With a GPS (GNSS) receiver on the watch you can get instant position and speed data without having to maintain a stable Bluetooth connection to the phone. Some athletes prefer to record activities on a watch without having to bring a phone. And in certain races, such as most sanctioned triathlons, phones aren't allowed on the course at all.

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bcraven 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Sounds like a use case for a fitness watch, not a Pebble.

	▲	crispinb 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Or to put it another way: a Pebble would cover more uses with a GPS. They're clearly not expensive nor necessarily profligate with battery. My now 5 year old Amazfit bip, which was cheap as chips, still gets 3 weeks of battery life with a daily gps-mapped run.