Pebble, the company that is widely known as the one who really pushed smartwatches into the mainstream, is back at it again following another extremely successful Kickstarter campaign with a new line of watches.

The original Pebble was very basic, but everything that it did was done effectively. Something devices like Android Wear and the Apple Watch have struggled with since hitting the market to take on Pebble.

The Pebble 2 seems primed to continue that while packing in more features and a better design.

Why does the Pebble interest me? Well, until recently, I have been a devout Microsoft hardware fan. For years I swore by my Windows Mobile 5/6/6.5, Windows Phone 8/8.1 and Windows 10 for Mobile devices. I still use a Surface Pro 2 as one of my primary devices and have owned both Microsoft Bands. After waiting for Microsoft to update the Band 2 with the Band 3 only to be disappointed when Microsoft decided to throw in the towel (at least for now) on their fitness platform, I decided I would start looking for something to replace my Band 2 when it inevitably fails.

My first instinct, now that I am back to using an Android device as my daily driver, was to look to Android Wear. After mulling over several options I couldn’t pull the trigger on a one. The main reason being the allure of the coming Android Wear 2.0 release and new hardware to go with it. As we know now all the major OEMs in the Android Wear space announced they would not release new hardware in 2016, followed by Google announcing they were delaying Android Wear 2.0 until 2017 as well. With these two announcements being made I am afraid that Google is getting ready to decide they are done with the Wear experiment, get their typical “Google ADD” and pretend like it never happened. There was not even a whisper of Google Wear news during the October 4th Pixel launch event.

As an Android user, the Apple Watch is not an option, so Pebble seemed like the only logical option. And now I am asking myself, why have I not looked at them as an option from day 1?

The Pebble 2 comes packing the following features:

• 24/7 Hear Rate Monitor
• Sleep Tracking and Recovery
• Smart Fitness Tracker
• Pebble Health Insights
• Voice Control
• Notifications
• Music Control
• 30m Water Resistance
• Up To 7 Day Battery Life
• ePaper LCD (100% viewable outdoors)
• Quick-Release Bands
• Thousands of Apps and Watchfaces from the Pebble Store

That is a lot of functionality, but based on all of the feedback on the original Pebble devices, early feedback on the new devices, your use of the device will be as simple and as intuitive as ever.

What do you think? Is the Pebble 2 something you would consider as your first or next wearable?

The Pebble 2 can be ordered from Pebble for $129.99 USD