Pebble Steel SmartWatch with Gorilla Glass Protection, Stainless Steel Body & New Straps

The Pebble Smartwatch was one of the best in 2013, but will the new Pebble Steel receive the same amount of appreciation? The answer could go in both ways – in support when you talk of the features, build but against it if you take the pricing into consideration. The Pebble Steel is the newly announced smartwatch from Pebble Technology, at the CES 2014 event.

Pebble Steel is made of the stainless steel body, which makes it quite elegant and heavy already, but the glass unlike in the first gen Pebble, has now got the Corning Gorilla Glass protection. So, there comes something that would protect the glass from scratching. The stainless steel body adds to the weight, and if you wanted something in the lines of some top-end watches, the Pebble Steel is coming with the stainless steel strap which you see on the premium watches, and to add to that, there is also a Leather strap included.

As for the apps and the compatibility, the Pebble Steel supports both Android and iOS devices, and there is an App for those devices. The Pebble team has announced a new App store for Pebble, which would make it better for the users to select and install apps for more productivity from the smartwatch. There is a tricolor LED in the left bottom of the display, which would be showing the indications for low battery and other notifications, so a plus.

The Pebble Steel is 5ATM waterproof, and the Pebble team claims that the smartwatch would last for 5-7 days on a single charge of the battery. That is good enough but such was a claim with even the first Pebble, which didn’t stay for that long when kept connected to the Smartphone all the time. As for the difference, here’s what they say as the difference between the Original Pebble and the Steel one:
Pebble Steel will be made of premium watch components, including milled stainless steel and Corning® Gorilla® Glass. It runs all the same apps and software as Pebble though! It is completely compatible with the existing Pebble ecosystem.

There’s the same magnetic charging cable, proprietary one, and thus, we will have to see that the cable is always kept safe as you won’t find an alternative anywhere. Every package of the Black Matte or Brushed Stainless Steel Pebble would have the metal and leather watch bands for the users to choose and wear based on the theme.

So, this one is coming for $250. A little highly-priced when you talk of not-so-fierce competition and a moderate demand, but again, comparing with the likes of Samsung Galaxy Gear (priced at $300!), this one is a better buy. There are quite a lot of reasons for that, but we’ll keep that away for now, and would easily suggest the Pebble Smart if you have a budget as you are going to see an App store soon as well.