---

layout: post
title:  "Pebble Time - Awesome Smartwatch, Many Compromises"
date:   June 24, 2015
author:
  display_name: 'sipp11'
categories: Kickstarter review
kickstarter:
  url: http://kck.st/1BluaTQ
  widget: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-time-awesome-smartwatch-no-compromises/widget/card.html?v=2
tags: 

imgfolder: http://media.mycapsules.com/2015/06-pebbletime
image_set:
  - name: set1
    images:
      - id: 1
        path: unbox-1.jpg
        thumb: unbox-1-sm.jpg
        title: Unboxing #1
      - id: 2
        path: unbox-2.jpg
        thumb: unbox-2-sm.jpg
        title: Unboxing #2 -- nice looking zip there
      - id: 3
        path: unbox-3.jpg
        thumb: unbox-3-sm.jpg
        title: Unboxing #3
      - id: 4
        path: unbox-4.jpg
        thumb: unbox-4-sm.jpg
        title: Unboxing #4
      - id: 5
        path: unbox-5.jpg
        thumb: unbox-5-sm.jpg
        title: Unboxing #5
      - id: 6
        path: unbox-6.jpg
        thumb: unbox-6-sm.jpg
        title: Unboxing #6 -- look forward to seeing `smartstraps`
      - id: 7
        path: unbox-7.jpg
        thumb: unbox-7-sm.jpg
        title: Unboxing #7
      - id: 8
        path: unbox-8.jpg
        thumb: unbox-8-sm.jpg
        title: Unboxing #8
  - name: set2
    images:
      - id: 1
        path: pebblescreen-1.jpg
        thumb: pebblescreen-1-sm.jpg
        title: Pebble w/o backlit (perfect angle -- external light reflector only)
      - id: 2
        path: pebblescreen-2.jpg
        thumb: pebblescreen-2-sm.jpg
        title: Pebble w/backlit (High pre-v3.2 firmware)
---

Pebble Time Arrived. Everyone I knew liked or loved it. Pebble team had done a fantastic job upgrading the original Pebble to this one. I honestly didn't like the original one at all, but this one? I had many reasons to love it, yet a lot of compromises came with it.

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I didn't have time much to write in-depth, but I would try to update as much as possible. At least, you should have seen it in the pictures first.

{% include lightbox_itemset.html set="set1" %}

Pebble screen wasn't particularly outstanding; very low contrast; but it somehow looked much sharper than the original one which was black and white and oddly had the same exact resolution. Pebble screen was one of the unique screens since its backlight didn't make any better--made screen look washed out. It's considerably good on its own, very readable in direct sunlight; however, if you were looking at Pebble ads on Facebook or anywhere and you thought for a second that screen would be that vivid, you would be disappointed. Take a look below and you would understand what I meant. In my opinion, the screen was already good enough. If I could change, I would love to have a bit more saturation. Anyway, it wasn't anything close to dealbreaker at all.

{% include lightbox_itemset.html set="set2" %}

### Battery life

For the first time, Pebble Time lasted about 4 days. ~60% from Pebble advertised, Recharging from 10% to full took less than an hour. 4-active-day out of 60-minute charge was nice.

Damn it. It only got worse over time. Maybe I used it too much? had too many notifications?

    2015-06-23 1:37PM 20% battery (4-day)
    2015-06-23 1:39PM started charging

    2015-06-26 8:14PM 20% battery (3-day 6-hour)
    2015-06-26 9:52PM Full charged

    2015-06-30 1:00AM 30% battery (3-day 4-hour)
    2015-06-30 5:00AM Full charged

I contacted Pebble support since I saw they said that if user experienced 4-day or shorter battery life, that pebble might not function properly. Well, I contacted them, all they suggested was to uninstall all watchfaces & apps to gain better battery life. Also, turning off motion sensor might help. Seriously? so I should buy a not-so-smart watch which had a better watchface and lasted forever, shouldn't I?

I mean their support were next to none at this point. Basically they were clueless or not telling what really caused the issue or they couldn't swallow their false 7-day battery life brag and tell people the truth. I mean 3-day battery life was decent enough already. Why giving a false advertisement?

Up to this point, I was happy that I decided not to get Pebble Time Steel which I was sure of that it lasted longer than regular Pebble Time, but I doubted it ever hit 7-day battery.

### Update firmware v3.2

This brought you a nice settings as far as screen and vibrator were concerned.

Then, I was annoyed at how hard Pebble __vibrated__. It vibrated too strong, enough to make a beeee noise for anyone sit next to you to notice. That fortunately had changed since v3.2. There were 4 options so far: disabled, low, medium, and high. I liked _low_ very much since it didn't make a sound at all, but if I was outside, I missed notifications 95% of the time. Thus I regularly set to _medium_ which didn't vibrate strong enough for anyone else, but me, to notice.

__Screen brightness__ which made Pebble sucked (color washed out) was improving too. There were 4 intensity options: low, medium, high, and blinding. IMO, I always chose _low_ since too much of backlit intensity did wash out all the color. Also, there was a newly introduced option, __Ambient Sensor__, which let Pebble backlit off all the time when you were outside, but let it turned on if you were inside the building. It was a good try to maximize battery life.

These two new options should give my Pebble Time a better battery life, right? I would update if there was any differences. So far, I didn't see any noticable change though.

## Awesome:

  * butterly smooth animated transitions
  * Battery life (You will never need to worry about that basically; it's not going to die during the day.)

## Not so good

  * Not all unicode characters are created equal still
  * Cannot count step in background
  * bugs on stock Music app with iPhone 6 plus (other models I couldn't confirm)
  * Battery life (as far as their advertisement is concerned)