Back in the late 1970's and 80's there was a fad that only the nerds and geeks adopted. The calculator watch. You weren't a true geek unless you had a calculator watch. But the rest of the public was dumbfounded. Why on Earth, would you need to carry a calculator with you everywhere? But it didn't just do math equations, the pricier models had an address book and calender built in. In a sense, this was a wearable PDA. I would have asked for one if my math teacher didn't make the students take them off before class started. Who knows, maybe I would have gotten a decent math grade. Unfortunately, the calculator watch was never accepted outside of the nerd culture, so it was banished to the far back corner of the display cabinet. The best advances in the watch world that have been made since then are batteries that last longer, more accurate mechanisms, and scratch resistant glass. The average wristwatch of today does exactly the same as a timepiece from the 1880's. It tells the time.
But time has changed. There are new contenders in the time-keeping arena.
Enter contestant number one... Pebble. Pebble was a Kickstarter project that shattered records. The creators were looking for $100,000 within 40 days to produce the Pebble watch. Within 28 hours, they had amassed $1 million. As I write this, the Pebble team has been pledged $9,994,143 and there's still 9 days remaining. They will surpass $10 million by the time this post is live. Oh wait, it already did.
Pebble is a new breed of watch because it will pair with your smartphone (Android or iOS) via Bluetooth. The watch will, of course, display the time, but it will also alert you of an incoming call by vibrating and providing a caller ID, as well as display text messages and email. You can also use it to control the music apps on your phone, among many other things. The Pebble team will also make available an open SDK so that you can make your own apps to run on the watch. It uses an e-ink display so it's readable in direct sunlight and uses minimal power. E-ink is what is used on the Amazon Kindle (but not the Kindle Fire), so you know it's a decent display. But it's not a touchscreen. In a world of touchscreen smartphones, touchscreen tablets, and touchscreen computers... I really hope this doesn't hurt them.
And now, contestant number two... the Sony Smartwatch. At $150, it is the same price as Pebble will be at retail. It can do everything that Pebble can do, and probably a little more. It can run widgets just like on an Android phone, so you can flip through them with a swipe of the finger. This watch has been available to the public for a few months now, and there are already some complaints. Since it's running a full-color display like your phone, it will go blank after a few moments to conserve power, so you can't just glace at your wrist to see the time, you have to double tap on the screen to wake it up. It's also hard to read in direct sunlight, and the battery lasts half as long as the Pebble at about 4 days. The navigation controls seems to cause an issue with some users as well. Some apps require a pinching motion to close, while others require a single tap with two fingers. Now this is not a fault of Sony, but more a fault of the app developers. I would expect this to get better very soon if Sony wants to sell a worthwhile amount.
So which is the better watch? Well, I guess that comes down to personal opinion. Full color display vs. E-ink display. 4 day battery vs. 8 day. Touchscreen or not. But with offering an open SDK, there will be more apps available for the Pebble in a shorter amount of time than there will be for the Sony Smartwatch. As for my opinion... well, just read the title.
So get going. My birthday is in 2 months. Just saying.
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