More than $10m (£6.4m) of smartwatch orders made in just two days
Pebble is well on its way to regaining its crown as king of Kickstarter.
Just two days after the company’s new Pebble Time smartwatch was revealed on the crowdfunding website, more than $10m (£6.4m) of orders have been made.
The funding total has already eclipsed the total amount raised for the original Pebble smartwatch, which attracted $10.2m (£6.6m) in around five weeks.
And it’s got 29 days of its campaign still to go.
At the time of writing, Pebble Time has amassed $10.5m (£6.8m) of funding, leaving it almost certain to break the record for the most funding achieved in a single campaign. That record was set last year by the Coolest Cooler – a coolbox with built-in blender that was funded to the tune of $13.2m (£8.6m). (Yep, people buy strange things on Kickstarter.)
Pebble had set a crowdfunding target of $500,000 for its new watch – a figure that was obliterated within minutes of the product going online.
So what’s all the fuss about? Pebble Time is a smartwatch which features a colour e-paper screen and, the company says, a battery that will last for up to seven days on a single charge.
It also has a microphone, so that people can respond to text messages and emails, or create notes, without having to get their smartphone out of their pocket.
The new watch has a different interface to its predecessor, with the Pebble Time’s functions based around a timeline concept. Important information from the user’s apps is presented in chronological order on the watch face, with three buttons taking the user through past, present and future information. A typical timeline might, for instance, display the football scores from last night, a reminder for an imminent meeting and a forecast for the weather tomorrow. App creators will be able to pin events into users’ timelines.
The Pebble Time is 20% thinner than the original Pebble, waterproof and comes in a choice of three colours: red, black and white. Early backers will have their watches sent out to them in May, although if you’ve missed out so far you can still buy single watches for $179 (£116) that will be shipped in June. The watch will eventually sell for $199 (£129).
