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Last year, when Pebble announced its Time smartwatch lineup, the company showed off straps with built-in accessories that could interact with the watch body. 

"Smart Straps," the company called them, were theoretically capable of adding GPS, extra battery life and lasers for teasing your cat to the standard Pebble Time watch.

Smart Straps interface with the watch using a combination of a companion app and the magnetic charging port on the back of the watch.

Despite the company touting all of the potential just waiting to be unlocked by Smart Straps, we’ve yet to see any meaningful products emerge.

Smart Straps are real after all

Pal, which successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign, hopes to be one such meaningful product for Pebble users.

The Pal Strap has raised $124,161 on the promise of delivering a smart strap that adds GPS tracking and extended battery life to the Pebble Time lineup.

From what I can gather after using a pre-production unit, Pal seems like it will deliver on that promise — if you can get over its size, that is.

To use Pal, you’ll need to disconnect your current watch band from Pebble and snap the watch body into the Pal Strap. There aren’t any pins or convoluted attachment tools needed. Just snap it into place.

Despite using hardware that’s yet to be finalized, I didn’t have any concern about my Pebble Time falling out; Pal held it firmly in place.

Make room for GPS and a battery boost

The GPS antenna is housed just below the watch, while the external battery is located on the bottom of the strap. You can charge Pal and your Pebble watch using the standard magnetic charger.

It’s easy to see in photos just how big Pal Strap makes the standard Pebble Time watch. In order to make room for the GPS antenna, the housing now extends down over the curve of my wrist. While the top of the new housing doesn’t protrude nearly as far, the added size could be problematic for those with smaller wrists.

Adding to the overall size is the battery that’s tucked into the bottom of the strap. The battery compartment has a slight curve to it, meant to match the natural curve of your wrist.

That’s not to say that Pal is uncomfortable to wear, and with design refinements already evident in mockups for the Pebble Time 2 version the strap is sure to feel better when it begins shipping. Still, the added bulk will be too much for some. 

I struggled with putting the band on my own wrist, often requiring help from my wife to ensure it was firmly connected.

I struggled with putting the band on my own wrist, often requiring help from my wife to ensure it was firmly connected. In its current form, a traditional watch buckle is connected to the battery on the bottom of the strap. Because of this, you need to make adjustments to how tight or loose the band is before you put it on. 

On a couple of occasions, I thought I had the strap properly connected only to have it disconnect awhile later. Thankfully I was able to catch my watch before it hit the ground.

I suspect this is an issue the company has already fixed, based on a look at the latest mockups, which show a completely different mechanism on the battery compartment. The model I was sent looks as if the company took a clasp from a watch and repurposed it just to make a working model.

An app to go with a strap

Through a beta version of the Pal app on my watch, I was able to start and stop GPS tracking and control charging of my watch using the strap.

To start a GPS tracking session, you select one of three different categories and wait for the antenna to acquire a signal. Right now, that process takes up to a minute of holding your wrist just in order to point the antenna towards the sky. Once a GPS connection is established, Pal will track your run, bike ride, or walk.

Pal is working with Qualcomm, the manufacturer of the GPS chip used in the strap, to speed up the connection. Hopefully it’s something the company can figure out, as the current process takes longer than users are going to want to wait. I know I got tired of waiting.

This is the same app you use to turn the battery on or off, should your Pebble Time need a quick charge. Pal estimates the final product will pack enough juice to power your Pebble Time for another seven days.

When Pal begins shipping later this year, the company will also have a companion app for iOS and Android users. Through the app, users can view workout details such as distance and time, along with GPS routes on a map.

When I tested the GPS capabilities, I was only able to see the location indicators show up within the app — I was unable to check how accurately the strap tracked my movements due to the phone app not being available for testing.

Shipping later this year

Pal expects to begin shipping to Time backers in October, with the Pebble Time Round version shipping in December. Pebble Time 2 backers will have to wait until Feb. 2017.

Pledges currently begin at $79 for a Pal compatible with Pebble Time. 

I couldn’t see myself using Pal as my main watch band — it’s too big.

The biggest problem Pal will need to overcome is justifying the purchase of a Smart Strap by Pebble users. I couldn’t see myself using Pal as my main watch band — it’s too big. Instead, I see myself relying on it only for tracking workouts or to quickly top off my watch’s battery much in the same way I use a battery case for my phone.

Then there’s Pebble Core, the newest gadget from the company that’s entire purpose is to provide GPS tracking and music streaming to Pebble users.

For those who don’t mind the bigger footprint introduced by the Pal Strap, and are itching to gain GPS and extended battery for the Pebble Time Pal, it may be exactly what you’re looking for.

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I'm in love with an iPhone battery case. Yeah, I still can't believe it either. But hear me out.

There are tons and tons of iPhone battery cases to pick from. Last year, I highlighted the seven best ones for any situation. iPhone battery cases usually forsake form for function. After all, they exist to keep your iPhone powered up, not to make a fashion statement.

That's why Mophie's popular Juice Packs are thick and bulky. Tylt's Energi Sliding Power Case and the Boostcase are good compromises since they're two-piece battery cases, but they're still on the big side.

The closest "slim" iPhone battery case is Apple's own Smart Battery Case. While it's not nearly as chunky as some others, the battery bump made the company the butt of a million online jokes. Critics and fans slammed Apple for losing its design chops with such an ugly accessory.

The Air Case by Innoant, and currently crowdfunding on Indiegogo, is quite possibly the best battery case I've ever used that balances thinness and power.

I've been testing this ultra-thin battery case — the world's thinnest according to the company, as it's a hair thinner than the ThinCharge — for the past week and I didn't once feel the urge to take it off.

With the Air Case on my iPhone 6, it only adds an extra 0.15 inch of thickness. That's thinner than some regular iPhone cases. With other battery cases, you're looking at adding two to three times the thickness of the Air Case and some significant height as well.

The Air Case for the iPhone 6 and 6S has a 2,400 milliamp-hour battery (mAh) — the Air Case for the iPhone 6+ and 6S+ has a larger 2,800 mAh battery — inside its super-slim design. The case holds 1.3x a full charge for an iPhone 6.

The case can charge an iPhone 6 1.3x.

It's not quite the 2x Innoants advertises on its Indiegogo page, but it was more than adequate for even my heaviest usage days.

The Mophie Juice Pack Air has a higher 2,750 mAh capacity battery and the Tylt Energi Sliding Power Case has an even larger 3,200 mAh battery capable of charging an iPhone 6 about 1.5x and 1.75x. Apple's Smart Battery Case has the smallest battery: 1,877 mAh, or just enough for an extra full charge with very little left over.

Again, the tradeoff for the larger batteries is the extra thickness and weight.

I'm not writing off the benefits of battery cases with higher-capacity batteries, but I think if I, a power user, can get through 16-20 hours of heavy iPhone usage with the Air Case as a lifeline, then most people will be able to, too. 

Obviously, if you're Snapchatting (the app is a notorious battery guzzler) or literally using it non-stop, a larger battery case is more useful and pocket-ability is probably not as high on your checklist. For the very, very active iPhone user, a higher-capacity case is probably called for. But that is, if you'll excuse the pun, an extreme case.

Putting on the Air Case is easy. Pop the metal frame over your iPhone and then slide the slim battery through the frame's rails. That's all there is to it.

There's a button on the back. Press it once and it'll illuminate the LED indicator to its right, letting you see at a glance how much power the battery case has left. Press and hold the button and it'll start charging your iPhone; to disable the charging, press and hold the button once more. 

The case also has another nice feature many other battery cases don't: Lightning port pass-through, which means you can charge the case and the phone at the same time, via a single cable. The Mophie Juice Packs and Tylt's Energi case both plug into the iPhone's Lightning port, but they charge through the Micro USB port, which means you'll need another cable. 

The pass-through Lightning port also means it'll play nicely with charging docks like Twelve South's adjustable Hi-Rise; no need to remove the case at all.

The metal frame recesses the headphone jack a little but not as much as other battery cases. Apple EarPods will still fit perfectly, but the enclosure around my OnePlus Icon earbuds' jack are just a millimeter to thick. It's something to be mindful of, or just go with Bluetooth headphones.

I don't normally nerd out about iPhone accessories, let alone a battery case. But color me impressed with the Air Case. The case is going for $39 for early backers on Indiegogo, but once those run out, it'll cost $49. It's supposed to come out in July.

Like the company says, the Air Case is the battery case Apple should have created. If I was running Apple, I'd buy Innoants and rebadge this baby as an official Apple product.

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