Pebble Time gains fitness tracking through HealthKit-compatible Pebble Health

Pebble on Tuesday updated its Pebble Time smartwatches with Pebble Health, a feature bringing fitness tracking to its product lineup for the first time.

After owners install an updated mobile app and the v3.8 firmware, the watches will automatically record steps and sleep, inserting data into timeline pins. When a person wakes up, for instance, their Time can display the length and quality of sleep.

Step goals are based on personal averages instead of fixed numbers. Users can also check weekly step and sleep stats without having to use a separate phone app.

Pebble's tracking is compatible with Apple HealthKit and Google Fit, however, allowing data to be shared with numerous other mobile apps. The company is also preparing a Health API for early 2016 that will let developers build related Time apps and watch faces.

The same v3.8 firmware opens up unlimited apps for the Pebble Classic and Steel, and more crucially, support for the Time's timeline interface.

Fitness tracking has been a conspicuous absence from Pebble's watches, as competitors like the Apple Watch are increasingly shipping with the technology built-in. The Watch lacks sleep tracking, but offers other advantages such as a heart rate sensor, a more advanced goal system, and inactivity detection.

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8 Comments

genovelle

said about 8 years ago

They decided to change directions I see. I guess being compatible with Apple's system was important after all. Yeah they threw in Google to save face, but I'm sure they were getting lots of customer complaints about the lack of support for Apple's health kit. Plus, they lost the visibility of being on Apple's website, in their commercials and in the shelves in Apple Stores. It's usually not a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you.

isteelers

said about 8 years ago

I get the functionality aspect, but the graphics remind me of an Atari 2600.

makemineamac

said about 8 years ago

You're right the graphics do look bad. Really bad for a color display too.

I see other screenshots don't look as bad. It looks like they put some solid research into all of this though.

https://blog.getpebble.com/2015/12/15/health/

JasonInNJ

said about 8 years ago

Apple stopped selling competing smart watches before the Apple Watch launched, so none of the loss of shelf space was a result of Pebble not supporting Apple. In fact, the Pebble app allowed you to run applications like Misfit on the Pebble which worked fine with iOS. What is different here is the presence of native support in the Pebble OS itself. I own an Apple Watch, and I generally enjoy it (and the build quality is a million times better), but my first generation Pebble has some great advantages, and the native apps on the Pebble are vastly superior to the Apple Watch. There are no 3rd party apps of any real value on the Apple Watch. As for Apple apps, I sometimes respond to a text but that's about it. I use the activity tracker, but prefer both the Fitbit and Pebble (with Misfit app) for tracking my runs.