If you haven’t heard of the Pebble Watch then where have you been these last 5 years! The rise of the Pebble Watch is one of the most exciting stories in the technology world in recent times. The story links together creativity, crowdfunding and awesome technology!
But what is amazing about the Pebble Watch is not just the story behind it. The Pebble Watch is one of the most exciting pieces of technology on the market today and something that any smartwatch fan needs to own. In this article we’ll answer a question that you have probably asked yourself: Should you buy a Pebble Watch?
The History of the Pebble Watch
The Pebble Watch has only been on the market for a very short piece of time, but one great reason to buy a Pebble Watch is because of the interesting history of the brand. Pebble became one of the biggest success stories on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter (before it became famous for funding a “Potato Salad”).
Eric Migicovsky came up with the original design for a watch and managed to raise $375,000 initially on his own, which wasn’t enough to bring the project to completion. Migicovsky reflected on this, telling the Los Angeles Times, “I wasn’t extremely surprised… hardware is much harder to raise money for. We were hoping we could convince some people to our vision, but it didn’t work out.”
On April the 11th 2012 the Pebble crowdfunding campaign went live asking for $100,000 to help bring the project to life. People could buy a Pebble Watch at a discounted price of $115 if they pre-ordered by pledging some money to the project – and people started to get on board very quickly. The goal was reached within two hours of going live and within six days it became the most funded project on Kickstarter, raising over $4.7 million.
By the time funding closed on the 18th of May 68,928 people had pledged to the project, with a final total of $10,266,844 raised. The first batch of Pebble watches were shipped on the 23rd of January 2013 and sales were very good. By the end of the first year 300,000 had been shipped and by the end of the second year an amazing one million had been shipped.
The popularity of the Pebble Watch led to a successor, the Pebble Time, which also received funding on Kickstarter. Once again Pebble managed to break Kickstarter records with $1 million pledged in 49 minutes and it also reached a record breaking $20.4 million when funding closed.
Should You Buy a Pebble Watch?
Over the past few years there has been a lot of talk of an upcoming “smartwatch revolution”. It’s amazing to think that the people were still waiting for a smartwatch revolution when the popularity of the Pebble watch suggests that it might have already happened! There are a lot of very good reasons why you should also jump on the bandwagon and buy a Pebble watch.
One of the great benefits to the Pebble watch collection is the wide range of styles and variants available. Different colours, shapes and features are available across the Pebble range and if you want to buy a Pebble watch, there will be a Pebble watch to suit you.
The entry level Pebble watch is available for less than £100, the Pebble steel is available for just over £100 and the Pebble Time is available at various price ranges. All of these different watches have different features and benefits which will suit different people. If you want to buy a Pebble watch then you’ll need to look at the features which are important to you.
All of the watches connect up to Android or iPhone watches running on Android 2.3 or higher and iOS 5 or higher. All you need to do is download the Pebble app from either the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. There are over 1,000 apps on the Pebble app store for you to download and install on your device. All of them include push notifications from your smartphone and all of them allow you to choose which notifications are displayed. The battery life on each is very good as well
The differences between the watches appear in a few different ways. Firstly, the Pebble and Pebble Steel have a black and white e-paper display – which is quite novel in a world where everything seems to have a full colour display. The Pebble Time still sports e-paper, but it is in colour which looks really good on the small screens. The Pebble Steel feels really nice on the wrist with its premium steel finish and leather band, while the Pebble feels a little more budget with a plastic case. The Pebble Time comes in both Classic plastic and Steel variants. There are many different colours and designs that you can find across the range including pink, black and red.
But the biggest addition to the Pebble Time is the introduction of smart straps. Pebble hope that developers will jump on board and make custom straps to add additional functionality. Potential functionality includes NFC payments and extra battery life. If this continues to take off over the next few years then the possibilities for Pebble are endless.
So, do you think you should buy a Pebble watch today? If so, then check out the collection over on the main site and see which Pebble best suits you!
Images: Romazur, Martin Hajek, Pebble Technology
