Pebble has taken the lid off its mystery countdown; as we suspected, it’s a new Kickstarter campaign. This time the company is looking to fund several new devices at the same time. These would be updated versions of the Pebble and Pebble Time. Both of which bear the mundane names of Pebble 2 and Time 2. However, Pebble – the company – is also kickstarting the Pebble Core (that happens to also come in two flavours).
The Pebble 2 and Time 2 are basically the same smartwatch as the devices they are replacing. However, will be fitted with additional water-resistance up to 30 metres and receive built-in activity and health trackers. This isn’t entire surprising as Pebble has been pushing for health trackers since the Pebble Time.
What is new to the devices, however, is a microphone for voice commands. It doesn’t look like this feature will do much at launch, as the campaign page only lists replying to messages with voice. Despite this, we expect Pebble app developers to figure out how to get the most of having a microphone on the smartwatch.
Notably, the Pebble 2 and Time 2 are both still separated by having different e-ink displays. The Pebble 2 retains the same black and white display as the original Pebble, while the colour display on the Time has been enlarged by 53-percent. Both run on a new version Pebble’s Timeline interface that was introduced with the Pebble Time.
The real surprise package in the campaign is the Pebble Core, an activity tracker that is neither a smartwatch nor a smartband. The tiny device is designed to clip onto clothing for easy transportation, and will function without a smartphone nearby. Still, it will share data and supports fitness apps like Runkeeper, Strava, Under Armour Record, MapMyRun, and Google Fit.
More importantly, the Pebble Core is 3G capable and is designed to be able to stream music from Spotify on its own. The Core is also fitted with 4GB of internal storage, for offline playlists as well.
The Pebble Core for Hackers is the more extreme version of the health tracker. Instead of only doing one thing, Pebble is designing the Core for Hackers to be modular and adaptable for whatever the owner wants. As the company puts it “stripped down to its essence, Core is a tiny, unlocked Android 5.0 computer.”
Pebble has not released the technical specifications of the Core for Hackers, but as far as we can tell it is similar to the regular Pebble Core. The only exception seems to be what the device is intended to do – and the addition of a keychain.
All four devices appear to also have some sort of wireless charging capability, although the standard has not been revealed. Pebble is asking the Kickstarter community for $1 million (about RM 4 million) to fund the development and manufacture of these new devices. It should be noted that the campaign already hit its goal in about an hour.
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