The Moto 360 & Android Wear: Coming from a Pebble!

Suika · May 26, 2015

I've actually given myself a lot of time between the Pebble and the Moto 360 before writing this review, I got the Pebble last Black Friday and the Moto 360 about a couple months ago. I loved my Pebble, it was far from stylish and I didn't find it to be a necessary device, but regardless, I loved it. The Moto 360, while also a smartwatch, is almost an entirely different beast. While there are some aspects that I like, there are others that I don't. I'll start with what I like.

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Style. I grabbed the black watch with a black leather strap, it looks fancy for my general attire but since it's black, it matches everything (don't take fashion advice from me). I love the round face, but I almost don't like how the strap sneaks in under the watch, I almost prefer the (rumored) style of the upcoming Moto 360, with bars that'll latch onto the strap instead. That's personal preference really, but the watch already looks nice, much nicer than the Pebble. I don't like the gold ring around the button, I wish it were silver instead of gold, but it's a little thing.

Customization. I love how, if there's a watch face you want, guess what? You can get it! You can go with functional, stylish, or functionally stylish! It has a lot more options than the Pebble could ever have, and the round face makes it look a lot less nerdy and quite a bit more classy. Not only, but apps feel like they have a lot more function and use than they do or ever could on the Pebble, but it depends on the app, which I'll get into in a moment.

Display. It's bright, easy to read, and the flat tire is not bothersome at all (genuine). Like in the sun, my watch is typically easier to glance at than my Phone, but that's part to do with the fact that I hate auto brightness. Auto brightness isn't too much of a bother on the 360, but there are times it's rather querky, showing a minimum level lighting in bright sunlight because it's confused. It may just be because it was in a shadow or I dunno, but there are times I do have to squint to see the watch, though generally I don't. There are also some issues I have with the screen, but again, in a moment.

Texts and e-mails. It is SO great to be able to respond to texts and emails as easily as I can with the Moto 360. Sometimes the voice is a little buggy, and with my "what I feel like is a speech impediment," there are errors, but nothing too significant. It always feels weird talking to my watch, might be a personal thing, though.

Google Now cards. Actually pretty convenient. I get times on the way home and work, tells me if there's traffic which has come in handy several times, like being the difference between leaving early, calling ahead, or taking another route. It's neat seeing sports scores and play times, while I'm generally not into sports I do like being in the know. The weather is a major bonus, it typically shows me in the morning and can update to changes like rain.

Battery. Not bad at all. I get a full day with more than 40% charge like always, unless I mess with certain settings, in a moment.

--- And now, the ugly. ---

Style. I wouldn't say this is a con, but the "is that an Apple Watch/iWatch?" gets a bit annoying. Really wish Motorola promoted better, so it's better known than an "iWatch clone." I mean seriously wtf this was first.

Music. Oh my god, compared to the Pebble, music controls are atrocious, to the point that I genuinely wish the watch had two more physical buttons to control music and maybe add some other functionalities, it is such a pain, especially if I'm driving. So it's convenient, right? Wrong. So to open music, you turn on the watch, slide left, and you have your controls that work for you a rough 45% of the time on the first button press. You hit skip forward, right? Naaaaaah, the watch pushes you a slide forward so you can like the song instead. What I did, did not match sliding, it was a press. Didn't register, oh well. Turn up the volume? Nah, let's skip the song forward. OK, I don't know if this is the watch or Android Wear, but it is such a pain. Not only, but not having any physical buttons and difficult to control buttons, it takes a lot of the convenience out of something that's supposed to be convenient. The Pebble was straight forward. I hit the center button on the left twice, and I got to music. Then I could easily press the buttons for control. It's wasn't a chance of getting it right, it was 100% each time, always registered, not a pain. Honestly this is one of my biggest gripes but this music controls helped draw me into loving the Pebble.

Voice controls. Not always bad, but the responses are some times laughable. There was actually one day, the other day in fact, I was trying to get the watch to remind me to make it to a bus stop before it left. Every time I asked it to leave the reminder, it said the watch was offline and disconnected from my phone. This wasn't the issue at all, I still had control over music, I have no clue what it was doing. Ten minutes later, I try again and it worked fine. Generally it's fine, but there are too many quirks. I really wish there were location based reminders, and generally just more functionality to Google Now. That's a software issue that Google should work on more than anything, but it does make the Apple Watch pretty attractive actually.

Display/Battery. I combined the two because it was the same thing. I really wish I picked up the G Watch R for this reason: THE DISPLAY IS FINICKY. I can flick my wrist, and no response. OK, so I flip my wrist back over and look at the watch again: no response. Next to music controls, this is the most annoying aspect of the watch. I just want to see the time, and being a watch is too damned difficult sometimes. The Pebble's always-on display spoiled me, and why I wish I had the G Watch R instead. On that same note, though, this is where battery comes in. You turn on ambient display, and bam, you can barely make a full day. You turn on WiFi, and your watch dies on you unexpectedly. Actually this irritated me quite a bit. The first time my watch had WiFi, I turned it on halfway through the day, and the battery drained like hell. An hour before I made it home, I noticed my watch had low (like 5-10%) battery, so I turned off WiFi. I don't know why I didn't get a single notification, vibration, or anything to tell me my watch had fallen so low in battery life, and not only, but I had no notification of my watch dying. It just turned off and wouldn't turn on, that's how I knew it was dead. I really wish there was a warning.

Notifications. This is pretty annoying, the vibration telling you that you've gotten a notification is so slight that sometimes I can't tell if I just had a twitch in my arm or if my watch had a genuine notification. A lot of the times I get a notification, the card displaying the notification is late, so I have to wait a few seconds, staring at my watch, to see what the notification it was. Fortunately there's an app that allows me to change vibrate times and patterns, so it's always more distinct. Texts and e-mails are more profound where other things, like Snapchat and Instagram are the stock vibration, things I don't mind missing but if I catch, I won't be upset.

--- Summary ---

This is a really cool device, I actually do like smartwatches quite a bit, but really, if I had gotten the Pebble Steel, it would still be my main driver. It looks decent, not as stylish, but I feel like it's less buggy, easier to use, never have to worry about battery, and overall just fits me better than Android Wear. What the Pebble lacks, I can make up for with pulling my phone out of my pocket, but in general I feel like it's more polished and simpler, which is nice in a wearable. Android Wear still has time to mature, and the Moto 360 is a really pleasant looking watch, but it's held back by Android Wear, a lack of physical buttons and the display (I actually really really really want the buttons just for music).