Pebble Cosmos Review: The Best For Less

September 17, 2021

Over the past few years, affordable smartwatches have been getting better. As a result, spending just a couple of thousand rupees gets you a decent feature-rich smartwatch these days. Now, while most of the affordable wearables offer only the most basic fitness tracking features, the Pebble Cosmos that I have right here even let you make phone calls. Let’s find out more about the Pebble Cosmos in this review.

Pebble Cosmos Specifications:

Weight: 50 grams
Display: 1.7-inches TFT panel
Design: Metal case, Silicon wrist band
Water Resistance Level: IP67 rating
Compatibility: Android 5.0+ / iOS 8+
Companion App: DaFit (Android | iOS)
Sensors: 3-axis Accelerometer, Heart rate, Blood oxygen, Temperature, Blood Pressure
Sports Mode: 8 different modes
Built-in GPS: No
Battery: 230mAh
Charging: Magnetic charger
Price in Nepal: N/A (INR 3,999 in India)

Pebble Cosmos Review:

Design

Metal case, silicon wrist band
IP67 dust-and-water resistant

Starting this review with the design, the Pebble Cosmos looks like an Apple Watch or the number of private-label wannabe Apple Watch clones found on the market. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It has a rectangular case, a glass face, a button on the right frmae, and a built-in speaker, microphone on the sides.

Design

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In terms of build quality, Pebble has used metal casing here, which means the watch is on the relatively heavy side of things as it weighs 50 grams. By the way, the Cosmos comes in black, blue, and gold color options. While the black and blue variants arrive with straps of the same color, the gold model offers an elegant burgundy-colored band.

Apart from the single strap that comes inside the box, you can buy additional bands if you want to mix up the style. Also, this strap is inspired by the one on the Apple Watch. Throughout my three weeks of usage, I’ve found it to be fairly comfortable while it hasn’t invited any issues like skin irritation or allergies either. Likewise, the Pebble Cosmos is IP67 rated against dust and water damage.

Display

1.7-inches TFT panel
No Gorilla Glass protection

Although its design is pretty impressive, the biggest compromise on this smartwatch is the display. It has a 1.7-inch TFT panel with fairly minimal bezels on the sides. There’s no mention of any Gorilla Glass protection here, but that’s to be expected. The watch has adequately endured through my daily usage, while it has suffered a minor ding on the top-left. So, make sure you don’t bump the Pebble Cosmos into any concrete surface.

Moving on, this display isn’t that sharp or bright compared to other budget smartwatches that I’ve tested in the past either. The colors look washed out and severely undersaturated even when looking at it from a direct line of sight.

Despite the mediocre brightness levels, I can comfortably see my analog dial face ticking in on broad daylight. In addition, there’s no ambient light sensor to automatically adjust brightness on this smartwatch as well.

Watch faces

When it comes to the watch faces, I had to scroll through a bunch of options before landing on one that looked somewhat compelling on this mediocre screen. In addition, the animations and scrolling gestures aren’t particularly fluid either. And you’ll even notice a hint of jelly scrolling effect when navigating its UI.

Here, the companion app allows you to customize the watch face to your taste whereas the device can store 5 watch faces in total. Getting around the Pebble Cosmos is no hassle. A simple swipe to the left opens up the app drawer, swiping to the bottom shows your messages and notifications, swiping from the top brings up the quick settings shade, whereas all the apps, health monitoring widgets are a simple right-swipe away.

Regardless, the raise-to-wake feature is a bit of a hit-or-miss too. Occasionally, it demands I lift my wrist to an uncomfortable degree to work.

App & Connectivity

Da Fit app (Android / iOS)
Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity

Over on the connectivity front, the Cosmos features Bluetooth 5.0 and pairs with your smartphone via the Da Fit app, which is available for both Android and iOS devices.

App Interface

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It offers a simple and easy-to-use interface. Here, the home page shows an array of health features presented in a block and they’re easy to navigate as well. Apart from this, it lets you switch between watch faces, and play around with notifications, alarms, and other settings. The app’s mid-menu allows you to access the watch face, notifications, alarms, and other settings.

To note, the Pebble Cosmos also supports continuous temperature and heart rate tracking but those stats are available on the app only, and not on the smartwatch. Interestingly, continuous temperature and heart rate monitoring, in this case, means half-hourly tracking only.

Health, Fitness Tracking

Heart rate, SpOs, sleep monitoring
Body temperature, blood pressure
8 different activity modes

Okay, let’s now talk about the remaining features of this smartwatch. As expected from a budget device, the Pebble Cosmos misses out on voice assistant but it makes up for this in terms of health and fitness tracking abilities.

App Readings

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To begin with, this watch can log up to 8 different activities including walking, cycling, football, swimming, etc. Its IP67 certification means the smartwatch is safe for both: pool and open water swims. While things like step tracking and heart rate monitoring are obviously present here, the Pebble Cosmos can record your body temperature, blood oxygen level, and even your blood pressure.

Compared to infrared thermometers, the body temperature numbers from these two devices are impressively close. Furthermore, it can also take your blood pressure readings but considering its budget nature, lack of validation from any medical association, and a myriad of other factors, I wouldn’t count on it.

The calling watch

The Pebble Cosmos has one more perk up its sleeve, which is the ability to make or receive a call from the watch itself. Yep. Like I mentioned earlier, this smartwatch has a built-in microphone as well as a speaker. And unless you’re in a crowded environment, the audio from the speakers is quite loud and clear. But remember, the watch needs to be within the Bluetooth range of your smartphone to be able to enjoy this feature.

Moreover, the watch can store 8 of your favorite contacts, although you’ll have to manually set it via the Da Fit app. If that’s simply not enough, there’s a built-in dial pad to type in the desired number and make a call as well. While this is an excellent feature to have on a budget smartwatch, this might not be that exciting to those who’re not fond of talking over a speakerphone in the first place.

Battery

230mAh cell, magnetic charging

Getting to the battery, the Pebble Cosmos keeps up with the competition. This smartwatch comes with a 230mAh cell with a claimed battery life of a little over 15 days. But I was disappointed to find its endurance to be almost half of the company’s claims. I was able to get around 6-7 days of battery life by triggering all the features such as the continuous heart rate and temperature monitoring.

Battery

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Charging this watch is a breeze though. Using the 2-pin magnetic connector, the watch can fully juice up in about two and a half hours.

Pebble Cosmos Review: Conclusion

Wrapping up this review, if you’re someone who is looking for a budget smartwatch that comes with a few headlining features like phone calls, body temperature measurement, and more, then the Pebble Cosmos is for you. However, you’re gonna have to live with the sub-par display quality and the overall lack of polished software.