Apple’s decision to enter the smartwatch space actually had a positive impact on sales of the Pebble and Pebble Steel smartwatches.
That’s according to Pebble’s Chief Evangelist Myriam Joire, who was speaking at GlazedCon, a one day conference in London covering the current and future trends of wearable technology.
While Joire did not specify figures, she did confirm that Apple’s smartwatch unveiling saw a boost in units shifted, “Everytime someone announces a new smart watch we sell more and we sold more since the Apple launch. It’s unbelievable.”
Joire believes the Apple Watch, announced alongside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus also proves that the company’s CEO Eric Migicovsky was on the right tracks with the Pebble commenting, “Apple coming into the space completely validates Pebble and what we have been doing for six years.”
The Pebble and more recently the Pebble Steel have enjoyed decent success and crucially is one of the the few smartwatches that works across Android and iOS.
The company recently announced price cuts on both making the original
Pebble now £99 and the Steel down to £179. It is also now being sold though
Currys PC World, O2 and Amazon.co.uk.
One of the biggest issues surrounding smartwatches is battery life. Currently, most Android Wear watches like the Moto 360 struggle to make it through two days and Tim Cook’s comments about charging the Apple Watch every night suggest its smartwatch won’t fare much better.
When quizzed about when we can expect battery life to improve for Apple
and Google’s Android Wear watches, Joire claimed that the two companies are at least
“two years” away from matching the Pebble’s stamina and by that point there’s every chance that the company will have already managed to push past the five day barrier the current Pebble smartwatches are capable of.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
