Review After Using 7 Years | This Smartwatch Is Old But Gold
Hello, geek zone community. Of course, you are already familiar with one of these wearable devices, namely the smartwatch. In this day and age, smartwatches have become one of the devices that can support our daily lives. One of its features, namely SpO2, has become very popular lately because it can measure the oxygen capacity in the blood just from a watch.
Did you know this smartwatch device has been around for a long time, even though its popularity is not as famous now? In the 90s to 2000s, several leading brands had started to make their first smartwatches, including Seiko, and Fossil, until Microsoft also made a smartwatch, which was named Microsoft SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology). There was still not much information we could use as it is now because of some of the limitations that existed at that time.
In 2012, Sony released their first smartwatch, known as the Sony Smartwatch. This smartwatch already uses an OLED screen like a smartwatch as we see it today. However, smartwatches still have many shortcomings, one of which is that they do not use a stand-alone operating system and the interface transition is not smooth.
And in 2013, this, in my opinion, was the turning point of all the smartwatches that exist today. Pebble was one of the most successful smartwatch makers at the time, starting it all from a campaign on a platform called Kickstarter. Their first smartwatch was the Pebble Classic. Why was the Pebble Classic so successful back then? In my personal opinion, the design of this watch is solid. Even though the material is made of plastic, the Pebble Classic at that time was already waterproof. The screen is also attractive because it's only black and white. If I remember correctly, the screen uses an e-paper display, which makes it last for days with only one charge. Of course, this is an advantage at that time. In addition, the support from many developers also made Pebble's success even more peaked. In addition, the benefits are real-time notifications and can even be a remote shutter for smartphone cameras. Unfortunately, I no longer have this device because I sold it to a friend to buy the next generation pebble.
After they were successful with their first smartwatch, finally, in 2014, they released the next smartwatch. Namely Pebble Steel (this watch still uses an e-paper display but is wrapped in steel)
And in 2015, Pebble changed quite a bit. This time they brought a relatively new design. Although still a boxy design but the edges of the watch are not as sharp as the previous generation. The names are Pebble Time & Pebble Time Steel. So what makes it different from the previous generation? Pebble brought many changes this time, starting from using a colored e-paper screen, battery life, and having a microphone to reply to messages with voice text. Of course, Pebble battery life can last almost one week with just a one-time charge.
And here are some photos from Pebble Time Steel.
As you can see in the picture, all parts of this smartwatch are steel. Even on the selling package, the strap also uses steel material, and it's just that now the strap with the steel material can no longer be used because the locking part is broken. So I used a genuine leather strap.
In the picture, you can also see that you can take this smartwatch to swim to a depth of 30 meters. Even with some smartwatches now, I hesitate to take them swimming unless the smartwatch is intended for sports enthusiasts, such as smartwatches from Suunto or Garmin, because they are focused on making smartwatches that are aimed at sports fans.
In addition, on the side, several buttons are helpful for navigation because this smartwatch still doesn't use a touch screen, so it still uses buttons in its operation. At the bottom of the button, you can see a kind of dot. That dot is the microphone's location that can be used to reply to text messages with voice commands.
These are some of the interfaces of the menus on this smartwatch. You can see clearly that the menu display is straightforward, making it very easy for users and comfortable when use it. You can also pause the next or previous song while listening to the music. Unfortunately, there is no notification that I can show because there was no incoming notification when I took these photos. But you can reply to some notifications that come in using smileys or message templates, and of course, you can customize the message template as you wish. For example, I'm driving, and I'll contact you later. In the message section, you can see "voice" writing, which means you can reply to messages using voice commands but only supports voice commands in English.
And this is a display of some of the other functions that the Pebble Time Steel can perform, although it is not as sophisticated as today's smartwatches which have a heart rate sensor, SpO2 sensor, GPS, and others. I think this feature was good enough at the time. Namely, it measures the number of steps and analyzes sleep time based on the motion of our hands. Compared with today's times, of course, the number of steps and analyzing the sleep time is wildly inaccurate. Even though we are still, sometimes the number of steps also increases. But I think this feature is quite interesting at the time. For the record, I never take this watch to bed, as it is too heavy.
And this is the view of the calendar synchronized with the smartphone. Can display a to-do list that we will do as well.
The picture above is when I used this watch. Yes, I still use it often, even though I have other smartwatches. But this is my favorite smartwatch. The design makes others glance because it looks different from other smartwatches. Of course, the age of this watch is quite old, almost about seven years, and it is still alive. It's just that I'm having a hard time finding a seller who sells the charger cable, so I hope the charger cable that I have now and this smartwatch won't be damaged. Therefore, I occasionally use it for charging and some casual events. My dream is to pass this watch to my children later, that this is one of the forerunners of smartwatches.
After releasing the Pebble Time Steel variant, they also released several next generations, such as Pebble Time Round and Pebble 2 + Heart Rate. However, Pebble has to be quite honest about its previous success. Even though they released two new variants, they could not cover the company's losses. Finally, Fitbit, a sports-focused smartwatch company, acquired Pebble. If you've seen the Fitbit Versa and Fitbit Sense, the two smartwatches have a design that's almost similar to the Pebble Time.