Pebble Smartwatch Is Coming To Best Buy On July 7 For $149.95
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Now it's getting panned for being nothing but a vibrating e-ink backlit display with buttons and customizable watch face options and a battery that could go a week between charges. Go figure.
I backed them on Kickstarter and got a black watch in the mail a couple months ago. I was surprised that it doesn't show me every notification by default, but somebody made a Pebble Notifier app to fill in the gaps there. Other than that, it fulfilled every expectation I had when I backed it, and I love the convenience of checking my notifications without having to pull my phone out of my pocket. The music controls are a pretty nifty feature I use often, too.
It sucks that they don't have their color options available yet, I don't know what their excuse is for that, but if they've worked all the kinks out in producing the black model then why shouldn't they get that on retail shelves as soon as possible?
I mean, the reason Kickstarter exists is so we regular consumers can recognize a company's potential and help them succeed, and now that this company is on the road to success we're going to get out our torches and pitchforks because they're struggling to ship certain variations of the product? I am flabbergasted at the entitlement some people feel, such that they think this company should run themselves into the ground financially just because they didn't get their special-colored watch yet.
I have not changed my opinion since that time. I think the thing is that the number of people that didn't back it far outnumber the number of people that did back it. Now the non-backers are saying, "I still don't get why I'd want this."
It's not an e-ink display!
Unlike true e-ink it won't retain its state while unpowered but it does require incredibly low power for operation (tens of microwatts). They are commercially available components: http://www.sharpmemorylcd.com/
There's nothing really to "go figure", its just different people being selectively vocal in their support/dismissal.
This news makes me very disappointed in the company's handling of their KickStarter campaign.
I backed their KickStarter campaign and ordered a white Pebble in May of last year, and I still haven't received it. So if I understand correctly, someone who walks into Best Buy next week will get a Pebble before I do?
While I understand the desire to stay out in front of Apple, Sony, and any other companies who may enter the smartwatch market, as one of the people who funded and helped make the Pebble possible, I am disappointed at how this was handled. The whole experience will make me think twice about backing KS campaigns in the future.
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SmartWatchesAreFinallyGoingToH...
I'd even pay S&H...
Assuming you opted for a colour other than black, you should still get it before the general public does.
Not to mention the original timeline called for the watches to start shipping in Sep 2012.
I can appreciate that the folks at Pebble are doing their damndest, but there's no other way to cut it: this product has been extremely late across nearly all of its milestones.
To be fair, they're one of the few hardware Kickstarters to actually even ship something that closely resembles the original pitch. Their feedback to backers through the delays has also been noteworthy - though it's been disappointing that once Pebble hit the big-times the backers that are still hanging on have been left mostly out of the loop.
Despite Kickstarter's protestations, hardware kickstarters have been de facto preorders. The expectations here are vastly different than "I've never done this before, help me do this".
Kickstarter introduced the "risks and challenges" section after some particularly infamous failures. This section is still routinely glossed over, and project owners continue to project authority and confidence, even if in reality the "I have no idea what I'm doing" meme dog is more appropriate.
I do not back hardware kickstarters as a rule. I backed Pebble because I knew the founder, and knew that he has a track record delivering hardware - and for the most part this has held true. Hardware Kickstarters that are later or failing to deliver anything resembling the original pitch are depressingly common.
Pebble can't be fairly singled out here, this is a huge problem with crowdfunding hardware projects in general.
> "And, as you mentioned, they've been surprisingly open about all their problems throughout the process."
The bulk of the process complaints here have been from color backers (I was one, until I switched to black), and that's telling. The Pebble team was extremely on top of the ball prior to the black watches shipping out. Lots of detailed updates about where they are and what the expected schedule is.
Personally I was completely nonplussed by the various delays because of how transparent they were.
Then the black watches shipped out and the color backers were forgotten. There was a vague "after the black watches", and a lot of silence. There was more silence until the color backers suddenly found out that color Pebbles were in trouble and there was an option to switch.
A lot of color backers - and from this thread I'm obviously not the only one - were left in the lurch. There was no timeline for anything except "late" - and in the mean time there were big announcements about the SDK, RunKeeper, and other software stack progress, with nothing for other backers.
I have zero doubt that Pebble is working as hard as they can to fulfill the rest of their orders, but looking in from the outside, it's hard for color backers to feel anything but forgotten. The frustration at the Best Buy news I don't think comes from some entitled "I should get it before everyone else" mentality, but rather annoyance at every piece of news from the company, for months on end, not address their chief concern ("where is my watch").
If the updates on color manufacturing was even half as frequent and detailed as the pre-launch updates, this whole thing would be a non-issue, even if color backers still don't have their watches.
I hear this all the time, but from day one on KickStarter, it's made it clear what it was about (and this was before the Pebble KS). So, I keep hearing this, but I can't find any sympathy for the backers that complain about it.
> This section is still routinely glossed over,
I imagine most of it is glossed over by the backers. =)
I disagree heavily. There's never any honesty in this section - the thought that maybe, just maybe, this project can't be delivered at all, is never brought up.
This section is the Kickstarter equivalent of "what's your greatest weakness", where project owners do their best to downplay actual risks or not mention them at all. It's the place where you admit to your most softball, most mitigable risk and leave everything else behind the curtain.
If there were any honesty in this section at all, "none of us have manufactured anything before" would be top, in bold, in many of them.
> "but from day one on KickStarter, it's made it clear what it was about"
Who's making it clear though? It's obvious that Kickstarter themselves would rather be a funding machine than a preorder machine - but look at hardware kickstarters. Project owners routinely position their campaigns as presales or preorders, not simple crowdfunding.
The difference is more stark if you look at arts category kickstarters, where the reward tiers, as well as the language used, is much more obviously "support us and get a gift in return". Hardware kickstarters are, almost without fail, "come buy this thing".
In the hardware category at least, project owners have an opposing conflict of interest with Kickstarter.
That's the inherent nature of KS. Does it really need to be brought up time and time again?
> Who's making it clear though?
KickStarter. The wording they use (pledges), funding, and even the warning on their payment page. Even on the main project pages, even the rewards aren't a promise. Hell, even the date isn't a promise.
So, what more can they do?
Hell, even you assert that the backers read through everything!
> I disagree heavily.
If this were the case, then people wouldn't be confused about what KickStarter is.
Sorry, but every time I see a complain like this come out, it's always based on fantasies and delusions. Not reality.
While I can understand your frustration whether they sell black Pebbles to Best Buy or not makes little difference to when coloured ones ship since they go through a different molding process.
In this case someone is getting a Black Pebble before they get a White Pebble. If they wanted a Black Pebble they could have had that.
The reverse is to say they'll be one of the first with a White Pebble while the plebeians are stuck with black and red.
Do I absolutely need my Pebble? Heck no. Does it make some things simpler? Yep.
To me, I funded a neat middle-step in wearable computing.
One of the things I particularly like is that it allows me to have the sound turned off on my phone all the time, and still notice when its going off because my watch vibrates. The Runkeeper integration has been nice as well, previously when running I wore my phone on a truly ridiculous arm band, while now I can throw it in my bag and not have it getting in the way.
I'm not sure I would have paid full price for one, but at the reduced Kickstarter price it was definitely worth it for me.
It's also very coworker friendly since I can have my phone on mute all the time.
Overall it's a nice toy, not a life changer.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/secretlabs/agent-the-wor...
I get 60 minute and 10 minute reminders for upcoming meetings by way of SMS, which then shows up on my Pebble.
I've been using the 60/10 minute reminders through Google Calendar for over a year now, but the Pebble has really made that feature a killer feature for me. Previously, I'd run the risk of my phone being on silent and missing the reminder. Now I get discrete reminders on my wrist.
- I have a pomodoro app to keep track of time I spend on tasks - I have a stopwatch/lap counter app for keeping track of my lap swimming - I use the runkeeper app which displays my pace/time/distance on my Pebble while I run. - quick calculator for the times I don't want to whip my phone out.
I feel it go off on my wrist even if I'm blasting down a hill and can't hear the ringer, nor feel the vibration within my thick jacket.
* Switching music while in the shower / while hosting parties
* Runkeeper for cycling
* I have pushover setup for any important server issues / growl notifications / iffit stuff to send to my watch (best imo is I get a message every morning when my alarm goes off telling me what the weather will be for the day)
* 7 Min workout app is pretty cool
* Tetris app if i'm bored
But its really great for meetings so I can see if I actually need to look at my phone or not to pickup a call / respond to texts
I love the thing
I originally backed an Artic White Pebble on Kickstarter, they had issues, I switched to Black. And they sent me a watch without a Kickstarter stamp. As an apology I'm supposedly getting a sweat band - what?
Their entire operation has been mistake after mistake. And to be honest, that's no excuse for a company who has prior experience.
The leaders of the project lack the most prosaic communication skills. Hopefully their recent investor infusion will get them to hire someone who does.
That thing is really ugly.
Progress doesn't necessarily start at the top.
http://gizmodo.com/this-so-nerdy-its-cool-calculator-watch-i...