Today was a big day for Pebble.
Just in case you have been living under a rock and dont know who Pebble are, they made the first truly usable Smartwatch that could work on both iOS and Android. That one was also funded through a Kickstarter project and was a huge success. Since then the growth at Pebble has been exponential to the point where they are currently holding the top spot on Amazon for smartwatch sales both in the UK and the USA.
Whilst the first Pebble was good it still had a few niggles that were annoying (from what I have been told). It seemed like the Pebble faithful have been looking for the next big thing.
Well today that happened. Ironically it is not as big….. the watch that is.
The Pebble Time was launched on Kickstarter today at 3pm and in 18 minutes it achieved its goal of $500,000 to go into full production. It is now, as I write this, sitting at $4,456,189 and it is still growing at a massive rate with nearly 22,000 backers. A few of them are on the team here.
What is so special about it to garner this interest? Well let’s get the biggy out of the way. It now has a 64 colours on the still e-ink screen. This promises 7 days of battery life. This is a huge improvement and was one of the top features asked for.
Another few things added include the buttons that have got a bit shallower but are still the main controls. Also the charger port is now underneath the display and it is 20% thinner with a curve in the screen. These all combine to give a nicer feel on the wrist. The design has been addressed to make it look more like an actual watch this time around too.
Although it doesn’t have an option for steel this time around, it will have 3 different colours and it supports a 22mm strap allowing to you to use one of you own should you want to.
Here is the video from their Kickstarter page ..
They also talked about a new OS, which is the other big thing to happen today. Using the flow of time to allow control of the apps and information on the watch makes absolute sense to me and seems logical now. Unfortunately I have not tested one of these nor have I used the original, but it just seems intuitive to me and much better than Android Wear is currently.
That is all we really have for now, I am hoping that they will have some devices on stand at MWC 2015 so we can have a play. Needless to say I have backed the project and I will be getting one. I now just have to decide what colour I want!
Rest assured we will have a hands on session up as soon as possible.
Do you think this will be enough to stay the threat of the Apple Watch? We can only hope but let us know your thoughts or if you have ordered one in the comments below.