Pebble it's still time

It arrived!!!!!!

“It” is a Pebble Technology 2 Duo, the “Duo” standing for “do over” as it is a remake of the Pebble 2 that was originally launched in 2016 but then at the end of that year Pebble closed its doors and the intellectual property of the company was sold to Fit Bit and the long wait began. I personally began to fear my trusty Pebble Time Steel that was pushing 10 years was not going to last until a viable successor came out and wrote about it last September, and low and behold Eric Migicovsky the founder of Pebble was in the same state as me: in the 10 years since the demise of Pebble he too had found no viable replacement, and in January of this year he announced the joyous news that Google had opened sourced the Pebble watch OS and he sprang into action (actually I assume he had a lot to do with convincing Google to open source it, so he was already in action behind the scenes).

On March 17th I received an email announcing that things were about to start:

And that pesky Eric made it difficult because there were options!

Ahh man I don’t use it too often, but I really like the compass and the Duo also has a barometer! But the Time 2 is color and metal! Decisions, decisions! And I ended up ordering the Time 2, and after 2 hours and 17 fretful minutes placing an order for the Duo as well!

Unboxing

Note: the attentive reader is asking why it is a white Duo and not black? I got an email a couple weeks ago indicating there were delays with the black ones, and if I wished I could change to the white. I am not a fan of white watches, but in all the pictures I have seen, the white looked better, so I went with it. That proved to be fortunate, because Eric sent an email about a week ago indicating there were problems sourcing the materials for the black ones and the remaining would have to change to a white, upgrade to the Pebble 2 with a discount, or cancel their order.

Impressions

Thoughts after first few hours:

  • Joy Joy Joy!
  • The screen is so crisp and clear
  • At first I was unsure if it was only black and white or color because when I turned it on was blue, but then realized that is the back light that makes things seem blue
  • Much lighter than Time Steel, does not feel as rugged, and I doubt it could have held out 10 years
  • I had to uninstall the previous Android Pebble app, but overall new app install and setup was super easy (was so excited did not take any pictures of this part)
  • It is more “geeky” looking than the Time Steel and wife thinks it is the ugliest thing she has ever seen
  • The buttons are stiff

Thoughts after 24 hours:

  • Love how crisp the screen is from multiple angles
  • my FrankenWatch does not work, will have to investigate
  • back light works well at night as mini flashlight

Thoughts after about a week:

(pending)

Thoughts after more than a year of use:

(pending)

Thanks for reading and feel free to give feedback or comments via email (andrew@jupiterstation.net).