Pebble announces the Pebble Time, a colour e-paper smartwatch

Remember that countdown that appeared on the Pebble homepage late last week? We know what it was counting down to now, and it turns out that all the rumours were correct. Meet the Pebble Time, a smartwatch with a colour e-paper display.

The folks at Pebble promise that the Pebble Time will have the same seven day battery life as the original Pebble, so that fancy colour display isn’t going to hinder your wristable experience. It also comes added features like a built-in microphone, a timeline interface, and everything else that came bundled in the original model.

One extra bonus is that the Pebble Time has improved water resistance, and Pebble promises that you’ll be able to do things like swimming and surfing without having to take it off. It’s not waterproof, and it’s not recommended that you take it underwater, but there definitely aren’t enough fitness trackers for swimmers out there.

As for the hardware itself, the Pebble Time is 20 per cent thinner than the original Pebble, and it’s slightly curved which is supposed to make it feel more comfortable on your wrist. The screen is made from Gorilla Glass (sadly it isn’t touchscreen), the main body is made from stainless steel, and the watch strap is customisable. The one bundled with the Pebble Time will be made of rubber, but Pebble claims that any 22mm strap will fit. It’s even thrown in a quick release pin to make sure you can swap them around quickly.

The timeline interface is the main focus of the Pebble Time, and according to Pebble it’s been designed so that all of your notifications, reminders, and events are laid out chronologically instead of being trapped in separate apps. Navigating is simple, and is done using the three buttons on the right hand side of the watch itself. Up sends you into the past, down to the future, and the middle button brings you back to the present.

Timeline apparently isn’t being put in place in place of a traditional apps menu, and pebble has promised that a new apps menu is on the way. That means all 6,500+ Pebble apps (and presumably all those Android Wear apps) will be coming to the Pebble Time. Owners of the classic Pebble needn’t worry either, because you’ll be getting Timeline in a future version of Pebble OS. Sadly we don’t know when that’s going to happen just yet.

Just like the original Pebble, the Pebble Time is on Kickstarter and you can order yourself an early bird device from its funding page for $159/£103 right now. RRP is $199/£129. Shipping is free, and Pebble says that the Pebble Time will be shipping to backers in May of this year.

You don’t have to worry about the page not being funded either, because it’s already smashed the initial goal. Pebble wanted $500,000, and it only took 17 minutes to raise that much. At the time of writing the campaign has raised around $1.2 million, but expect that to go up. A lot.

That is pretty damn impressive. Kudos Pebble.