iPhone Compatible 'Pebble' Wristwatch Tallies Nearly $4 Million in Kickstarter Presales

[MacRumors]

Kickstarter is a popular place for wild ideas to gain some traction, but sometimes an idea clicks with so many people it's possible to wonder why no one thought of it before. Such is the case with the Pebble digital wristwatch.

It uses an e-paper display, similar to the screen on the Amazon Kindle, and connects to the iPhone (and Android devices) via Bluetooth. Pebble uses vibrating alerts to tell the wearer of incoming calls, emails, calendar alerts, Facebook and Twitter messages, weather alerts and more. It also has an extensive SDK for developers and its own "Pebble watchapp store". It will also be waterproof enough to swim with, but it will not be a dive watch.

The company behind the watch even has experience with smart watches. Pebble has been making a BlackBerry-compatible watch called the inPulse, and is a graduate of the Y Combinator startup incubator. It has now received pledges for $3.8 million from 26,500 backers on Kickstarter for a watch that will retail somewhere around $150 when it goes on sale this fall.

An article by Bloomberg notes that Kickstarter wasn't Pebble's first choice for raising funds. He tried to raise money via traditional venture capital firms, but "few investors were interested in betting on a hardware startup, or dealing with the headaches that often come with manufacturing goods." However, Kickstarter seems to have worked out very well. The watch is the most funded Kickstarter project ever.

Pebble told MacRumors that it's treating Kickstarter as a discounted pre-order mechanism, and once the funding period closes in a month it will continue taking orders on its website. US buyers can preorder a Jet Black Pebble watch via Kickstarter for $115, while foreign buyers will pay slightly more to cover shipping.

Update: Pebble has now passed the $4 million mark.

Article Link: iPhone Compatible 'Pebble' Wristwatch Tallies Nearly $4 Million in Kickstarter Presales

[Menopause]

Nice idea. But with Bluetooth on all the time I think you could safely say goodbye to your battery.

[jlgolson]

Originally Posted by Menopause

Nice idea. But with Bluetooth on all the time I think you could safely say goodbye to your battery.

They say the battery will last around a week.

[ellsworth]

Cool... E-Paper!

[torroa]

The 21st century answer to the 80´s calculator watch...just as nerdy ,)

[shareef777]

Originally Posted by Menopause

Nice idea. But with Bluetooth on all the time I think you could safely say goodbye to your battery.

I have bluetooth on all the time (paired to my headset). Has barely impacted battery life (I'd say 2-3% thru the whole day). I would of thought that this watch would use the BT 4.0 built-in to the 4S which would draw even less power.

[crisss1205]

Originally Posted by jlgolson

They say the battery will last around a week.

I think he was talking about the phone.

----------

Originally Posted by Menopause

Nice idea. But with Bluetooth on all the time I think you could safely say goodbye to your battery.

I always have bluetooth on during the weekends when I am home driving around, battery lasts the same.

[Menopause]

Originally Posted by jlgolson

They say the battery will last around a week.

I was talking about the battery of your iPhone.

----------

Originally Posted by shareef777

I have bluetooth on all the time (paired to my headset). Has barely impacted battery life (I'd say 2-3% thru the whole day). I would of thought that this watch would use the BT 4.0 built-in to the 4S which would draw even less power.

Yes, precisely so. If it were BT 4.0, I'd be a happy camper.

[damir00]

The phone - iPhone, Android or otherwise - is destined to disappear as a distinct, physical object.

It's only a matter of time.

[Cougarcat]

Really excited for this (and I don't consider myself a watch person.) Got in the $99 too!

Originally Posted by jlgolson

They say the battery will last around a week.

I think he means on your iPhone. They claim it'll take a 5-10% hit. I'm hoping that they'll announce BT 4, which would help in that area.

[Fraaaa]

Want.

[srxtr]

Great concept, but as someone already said, bad for iPhone battery

[coder12]

Originally Posted by Menopause

Nice idea. But with Bluetooth on all the time I think you could safely say goodbye to your battery.

I have a bluetooth watch right now and it really doesn't drain the battery from my phone or itself very quickly.

On the other side of things, I really enjoy the idea of having an eInk display--I'm going to be keeping a close eye on this watch and see what people say about the initial batch of them.

[verniesgarden]

4 million dollars, the company is already successful without even shipping a product.

[apolloa]

Hahaha, where have you been Mac Rumors? This has been all over the news for day's now, well the fact the team set a target of $100,000 which was met in 2 hours grabbed attention.

The watch is fully waterproof, it uses an Arm 3 I think CPU. It is designed to work with your watch but also go to the internet through it for services. Pretty cool, I got my pledge in the other day.

Heres the video from the Kickstarters website:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FdaCxMcw_Y

Info taken from the Kickstarters website:


If you need to stay on top of things, Pebble can help with vibrating notifications, messages and alerts. Dismiss a notification with a shake of your wrist. Don't worry, it's easy to disable all notifications.

Incoming Caller ID
Email (Gmail or any IMAP email account)
Calendar Alerts
Facebook Messages
Twitter
Weather Alerts
Silent vibrating alarm and timer
Android users can also receive Text Messages (SMS) on their Pebble. Unfortunately iPhone does not expose this data. Have any suggestions for other notification types? Leave us a message in the comments!



Want your watch to tell you when your next bus is leaving? Maybe you're jonesing to see your compile status or recent github commits.. Think push notifications, directly to your watch using the data connection on your phone. Want to check-in on your watch, or create an app that can monitor your sleep? Pebble can send data from the accelerometer and buttons back up to the internet.

Pebble can receive simple alerts and notifications from if this then that (ifttt.com) or our web-facing RESTful endpoint. More adventurous developers can use the Pebble SDK, with its Arduino-like abstractions and simple C structure, to gain full control of the watch. Multiple apps can run on Pebble, along side watchfaces and regular notifications.

Load apps using Bluetooth
144 x 168 pixel display black and white e-paper
Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR
4 buttons
Vibrating motor
3 axis accelerometer with gesture detection
Distribute apps via Pebble watchapp store
Detailed SDK specs are available on our Pebble Dev Blog.

How does it work?

Pebble connects by Bluetooth to your iPhone or Android device. Setting up Pebble is as easy as downloading the Pebble app onto your phone. All software updates are wirelessly transmitted to your Pebble.

Compatibility

iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S running iOS 5 or any iPod Touch with iOS 5.
Android devices running OS 2.3 and up. Works great with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)!
Unfortunately Pebble does not work with Blackberry, Windows Phone 7, or Palm phones at this time.


here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...ne-and-android




Oh and if you want the watch, then go and pledge $115 minimum and they will send you a black one, more for colours or a voters choice colour model.You can even get a pack of 100 for $10,000.

[Michael Scrip]

Originally Posted by srxtr

Great concept, but as someone already said, bad for iPhone battery

So do you open Settings... General... Bluetooth... Bluetooth ON...... and then put on your headset to take a call?

[pubwvj]

Originally Posted by verniesgarden

4 million dollars, the company is already successful without even shipping a product.

Not really. They still have to produce and ship the products. That isn't $4Million in their pocket. That is gross pre-sales.

[troop231]

I would buy this instantly if I could get the iPhone's text notifications on it As mentioned above, texts work only for Android. This would be the feature I would want to buy this.

[d4rkc4sm]

atrocious writing

[gnasher729]

From "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy":

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.


Somehow this just sprang to my mind when I saw this ugly thing.

[c14nhl]

I was ready to pledge until I seen the text message isn't compatible with iPhone! Gutted. That was my main reason for thinking about it.

I'll wait until that's sorted, if it can be.

[apolloa]

hahaha, someone voted my post down already? What you mad it doesn't have a fruit logo on it or something?
The iOS SMS thing is also because of Apple, not the Pebble team. Apple won't let you have access for SMS like Android will. Maybe in iOS 6 but I doubt it. Really don't know what Apple has against products like this being able to alert you to an SMS.

[billchase2]

I've got my pledge in and cannot wait for it to arrive this fall!

[b11051973]

I think this is cool. I remember reading about this type of thing when reading an article on Bluetooth 4.0.

I will wait for version 2.0 of something like this.

[frunkis54]

Originally Posted by c14nhl

I was ready to pledge until I seen the text message isn't compatible with iPhone! Gutted. That was my main reason for thinking about it.

I'll wait until that's sorted, if it can be.

text notification is supported. iphone doesn't support sending the actual text. very few phones support that.

and you will notice the battery drop on your iphone. I use to use a Bodybug to watch my calories and it connected to my iphone via bluetooth and it was very noticable when it was connected from when it wasn't.