Pebble Time - A very smart watch

Wearable tech is very much in its infancy but it's a market that looks set to explode over the next few years. Gartner estimates that the market for wearables will be worth in excess of $12bn by 2020 and presently most of the growth in that market is spearheaded by the smart watch. Attracted as I am by shiny things, I became a smart watch early adopter when, a couple of years ago I was given for Christmas a Pebble smartwatch.

The bright red, shiny plastic bezel and rubber strap looked anything other than smart, I'll freely admit, but the Pebble quickly became an essential part of my everyday life. So, when Pebble announced earlier this year that they were aiming to launch a new, colour version with enhanced features, I quickly became one of the 78,000 backers who funded Kickstarter's biggest ever project, raising over $20M.

My Pebble Time was delivered a little over a month ago, and it's everything I hoped for and more. Like its predecessor, the Time is no flashy, attention-seeking miniaturised mobile phone with a strap glued to its back. It is, first and foremost, a watch. It looks pretty unremarkable and it tells the time. But its benefits are subtle and numerous. Press a button and the Timeline pops up with a friendly animation, displaying information essential to my day - upcoming appointments, weather updates, news headlines and which of my favourite TV shows are on tonight are just a few of the delights to be found there. The Time also runs apps, of course - I can control my music player, my PC, my TV with it. I can see exactly how late my train home is going to be, how quickly I can get a cab instead, how much I'm likely to pay for it and then book it via the watch. I can decide which restaurants to take the family to and then discover which of my choices has offended the least amount of customers in recent months. I can play games, send messages, update my fitness record (or not, given my current state). I can do all this and more.

But, and it is a crucial "but" for me when using mobile technology, I can do all of that on my terms.

The Pebble Time is a masterpiece of functionality. It doesn't constantly demand attention; I don't spend most of my day pushing buttons, squinting at the screen or shouting into the microphone. Better still, I don't spend every waking hour worrying how much battery life it has left. A single charge gives me a week of normal use. Yes, that's right - a week. While I religiously plug in my phone and tablet every night, I don't bother with the Pebble until it tells me to with another cute animation. Even then, it has a magical ability to keep on running for days even when the battery reads 0%. The good people at Pebble watched Kramer in Seinfeld's "The Dealership" and thought "Yep".

I use the Pebble Time when I have reason to and I know that when I need to use it, it's not going to conk out on me through lack of power. That's exactly what I want out of a smart watch. It's an addition, an enhancement to my lifestyle and an extension to my phone, rather than a replacement.

For those reasons it's the classiest gadget I own.