By now most people have heard about the Pebble Time watches. A few years ago they hit it relatively big when they launched the campaign announcing their watch on Kickstarter and racked up millions of dollars for their project. Since then the company has reportedly sold over a million watches. Many would call this company a competitor to the Apple watch and other smart watches but in a previous article I wrote I described how I thought that the Pebble Time is the feature phone of 2015.
Since then I have been wondering exactly what the Pebble watch would need to be in order to be an actual competitor to the Apple watch. Obviously they would have to bring something new to what a watch is. They would have to work on their advantages the main one which is that the watch, the original at least, lasts about a week whereas the Apple watch lasts a day or two max.
This is why I am opposed to their new product that they have announced which I think takes a step backwards in terms of features instead of pushing for their advantages. By limiting their battery life they are in effect taking away the only advantage they had.
On the other hand there is the Wove band. It has been reported on in different locations. The Wove band as it is called has an always-on flexible e-ink wrap-around screen. The e-ink screen allows the screen to be always on.
At this point you might be thinking “so what, it’s just a bigger Pebble Time watch with a touch screen”. Here you would be wrong. This is exactly what the Pebble Time should have been but isn’t. The fact that it is flexible and always on makes it multiple times better than the apple watch. Not only is the screen space much larger, not only is it a touch screen but it keeps the advantage of always being on. The use cases are nearly limitless. The biggest advantage of this form factor is that the width of the device could possibly be increased in future models to create futuristic devices that constantly monitor your vitals and display them on your wrist or that act as control panels for everything (spelt IoT) around you.
Yes, the future does look bright. However it will be made of ground-breaking devices like the Wove and not from devices like the Pebble which limit themselves to current thinking of what a watch should look like. In other words I can’t wait till the Wove comes out next year.
