Pebble Steel: Swim Watch

Pebble Steel: $120 (+$20 for metal band)

It started with me looking into a fitness tracker for swimming.  Basically I wanted something that could keep track of how many laps I had done and alert me when I reached a time or lap goal.  After searching and finding some expensive and complex swim watches, I eventually narrowed my search to the Garmin Swim and the Misfit Speedo Shine.  

The Garmin Swim has a lot of features for swimmers.  More than I need, and lots of user review comments talked about difficulties with navigating the UI.  It also can't vibrate to tell me when I hit my goal, one of the two main things I wanted a device to do.  It might be able to beep, but I don't want to annoy others in the pool.  

Garmin Swim: ~$150

The Misfit Speedo Shine is appealing in a few ways.  It is half the price of the Garmin and quite sleek looking.  It is also well integrated with iOS - the company was founded by former Apple COE John Sculley.  But despite this, there is no actual display on the device, just a circle of lights.  Reviews are scarce at the moment since it is new, but from what I read, you can't even set the lights to indicate laps, it is all done on the phone after the workout.  

Misfit Speedo Shine: $80

As I debated between these two compromises, I came across mention of the Pebble Steel being waterproof.  I hadn't considered a non-dedicated device.  Further investigation revealed that there are a couple of different apps for the watch that can track laps when swimming.  It can also use vibration for alerts, so it theoretically checks both boxes I was looking for.

I had heard about the original Pebble when it was on Kickstarter, but the design  did not appeal to me.  The Steel on the other hand, looks like a regular watch.  I was sold.

Original Pebble 

The watch can do a ton of other cool things that I consider a bonus.  Sleep tracking - don't think I care, but being able to set an alarm that will wake me at the best moment in my sleep cycle sounds worth trying.  Text and call notifications could be a game changer - I often forget to unmute my phone, and manage to miss calls and texts when the phone is in my pocket even when not muted.

I ordered the Steel in black and a metal band - still $10 less than the Garmin.  As luck would have it, the band arrived today, the watch itself is scheduled for delivery tomorrow.  Kinda excited to play around with it, even though I had little to no interest in smartwatches before now.