[mikestew]

I look at the Pebble kind of like the musician Buddy Holly. Someone asked me, “what’s the big deal with Buddy Holly?” My short answer was that without Buddy Holly, he would not have influenced the Beatles (so said Lennon). No Beatles means modern music might be very different.

There would have been smartwatches without Pebble, but it was arguably the first practical smartwatch, and either paved the way for others, or at least had some influence. It might look simplistic now, but at the time it was the smartwatch equivalent of Buddy Holly.

I’m sure a little mythology helps, too. Like the “e-ink” display. Well, first off, Pebble never claimed it was “e-ink”, it was called “e-paper”. And if you want that display, Garmin still sells watches with the MIPS LCD displays. But the Pebble is still revered for having a unicorn display. Regardless, that display helped give it outstanding battery life.

The software was simple, and yet got the job done. The Pebble didn’t try and do more than it was capable of, making it responsive and simple to use. No touch screen, no gestures, just some buttons.