I’ve always hated wearing a watch. From the time I was a teenager, until well into my first marriage, I carried a pocket watch. Then pagers and then cell phones came out so I stopped carrying a watch altogether.
A year ago, Christina asked me to test the Pebble 2. Obviously, I made a series of disgusted faces, shuddering and sticking my tongue out.
She laughed. “Please try it and let me know what you think?”
“I will hate it.” I insisted.
“It will tell you who’s calling.”
“My iPhone does that.” I replied.
“You can read texts on it.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Please?”
“I… but… oh fine, give it to me. But I’m going to hate it!”
A week later, I was hooked. And I am here today to tell you that if you are looking for a gift for someone with a cell phone, get him a Pebble Watch. Even if he hates watches.
“Can I keep the Pebble 2?” I asked a few weeks later? (I couldn’t. Heartlessly, she took it away and returned it. I am not proud to admit that I whined.)
So this year, when she asked if I would try the Pebble 2 + Heart Rate, I was ready. I jumped at the chance, even though I knew she was eventually going to break my heart, take it away, and send it back.
I am in really deep now.
The Pebble 2 + Heart Rate has all the features I loved from the Pebble 2 plus a whole lot more. I wore it in the wood shop and it was handy to see who was calling by glancing at my wrist while I kept on working. I love reading texts on my wrist for the same reason. I am completely geeking out on Pebble apps and custom watch faces. I flip between daytime watch faces, evening watch faces, and date-night watch faces. I even have watch faces that don’t look like watches at all. They display tide tables, sunrise/sunset times, and the weather. My favorite is the IRIS 24, which displays my steps as radial lines that resemble an eye’s iris, with the time laid out on a 24-hour dial and the moon’s phase in the corner. I like Pebble’s morning alarms that monitor my sleep pattern and wake me up when I am closest to being awake. I have a Pandora app to control music from my wrist. And I use the Timer+ app for timing things instead of pulling out my phone.
There are remote controls, I can turn the lights on and off. You can link to Automatic so your Pebble remembers where you parked your car. The heart rate monitor tells me when I should speed up my walk on flat ground or slow down a bit on the hills. It works with my iPhone or Android phones. And the Pebble 2 + Heart Rate is waterproof to 30 meters (100ft), which means I can reply to texts in the shower. This is some serious spy tech. But the most amazing feature is the battery life. It lasts for a whole week on a single charge!
I have a plan for when Christina wants to send this back: I’m going to buy one.