the Pebble 2 doesn’t just represent a new version of the classic smartwatch, it catapults Pebble into a whole new market, fitness tracking. I sat down with Pebble CEO, Eric Migicovsky, to talk about where he sees the company going, and why Pebble 2 is better than any FitBit.
At a time when it seems like we’re reaching peak wearable, when it’s so saturated that companies like Microsoft are abandoning the market altogether, I wanted to know why Pebble was diving in.
Eric has thought long and hard about this, because he had a quick answer. “There’s a convergence happening between devices that, one, display notifications from your phone and, two, track your steps and heart rate. We want to offer a solution that merges those two things and does it at a lower cost than anyone else on the market.” And he’s spot on – there’s no one else in the market that’s offering full smartwatch functionality and fitness tracking with heart rate monitoring for under $150.
But what about my issues with the pace being off when I took the Pebble 2 for a run? Eric said that the Pebble uses number of steps and stride to determine your running pace and that I had to make sure I had the correct height set in my personal information on the app (you can find it under Settings > Pebble Health). He then acknowledged that the algorithm “needs some work” but that it will be updated with the next Pebble OS release.
And what about the lack of Workout data living in the app after completing a session? That’s also going to be part of the update, according to Eric. “We absolutely want you to be able to get to that data.”
I mentioned that I loved the pre-loaded workout profiles but wondered, especially with the Pebble 2’s water resistance, if there were going to be additional presets for swimming or cycling in that future update. “We’re focusing on running for now, then branching out.” Eric said. “There are some great third party apps that are moving into that space.”
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