Pebble was one of the first widely publicized Kickstarter companies. The startup received more than $10 million in crowdfunded dollars. To add to that number, more than 80,000 people have ordered a Pebble Smartwatch. But, is this watch all it has been hyped up to be? The watch has finally arrived and has been tested. Before you order your own Pebble watch, read this.

Out of the Box

The Pebble Smartwatch doesn’t look like much out of the box. It’s a small watch with a thin face and thin bracelet. The watch has a black sheen to it, and it’s meant to be rather inconspicuous (which is a good thing!). Out of the box, the Smartwatch won’t impress.

This watch is really just a second screen for your smartphone, so it has to be connected to really strut its stuff. To connect the watch to your phone, use the Pebble app that can be found in the Apple Store or Google Play store.

When connected to an iOS device, the watch can send email notifications and other notifications to your watch. But, connecting the Pebble Smartwatch to iOS can be a bit tricky. You will have to play around with settings quite a bit before the watch goes into action.

Connecting the Pebble Smartwatch to Android is different. The Android app makes a lot more sense, and you can easily control and setup the watch from the Android app without any kind of fuss. Clearly, the Android app works better with the Pebble Smartwatch while the iOS app needs some work.

The Watch In Action

After setting up the Pebble Smartwatch, you can receive emails, phone calls, and other updates directly on your watch face. Instead of carrying a phone around with you, all you have to do is look at your wrist. The Smartwatch presents a pretty cool idea if you think about it. Not only can you receive email and phone notifications with the Smartwatch, but you can also play around with music settings. The Smartwatch lets you control tracks and sound from the watch.

The Pebble Smartwatch is battery operated, which means that you will have to charge this watch regularly. Pebble claims that the watch can last for one entire week with just one single charge, which isn’t too bad. There is no battery indicator on the watch, though, but you will be warned when that battery is nearing death. Of course, Pebble is also a plain old watch that you can use to tell the time.

Really, this wrist piece is a lot of things combined into a slim watch body. The goal of the Pebble Watch is to allow users to be released from the clutches of numerous devices. Gone are the days when you have to actually have your smartphone in order to receive messages.

In the place of those days is a watch that does all the notifying for you. You can purchase your very own piece of Kickstarter history right now by heading to the Pebble homepage. The price to purchase a Pebble Smartwatch is currently $150. That might be more than some people are willing to pay for this kind of watch, but it’s also not a high price in the grand scheme of things.