Pebble Time Steel for the boardroom and smartstraps for the road

Pebble continues to offer compelling new products and a week after announcing the Pebble Time we see the Pebble Time Steel with a more professional design and longer battery life.

The Pebble Time Steel has a CNC-finished 316L stainless steel casing, included leather and stainless steel straps, increased battery life of 10 days (Pebble Time has a 7-day rating), and three finish options. You can buy one in silver with a stone leather band, gunmetal black with a black leather band, or gold with a red leather band.

Apple will be revealing more details on its Apple Watch next Monday, but Pebble is doing a good job of getting its product line updated and improved in order to continue to compete in the smartwatch market. With reasonable pricing, cross platform support, an active developer community, and compelling hardware the Pebble Time watches are good options for consumers.

Another interesting announcement is support for hardware developers to create Pebble smartstraps. I like being able to use my Sony SmartWatch 3 with integrated GPS to run without my phone. The thought behind these new smartstraps is that hardware developers can create straps with features such as an integrated GPS receiver, extended battery, NFC chip, keyless car remote, and more.

Having all of these options in the bands seems like a great solution. Companies can never make a single device that meets everyone's needs, but with optional smartstraps each person can take the care Pebble Time and extend its functionality as they see fit.

There is no word yet on pricing or availability of these smartstraps, but I can't wait to see what developers come up with in the next few months. What would you want your smartstrap to do?

Last week Pebble announced the new Pebble Time and I quickly placed my pre-order as a second time Kickstarter backer. I thought my only choice would be to figure out if I wanted red or black. Now I have to decide if I want to upgrade to the Pebble Time Steel. Thankfully, Pebble is offering Pebble Time backers the option to easily upgrade their purchase to the Pebble Time Steel.