TORONTO – Pebble has returned to its crowdfunding roots, launching its new Pebble Time smartwatch on Kickstarter. The company, started by Canadian entrepreneur Eric Migicovsky, is already taking orders for the next-gen smartwatch on the crowdfunding site.
The new Pebble Time features a colour e-paper screen and is 20 per cent thinner than its predecessor, according to the company. The previous versions of Pebble only had black and white screens.
Other new features include a built-in microphone for voice activated commands and a new operating system that holds more apps than the previous version. The device’s battery will also last up to seven days on a full charge. The smartwatch comes in three colours – a black band with black stainless steel bezel, a white band with silver stainless steel bezel, or a red band with black stainless steel bezel.
Pebble has also unveiled a new operating system (OS) for the Time, which features a new Timeline interface. The Timeline shows the user notifications, weather, news and notification in chronological order – regardless of what app it came from.
The new Kickstarter campaign for the device launched at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday.
Just 17 minutes later, the project had surpassed its $500,000 funding goal.
In under 35 minutes, the campaign had raised over $1 million – that makes it the fastest project to raise $1 million on Kickstarter.
At time of publishing, the campaign had garnered over $3 million in funding.
In fact, the campaign has garnered so much attention someone created a chart to show how much money the Pebble Time had raised per second.
The original Pebble smartwatch – which Migicovsky, a former University of Waterloo student, released in 2012 – set a record on Kickstarter after raising over $10 million in funding. It remains one of the most successful Kickstarter projects in history.
The previous record holder for the fastest project to raise $1 million was Reaper Miniature Bones, a miniature gaming project, which hit $1 million in two hours and 42 minutes.
“Pebble shows no signs of slowing down — it’s clearly the fastest-funding project in Kickstarter history,” a Kickstarter spokesperson told Global News.
The “Early Bird” special for one Pebble Time at the discounted price of $159 has already sold out on Kickstarter; however, the 10,000 users that managed to buy one won’t receive the new device until May. At time of publishing the option to buy Pebble Time at the discounted price of $179 was still available.
According to the Kickstarter page, the device will retail for $199.
Pebble’s announcement comes as the highly-anticipated Apple Watch launch looms. Last week The Wall Street Journal reported Apple was gearing up for a big launch of its first wearable device, ordering as many as six million units from its suppliers.
There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the Apple Watch – but Apple has yet to announce an official launch date for the smartwatch, which was unveiled during a press event back in September.
Samsung, Motorola and Google are just some of the other companies with competing devices.
Comments