Pebble Steel Is a Really Stylish SmartWatch

August 19, 2014 Frugaa Blog

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Working smarter, not harder, is an age-old adage that has obsessed the world from the 19th century to the 21st century into making life simpler and easier. As a result of that obsession and drive, here we are in the ‘Smart world’ living in smart cities with our smart gadgets literally being the support system of our day-to-day life, but is that it? I mean, a year back, someone would have wondered, if there was still was scope for more smartness and probably that’s when the concept of Smart Watches came in. More mobility, ease of carrying and portability male watches a potential gadget to be ‘smartified’, enabling people to access more than just date & time information through their watches.

Smart Watch

Smart Watches function as wearable computers on your wrist, which also can sync with your smart phone and bring in full-fledged app stores, help you stay on top of email and social network updates, new, sports, games and much more. Sounds great…isn’t it, it does and that’s why within a year we have graduated to the next level of expectation from smart watches. As an inbuilt tendency, humans like flashy things, luxury and elegance as they boost up the perceived value of their possessions. Who would not want to grab a flashy, sleek, ornamental smart watch and show it off! Yes, this untouched sector of needing a more sophisticated smartwatch is being tapped by the emerging watchmaker like Pebble, with the launch of the new Pebble Steel. Pebble steel indeed is a very stylish smartwatch with luxury & technology personified. In this post we review the new matt steel bodied, $249 smartwatch – The Pebble steel.

Pebble steel as compared to the original Pebble, swops out the plastic exterior of the original unit for a Gorilla Glass display and stainless steel chassis, hence, enclosing the same brilliant technology and experience, in a very stylish and chic body. Pebble Steel has the panache that gives an edge to its manufacturer, enabling him to easily place it in an elite segment of buyers charging a premium on the style quotient of this smart watch. Let’s look at the highlights of the Pebble steel.

The matt steel exterior significantly is more fashionable than plastic that was used in original Pebble smartwatch and makes this one more sturdy and comfortable to use.  With the Steel, users can choose between a leather band or steel bracelet (both come included in the box) instead of original’s rubber strap. You see there…more choice of being more stylish. No wonder Pebble steel is being rated high in the best smart watches lists.

Pebble Steel

Pebble’s strong feature has always been the hardware’s capability to support apps, and they’ve literally nailed it with this recent upgraded version. On the functioning part of Pebble Steel, when connected to your Smartphone, notifications of all kinds successfully flip over to the watch display without any issues. Weather, messages, sports scores, and other “quick glance” information is present right on the watch face, without any deep dig difficulty. The sync, apps and notifications are easy to install in the Pebble app store. You can also add additional watch faces.

Unfortunately, in the app-store, there are things that work well like “Yelp!, Smartwatch” and few functions or platforms don’t work that well like Twitter client apps. But one has to look into the technological limitations as well when building expectations. Simply because it’s possible for a developer to do something, doesn’t mean they should. Watch is a smaller world and under no conditions would we dare to type a long tweet (with hundreds of characters) using three buttons. Hence, it’s ok to discount these flaws.

While notifications and functions are great, smart watches cannot yet replace a conventional “just-a-watch”. It does show the time, but does not compete with the craftsmanship that people value in mechanical watches. As it is said, one cannot expect to have the best of both worlds. When a traditional watch could work over years and be passed on over generations, these smart watches are extremely short-lived and cannot really sustain beyond the Phone that you have. The notifications on your watch are relevant, but only till the time they are up-to-date, refreshed and loaded moment by moment.

So, flaunt the stylish Pebble Steel and have bask in the feel good factor!