Smartwatches have gotten incredibly, well, smart over the years. They have digital assistants, speakers, virtual keyboards, and the ability to run full apps. Is all that really necessary, though? I used a 10-year-old smartwatch to find out.
Ten years ago, the smartwatch market was very different from what it is today. The Apple Watch was brand new, Wear OS wasn’t even called “Wear OS” yet, and a wearable upstart called Pebble was just hitting its stride. The Pebble Time series was a big improvement over the company’s humble first model, and that’s when I hopped on the smartwatch train.
My First Smartwatch
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I wasn’t immediately enamored with the idea of a smartwatch, but like any tech lover, my curiosity eventually got the best of me. The first smartwatch I ever used was the Pebble Steel. This was a slightly upgraded version of the original Pebble that nearly broke Kickstarter, but it still had that geeky/early adopter charm.
When Pebble announced the Time series with color e-paper displays, a redesigned OS, and much more polished hardware design, I was excited to upgrade. I bought the Pebble Time Steel and wore it happily on my wrist for a long time. The company ended up closing shop in late 2016, but I wore my watch well into 2017.
Since then, I’ve worn a variety of different smartwatches, but they’ve all been considerably more advanced than the Pebble—for better or worse. I enjoy many of the modern features of smartwatches, but a part of me has always missed the simple Pebble experience.
Using a Pebble Smartwatch in 2025
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Earlier this year, somehow, Pebble returned. For the first time since 2015, new Pebble smartwatches are being manufactured. That means a new Pebble companion app has been released, and it works with old Pebbles, too. Thankfully, I never got rid of my Pebble Time Steel.
Last week, I installed the new Pebble app on my phone and connected my Pebble Time Steel. Amazingly, it basically just worked as if no time had passed. All of my old watch faces were still available and functional. Notifications from my phone appear like they should. Music controls work perfectly. Some apps don’t work anymore, but quite a few still do.
It’s still early days for the Pebble renaissance, but I’ve been wearing mine for a week now, and I’m surprised by how little I’ve missed my “smarter” smartwatch.
The Strengths of a Minimalist Watch
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For context, my daily smartwatch for the last year or so has been a Pixel Watch 3. It’s undeniably “better” than the Pebble Time Steel in practically any category you could list on a spec sheet (except one—more on that later). But I’ve realized I honestly don’t utilize a lot of those powerful, high-end features.
I can boil down my smartwatch usage to five things: checking the time, receiving notifications, controlling music, setting timers, and tracking workouts. Currently, with beta software on a 10 year-old watch, I can do four out of those five things—and the fifth will eventually be there, too.
Checking the Time
Let’s get this one out of the way right now: using a smartwatch as a, you know, watch, is better with a Pebble. It just is. I don’t have to sacrifice battery life for an always-on display. The e-paper display never turns off and it uses very little power. A modern smartwatch simply can’t compete with that.
Notifications
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The Pixel Watch gives me the ability to dismiss and act on notifications, reply with my voice, type of messages, and choose emojis. I have many of those same options on my Pebble watch—just not a keyboard for typing. But in reality, I’ve never liked doing heavy input tasks on my wrist, so I usually pull out my phone anyway. Notifications are a big part of my smartwatch experience, and it has not been a downgrade with the Pebble.
Controlling Music
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There’s not much to say here. The Pebble has access to the same media controls that my Pixel Watch does. I can play/pause, skip, and adjust the volume for anything that’s playing on my phone. Oh, and it has a cassette tape icon, which is bonus points.
Setting Timers
One of the Tiles I use the most on my Pixel Watch is Timers. It’s great to be able to swipe over and quickly tap a preset timer. My Pebble also has a Timer app with preset times, and I have it set up to launch when I long-press one of the physical buttons. It’s just as quick as it is on my Pixel Watch.
Tracking Workouts
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As of September 2024, this is the one thing I can’t do on my Pebble Time Steel. It tracks my steps and distance, but there’s not a functional fitness app right now. And I can’t sync anything to Health Connect, either. Even when the fitness features eventually happen, I know they won’t be as good as what’s available on my Pixel Watch. Modern smartwatches have tons of sophisticated sensors and powerful fitness apps to choose from. The Pebble has to take the “L” here, but that’s okay.
Closing Thoughts (and Battery Life!)
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To be perfectly honest, I was not expecting the Pebble experience to be this good in 2025. I started wearing the Pebble with the intention of writing about it, but I thought it might be hard to stick it out for more than a few days. I was dead wrong.
It hasn’t been that big of a change, except for one big thing: charging. Like most modern smartwatches, my Pixel Watch needs to be charged every night. However, as I’m writing this, I’ve been wearing the Pebble Time Steel for about a week, and I have not charged it a single time. The battery is at 20%.
That’s a big bonus I had entirely forgotten about. Charging the Pixel Watch every night isn’t usually a big deal to me, but there are those random days when I forget or it wasn’t seated on the charger properly. That means going out of my way to charge it when I would like to be wearing it. I don’t have to worry about that with my Pebble—it gives me a big time window to charge it.
I wasn’t planning on buying a new Pebble 2 Duo or Pebble Time 2, but the experience with my ancient Pebble Time Steel has me wondering if I should. Sometimes it’s hard to beat a classic.