 Hey guys, it's Neil with The Verge. I'm here with the Pebble SmartWatch, an accessory for your iPhone or Android phone that lets you check notifications and control music right from your wrist. The Pebble started with a massively successful Kickstarter campaign, and the final hardware is actually really nice. There's a backlit e-paper display, up, down, and select buttons on the right side, and a back button on the left. Just under the back button, there's a set of contacts and magnets for the Pebble's pretty cool power connector. The default watch band here is fine, but it's pretty boring, so it's a good thing you can swap it out for any standard band you might want to have. As far as the screen itself, it's actually kind of hard to see without the backlight on, and the backlight makes everything a little bit more blue than I was expecting. It's also not the highest resolution screen in the world, but overall it's basically just fine. It works really nicely, but there's obviously room for improvement in the next version. Setting up the Pebble is really straightforward. You just pair it to your phone over Bluetooth and then launch the Pebble app. After a little bit of setup that's different on iOS and Android, you'll immediately start to see notifications pop up on the watch, accompanied by a little vibration and the screen lighting up. It's super convenient, and I really like being able to check incoming texts and emails without having to pull out my phone. You just glance at your wrist. To dismiss the notification, you just hit the OK button and you're back to the clock. Pebble also will alert you to incoming calls and let you dismiss or answer them. You can also use the Pebble to control music apps. Any app that supports Bluetooth control works on Android, and every app I tried just basically worked on the iPhone. It works well, but I often found it was faster to just pull out my phone and dig around the menus and open the music controller. Using the Pebble app on your phone, you can download and install new watch faces, which is fun. Pebble says they'll soon expand that functionality to allow entirely new apps to be downloaded on the phone, but for right now you can just download a handful of watch faces. I actually in the end preferred the basic analog face, but there's some cool ones in the mix too. But the most important thing to know about Pebble is that it's a really different experience depending on whether you have an iPhone or an Android phone. On the iPhone, pretty much everything is directly controlled by iOS. The Pebble app has basically no settings outside of helping you connect and downloading watch faces. Notifications don't appear for every app unless you go into notification center preferences and retoggle the banner individually, and your settings go away if the Pebble gets disconnected. It's annoying, and there's really not much Pebble can do about it because Apple has to fill in the gaps here. This is just the rough foundation of support in iOS. Because it's supported at the system level, Pebble basically supports all iOS notifications out of the box. Now that's really different than Android, because on Android everything goes through the Pebble app. But it also means you have to give the app really broad permissions to watch everything that happens on your phone. And you even have to give it your Gmail password so it can figure out mail notifications. It's an interesting contrast between the platforms. The Pebble kind of has more potential to be a killer iPhone accessory if and when Apple builds out the OS support. But right now the Android experience is a little bit better, even though it feels like kind of more of a hack. In the end though, the Pebble works and it works well. It's a huge accomplishment for an indie hardware company funded by a Kickstarter campaign. I think it's a little bit expensive at $150, but if you're in the market for a smartwatch, it's much more worth it than any of the other competitors that I've seen. If the Pebble team can deliver on the promise of apps, it'll get even more useful. In fact, the entire time I used the Pebble, I found myself daydreaming about all the other stuff it could do. There's no reason they can't replace a Fitbit or a Nike FeelBand. It would be really cool to send replies to text and emails rather than just seeing them. And it would be cool to control any other of the various functions of your phone. But in the end, it's a great product, it's a good story, they're off to a great start, and now Pebble just has to make the rest of my dreams come true.
 Hey guys, it's Neil with The Verge.
 I'm here with the Pebble SmartWatch, an accessory for your iPhone or Android phone that lets
 you check notifications and control music right from your wrist.
 The Pebble started with a massively successful Kickstarter campaign, and the final hardware
 is actually really nice.
 There's a backlit e-paper display, up, down, and select buttons on the right side, and
 a back button on the left.
 Just under the back button, there's a set of contacts and magnets for the Pebble's pretty
 cool power connector.
 The default watch band here is fine, but it's pretty boring, so it's a good thing you can
 swap it out for any standard band you might want to have.
 As far as the screen itself, it's actually kind of hard to see without the backlight
 on, and the backlight makes everything a little bit more blue than I was expecting.
 It's also not the highest resolution screen in the world, but overall it's basically just
 fine.
 It works really nicely, but there's obviously room for improvement in the next version.
 Setting up the Pebble is really straightforward.
 You just pair it to your phone over Bluetooth and then launch the Pebble app.
 After a little bit of setup that's different on iOS and Android, you'll immediately start
 to see notifications pop up on the watch, accompanied by a little vibration and the
 screen lighting up.
 It's super convenient, and I really like being able to check incoming texts and emails without
 having to pull out my phone.
 You just glance at your wrist.
 To dismiss the notification, you just hit the OK button and you're back to the clock.
 Pebble also will alert you to incoming calls and let you dismiss or answer them.
 You can also use the Pebble to control music apps.
 Any app that supports Bluetooth control works on Android, and every app I tried just basically
 worked on the iPhone.
 It works well, but I often found it was faster to just pull out my phone and dig around the
 menus and open the music controller.
 Using the Pebble app on your phone, you can download and install new watch faces, which
 is fun.
 Pebble says they'll soon expand that functionality to allow entirely new apps to be downloaded
 on the phone, but for right now you can just download a handful of watch faces.
 I actually in the end preferred the basic analog face, but there's some cool ones in
 the mix too.
 But the most important thing to know about Pebble is that it's a really different experience
 depending on whether you have an iPhone or an Android phone.
 On the iPhone, pretty much everything is directly controlled by iOS.
 The Pebble app has basically no settings outside of helping you connect and downloading watch
 faces.
 Notifications don't appear for every app unless you go into notification center preferences
 and retoggle the banner individually, and your settings go away if the Pebble gets disconnected.
 It's annoying, and there's really not much Pebble can do about it because Apple has to
 fill in the gaps here.
 This is just the rough foundation of support in iOS.
 Because it's supported at the system level, Pebble basically supports all iOS notifications
 out of the box.
 Now that's really different than Android, because on Android everything goes through
 the Pebble app.
 But it also means you have to give the app really broad permissions to watch everything
 that happens on your phone.
 And you even have to give it your Gmail password so it can figure out mail notifications.
 It's an interesting contrast between the platforms.
 The Pebble kind of has more potential to be a killer iPhone accessory if and when Apple
 builds out the OS support.
 But right now the Android experience is a little bit better, even though it feels like
 kind of more of a hack.
 In the end though, the Pebble works and it works well.
 It's a huge accomplishment for an indie hardware company funded by a Kickstarter campaign.
 I think it's a little bit expensive at $150, but if you're in the market for a smartwatch,
 it's much more worth it than any of the other competitors that I've seen.
 If the Pebble team can deliver on the promise of apps, it'll get even more useful.
 In fact, the entire time I used the Pebble, I found myself daydreaming about all the other
 stuff it could do.
 There's no reason they can't replace a Fitbit or a Nike FeelBand.
 It would be really cool to send replies to text and emails rather than just seeing them.
 And it would be cool to control any other of the various functions of your phone.
 But in the end, it's a great product, it's a good story, they're off to a great start,
 and now Pebble just has to make the rest of my dreams come true.