

Your exercise choices are limited to run, walk, or workout, with basic start and stop controls. While the step counter and sleep tracker are the equal of other wrist-bound trackers, the heartbeat tracker has a habit of under-reporting my pulse. They are far better than having nothing, and the raw data matches up to the heart-rate counters in my local gym or the step counts offered by other devices. The heartbeat tracking joins sleep and step tracking in the Pebble 2 (features that were enabled on the Pebble Time and Time Steel last year). Using two green LEDs and optical sensors on the back of the watch, the Pebble smartwatch can read your heartbeat through your skin. That’s the same partial pivot that Apple made at the September launch with Series 2 of the Apple Watch.

It increases the utility of the smartwatch and helps to sell the watch through the benefits to fitness. The heart rate monitor is a first for Pebble and is the major point of difference for the Pebble 2.
