US$199 @Pebble Steel Update brings Activity Tracking and Sleep Monitoring

Pebble seems to already be gearing up for Black Friday. This as the Best Buy price-drop for the must-have smartwatch dropped as follows:

1.         US$99 (€129, £99) for the Pebble

2.         US$199 (€229, £179) for the Pebble Steel

This represents US$50 off the original price of US$150 for the original Pebble as reported in “PEBBLE SMARTWARTCH NOW PRICED AT $100, UPDATE INCLUDES ACTIVITY AND SLEEP TRACKING”, published September 30, 2014 by Williams Pelegrin, DigitalTrends.

The Pebble smartwatch now comes in some fruit-luscious coloured plastic armbands as described in my Geezam blog article entitled “Pebble gets new limited edition Fresh, Hot and Fly colors for the Spy Kids in your life”.

The US$249 Pebble Steel is still James Bond cool as I’d described in my Geezam blog article entitled “US$249 Pebble Steel rocks James Bond Playboy joie de vivre on your Wrist”, now with the grasp of every debonair James Bond aficionado with a similar US$50 price drop.

Also announced on their Pebble Blog, they’ve also issued an update that adds the following functionality to the Pebble smartwatch:

1.      24/7 Activity tracking

2.      24/7 Sleep monitoring

3.      Health and fitness apps from Misfit, Jawbone, and Swim.com

To get the update, simply follow the instructions on your smartphone:

1.      Open the Pebble smartphone app for iOS or Android.

2.      Select Support

3.      Select Update Your Pebble in the Menu if the update does not begin automatically

This updates doesn’t decrease your Pebble's battery life and gives you the extra perk of displaying your favorite watchface while tracking activity in the background. But it does blur the lines between Fitness Trackers and smartwatches as reported in “Pebble upgrades its fitness tracking, drops its price”, published September 30, 2014 01:00 pm By Dan Seifert, The Verge

Especially as the Apple Watch is coming with an improved HealthKit as the article “Pebble's Price-Cutting Defense Against the Apple Watch”, published September 30, 2014 By Joshua Brustein, BusinessWeek strongly suggests!

The update also teaches the Pebble a few new tricks aside from new functionalities and the usual bug fixes:

1.      Quick Launch which allows you to long press Up or Down Buttons to create shortcuts for your favorite Apps

2.      Select Button that dismisses notifications when paired with an Android or iOS 7 or lower device

Nothing has changed about the smartwatches as they're still good underwater at up to 5 ATM. with these new pieces, however, they just came up for Air!