Pebble E-Paper Watch concept attracts two million dollars of interest
You may or may not have heard of Kickstarter; for those who haven’t, it’s a website where entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas on the internet, looking for funding to take those ideas into commercial production. Many successful projects have turned into worldwide hits such as the Lunatik iPod nano watch case, but the Pebble watch threatens to send even that into the background, as it is currently the highest funded project ever by over half a million dollars. Despite setting out for a target of $100,000, they surpassed that in well under 48 hours and are now sitting at a cool two million, still with 35 days to go.
The Pebble watch was born out of Palo Alto, which carries on from their previous product, the inPulse, and is similar to the MOTOACTV or Sony Smart Watch. Of course, the Pebble does the expected smartwatch things – it connects to your iPhone or Android smartphone via Bluetooth 2.1, alerting you via the vibrating motor to new texts, email, calls etc.
The Pebble promises two key differences however which drastically improves the practicality of using a smartwatch on a daily basis. The first is the E-Ink display – not only is it very readable in sunlight, it is also super power efficient, allowing a claimed 7+ days of battery life. The second is the open nature of the software – a free SDK allows anyone to develop and distribute their own watch faces and apps for the Pebble such as everything from a simple stopwatch to a GPS powered Golf Rangefinder.
This all sounds mighty exciting to me, and you can join myself and the other 14,383 (and counting) backers and their $2,000,053 (and counting) by pledging cash here in return for a black, white, or red Pebble watch (or a hundred!) due for delivery in September.
Post by: Vince
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