Gadgetory

they each do the same thing provide a second screen for your smartphone on your wrist but they go about doing it in completely different ways and with totally distinct results which one should you strap on if you're in the market for a summer wearable let's find out i'm michael fisher with pocket now and this is Android wear versus pebble smartwatch this is more a platformer comparison than a device to device face-off so we'll just acknowledge up front that both pebble and Android wear offer various Hardware incarnations from the budget to the high-end with more coming in the future the most glaring difference is that Android wear is a full-color experience while pebble for now is a simpler monochrome a sacrifice that gives it a distinct edge in open sunlight despite this the principle functionality is the same across these platforms delivering notifications from your phone to your wrist via bluetooth both pebble and Android wear can handle a wide variety of notifications from SMS email to third-party apps and each alerts you to incoming messages via a vibration on your wrist both platforms offer devices with changeable watch bands for customization and customizable software as well with support for native and third-party applications oh and they each tell the time with many different watch faces to choose from but for all their similarity and basic functionality almost nothing else is the same some of the differences are the unavoidable kind the ones that crop up whenever you're comparing a nearly two-year old platform to a two-week old one Pebbles third-party application store accounts about 3200 apps from over 15,000 developers while Android wear is just getting its feet under it other differences are more philosophical pebble was built with simplicity in mind as a result the software on its ePaper display is list driven and straightforward issuing a touchscreen for side-mounted navigation buttons the list options are static they don't change over time ensuring that your notifications for example are always in the same place Android wear is more complex by comparison even though it tries not to be it's not the layout that's the problem the colorful touch driven interface is quite beautiful and its formatting is logical with a vertical column of cards for the top layer and more detail available with horizontal swipes but because the whole thing is driven by Google now the cards are constantly changing positions for example you never know where a hangout card will be relative to the one that tells you when the next bus is or what the weather is going to be like tomorrow and getting to third-party apps via touch is an exercise in endless scrolling fortunately there's a better way to interact with Android wear that pebble doesn't offer voice input to launch an app you can just say its name and that goes for other actions like Google searches texting by dictation asking for a pedometer count and so on it's by no means perfect which will expand on in our full review but the voice interface is probably Android wears biggest advantage over pebble even more so than the bigger brighter displays on its watches when you can use your wristwatch to literally tell your smartphone what to do without even pressing a button it's more than just a futuristic party trick it brings a whole new level of possibility to the role of a SmartWatch almost everywhere else pebbles greater experience and time in grade is clear the Android watches are supposed to be smart enough to automatically turn the screen on only when you're looking at them but in practice they turn on erroneously all the time with pebble you really have to shake it vigorously to get its backlight to turn on but that's preferable to the annoying fake outz on Android wear this might have something to do with the fact that both current Android watches only last a day or two on a charge while pebble can go almost a full week between top-ups in many ways the decision here is much the same as any choice between an established product family and a new one the older pebble has had more time to get at sea legs while Android wear is still a cadet on its shakedown cruise but there's also a big difference in ambition here pebble is a notification accessory that's using third-party apps to expand while still retaining the simplicity that made it attractive in the first place Android wear offers more long-term potential with its beefier hardware and it's more complex software allows for more in-depth tweaking like custom roms but it'll be a long time before it attains the consistent simplicity that pebble has already achieved so if you want a wearable that doesn't stray far from the basics a watch that just works and one that works with your iPhone go for the pebble if you want something flash here something more powerful something you can talk to Android wear is your wearable of choice and if you own a Windows Phone well write a letter to Microsoft because we're getting impatient - for more on Android wear see our earlier comparison putting the LGG watch up against the Samsung gear live and stay tuned for our Android wear review coming soon until next time this has been michael fisher with PocketNow thanks for watching subscribe if you enjoyed the video and we'll see you next time you