The Advantages of a Slightly Dumber Smartwatch

This Fall, I was pressing the button on my FitBit HR to turn off one of the alarms when the casing popped off and the button itself fell in my lap. It was well into the second year of service, so it wasn’t going to be a warranty replacement. This sent me down the rabbit hole of researching 1) other fitness trackers and 2) smartwatches in general.

After many months of FitBit, I at least knew the functions I had to have. Interestingly enough, the core function of the FitBit - activity tracking - was second on my list and the heart rate tracking didn’t make the cut. The most useful function for me by far was the silent alarms, as the birth of my daughter in January once again put quiet morning exits at a premium. The third function I somewhat liked was the caller ID on my wrist.

With this admittedly easy to fulfill list, I began looking at new features that I might be interested in. This included things like emailing from the watch, GPS, advanced activity tracking and so on. The other big thing was battery life. I understand the allure of an Apple Watch, but I am not going to plug a watch in every night as my priority function is the silent alarm - which kinda requires the device to be on my wrist overnight.

After ready too many reviews to count, I decided to go with the Pebble Time Smartwatch. It met my criteria with several days of battery on a charge, basic step counting and silent alarms with a bonus helping of alerts (text & email previews, sports scores, etc) to my wrist. The e-paper face doesn’t burn the battery as much as the more expensive watches, but I was pleasantly surprised at how slick some of the picture based faces can look. Although I am not someone you should listen to for any kind of fashion advice, I do think the Pebble looks pretty slick.

More importantly, I again found a function that I didn’t originally look for becoming indispensable to me. The music app allows you to skip songs from your wrist and I use it all the time. In fact, the alerts, the music app and an accurate weather report on the watchface mean that I rarely take my iPhone out of my pocket anymore.

So the choice of a slightly dumber smartwatch has worked for me. That, and the price point of $125 was less than it was going to cost me to replace the FitBit anyhow. It is also sturdier than I expected. So far it has handled the dings and dents that come with playing with the kids and generally being clumsy. In short, I think the Pebble is probably the way to go if you want some basic smartwatch and activity tracker functions on a budget. All in all, a good purchase.

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Update
Dammit. Well, FitBit just bought up the parts of Pebble worth anything and have generously agreed not to brick the devices for at least a year. Apparently I jinxed the whole thing by picking up a Pebble. Still love the watch, but now it is on a slow countdown to non-functionality...