Woo! New Pebbles!
I have a Pebble watch (I think it’s GREAT, by the way). These new colours, firmly aimed at the youth market, are pretty darn awesome. Although it has to be said, the first thing I thought when I saw them was:
“You KNOW that someone at Nokia just binned their designs for some kind of 2015 Microsoft Lumia smartwatch, right? Eep!”
Because that’s what they look like!
Joking aside, they actually really do match brilliantly with a multitude of Lumia devices which, to me at least, seems like a great idea. Lumias might not be the number one selling mobile device in the world, but the trend of fluorescent hardware is something that’s been around for at least a couple of years now and these new Pebbles are actually really quite awesome. Good job, gang.
One thing I didn’t pick up from either the website or the launch video (below) is that any part of it was ‘cutesy’ or that it was specifically targeted to women.
It’s a cool [smart]watch.
A unisex one at that.
So how do you get from that, to this?
Oh dear. @GetPebbleUK has gone all ‘cutesy’. This is not the way to market to women. https://t.co/uojyCKVtvM
— Belinda Parmar (@belindaparmar) August 6, 2014
I don’t think ‘cutesy’ equals women. Nor do I think that the new range (or the page linked) is in any way female only. So I’m confused. I DM’d Belinda earlier asking for clarification but am yet to hear back (and will of course update should I hear anything). I asked my friends to see what they think, and they seem to agree: the colours are on trend and, if they’re marketed at anyone, they’re marketed at ‘the kids’.
Just because ‘hot [pink]’ is used, it doesn’t mean its necessarily marketed to women. In fact, from about 59 seconds in the video above, the pink watch is clearly shown on a man.
I don’t think Pebble is specifically targeting women with this new range, they’re simply for people who happen to like pink.
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EDIT: a couple of people have asked why I didn’t engage directly on Twitter about this. Truth be told: I’m actually off Twitter at the moment and only checked in this morning for a work-based thing (this just happened to the first thing I saw).
Interestingly enough, there’s no official Pebble app for Windows Phone.
I’d rock that blue one, though. Would need a different band, obviously, but otherwise? Slick.