
At $349 it is not a direct alternative to Pebble,
but instead a highly premium option.
More cost effective choices could come from
lesser-known companies and one that we are
currently testing is the Tic Watch 2.
It isn't heavy on physical controls,
but it does bring a different form of navigation.
There's a touch-sensitive panel on the side that users
can tickle in order to scroll up and down on the interface.
And it is powered by a full version of Android.
Our full review of the Tic Watch 2 is coming soon
but check that price -- $179 for a display-forward
smart watch that packs all the features you'd expect.
- [Michael] Now while that Tic Watch 2 looks awesome,
I haven't played with it yet.
So I'm gonna fall back on an old standby.
Vector first caught my eye over a year ago.
And it interested me mainly because it was
one of the only smartwatches to work with Windows phone.
When I learned that Vector Watch's battery life
was rated in weeks rather than days,
and that they came in such attractive trims,
I resolved to follow up with a review.
But with Pebble in the picture,
it was always an afterthought.
After a week with the Vector Luna,
I'll say that it hits a lot of high notes.
The always on display is familiar,
the build is better than any Pebble since the Steel,
and the battery life is outrageous.
Vector promises 30 days and my colleagues at Windows Central
actually got more than that.
Now, it is on the pricey side.
It's capabilities basically boil down to
notifications and minor health tracking.
But it executes on those fundamentals
pretty well just like Pebble did.
The only thing that's giving me pause is
the fact that one of the band loops broke
on my retail device after the first day
and the cover glass over the display
is really easy to smudge and really hard to clean.
The former I'm willing to write off as a one time flaw,
and the latter I'm willing to live with provided the
price eventually comes down, which it always does.
It's not a 100% Pebble replacement.
I don't love it in other words.
But until we get whatever we're gonna get
from the new and improved Fitbit,
the Vector Luna is the best I've found thus far.
So Josh and I are about to hit CES 2017,
where if past shows are any indication,
we're probably gonna spend a tone of time together.
So whether we compare our Pebble alternatives wrist to wrist
or just morn the passing of another tech great
over over-priced Vegas cocktails,
you're gonna want to follow along.
You can find Josh at JVTechTea on his personal channels,
Android Authority on his official ones,
and you already know where to find me.
So until next time, thanks to Joshua Vergara for joining me,
thanks to Android Authority for the support
and thanks to you for watching.
Happy New Year and stay mobile my friends.