2013 was an awesome year for Pebble having sold more than 300,000 units and ending the year with news of launching a dedicated app store. One thing a lot of people wanted to see Pebble bring to the table was a more elegant looking smart watch that wasn’t made of plastic and could be worn out to important functions or wine tasting session if you will. Well it seems Pebble listened and delivered on what the people wanted as CEO Eric Migicovsky announced the Pebble Steel at the company’s press conference tonight. The Pebble Steel takes all the awesome from the original Pebble and encase’s it in a stainless steel, CNC-machined body so if elegance is your thing this $250 smartwatch may be exactly what your after.

So apart from the name the new Pebble Steel looks pretty awesome and before I go any further you should know that this isn’t replacing the original Pebble. On the hardware side of thing’s there are a few minor changes you should know about like the new charger, addition of Gorilla Glass, an anti-fingerprint coating and an LED notification light, which is used to indicate the watch is charging and I’m sure developers will be all over that. Overall other than those changes it’s still the same old waterproof  design, e-paper display and the interface and battery are identical to its younger sibling.

All the main changes are cosmetic and I cant help but love them as it gives the Pebble a less toy watch appearance. The stainless steel body looks great and Pebble have ensured it doesn’t compromise that awesome Bluetooth signal by placing a little black strip along the top of the casing which doubles as an antenna. If you are thinking about purchasing one you will be happy to know that each Steal will comes in two colours (brushed stainless and black matte) with  two wristbands, both leather and steal, a nice touch if you ask me. You also may be glad of the two included wrist bands as they are not standard bands this time round but Pebble plans to release the  design specs in a 3D printable format incase anyone wants to manufacture a few.

Firmware wise the new Steel will come with Pebble OS 2.0 built-in allowing you to take advantage of the company’s new App Store. The App Store tself looks to be huge with CEO Eric Migicovsky saying that more than 6,000 developers have submitted apps so there will be plenty of games and watchfaces to keep you entertained. Apps that are already available include ESPN, Pandora, GoPro, Yelp, Foursquare and Mercedes sand I for one am looking forward to trying out the GoPro app.

What do you think of Pebble Steel? Let us know.