Pebble (YC W11) sells 400,000 smart watches in its first year | Hacker News Reader

Pebble (YC W11) sells 400,000 smart watches in its first year

siliconrepublic.com

46 pointsyesplorer42 comments

Last week I received my second Pebble, one of the new Pebble Steel watches. I'm very happy with it, and it always generates some questions.

I usually describe it as the same feeling as using the Nokia N95 back in the day; it's obvious the category is the future, but someone else will probably make a smoother version of it in a couple of years (iPhone in Nokia's case, who knows in regards to Pebble).

But just getting push notifications from Google Maps on your wrist when walking around a new city is pretty amazing and feels like living in the future, without having to wear a dorky Google Glass.

I wish I could say the same thing about my Pebble. It constantly disconnects from my phone and Pebble's support take 5+ days to respond with boilerplate.

Right now it's an overpriced plastic non-smart watch that I have to charge every four days.

Which phone are you using? I haven't experienced any issues like that with my iPhone 5S. Charging is a pain, but I've given up trying to make it last multiple days and just started charging it every night when I plug in my phone.

I'm using an iPhone 5.

I don't really have a problem with charging, it's just that it doesn't offer any advantages over a normal digital watch right now and it still has to be charged every few days.

I've tried a lot of things to get it to behave and at this point I'm pretty sure my Pebble is broken. I would seek an RMA but Pebble support is like a brick wall.

I only need to charge mine once a week.

I occasionally have this issue; seems like a firmware bug to me. Doing nothing else but turning off the Pebble for a few minutes and then turning it back on resolves it for me. Anything else (cycling bluetooth on phone, the pebble, etc) doesn't help. Rebooting it in this way usually gives me a week of uninterrupted connectivity. I'm an iPhone 5 user.

I ordered early February and mine still hasn't shipped.

Same here, I am not happy with the way they changed the delivery dates after I ordered or how they changed the status of my order to "backordered" without notifying me at all.

The text on the website also changed from "ships in order of availability" to "6-8 weeks from purchase date."

8 weeks is a pretty fancy way to say "two months."

Have been consistently impressed with the way these guys have iterated on the developer experience as well. The first version of the SDK was completely usable although admittedly limited in what you could do with it.

We worked with them for a while before the official release of the V2 SDK to put together the first automatic swimming lap tracker for Pebble [1] and they were incredibly responsive and helpful when we ran into issues with it. They'd clearly put a lot of thought based on the V1 feedback into how to make it a better platform for developers to work with.

I think it's underestimated just how much work from such a small team must have gone into getting a the developer experience as good as it is, only a year after launch.

[1]http://www.helloswimio.com/

Congratulations to the Pebble team, I'm a big fan and have a app on their store[1].

But the store needs some improvement:

* Paid apps are not allowed

* Sections default to the recently updated list which is encouraging frivolous updates to apps

* Developer support requests can take several weeks

None of these problems will stop me from developing apps for the Pebble platform. I just hope they are at least thinking about app store discoverability issues.

[1] http://wristpresenter.com/

Neat app. My first thought was to put IAPs in the iOS app that controls the pebble, and use IAPs to configure what the pebble application is able to do.

I don't know if I wear watches than everyone else differently, but I tend to leave mine on all night. Pebble has alarms that are silent, which is great, but it didn't have the ability to turn off notifications during a period of time. I'd get woken up by my phone more often than I would the alarm, so I stopped wearing it to bed.

I loved the ability to get notifications on my wrist, but in practice it produced mix results too: the default app on Android only supported a fraction of the services I use, so I had to use alternative apps just to push notifications to it. Then, it became a guessing game for what should or shouldn't make my wrist vibrate.

Still, kudos to Pebble for being successful post-Kickstarter and selling a lot. 400,000 units is nothing to laugh at for a project that started out small.

You can turn off notifications during the night: go to settings, Notifications, and set "Do Not Disturb" time.

Ooh, must be a new setting! How could I have missed that? Thanks!

My bet is still on Apple creating THE device to collect data. I don't think it will be a watch in the same way we think of these "watch" devices today.

They are probably the ones best suited to make a great product, combined with the iPhone/iPad. They could benefit from owning both platforms in a way that even Google can't with Android.

I might be overestimating Apple's abilities sans Jobs, but in an amazing coincidence, this is a category where Cook has deep personal experience and connections. He might be the perfect target user for this product, much like Steve was for everything that came before it.

I agree. This is the reason I'm going to try and get into WWDC this year. I doubt they show hardware, but I bet we'll get first access at APIs and design guidelines.

Disagree on this. The first thing Apple ever shows is hardware.

I like the Pebble guys from what I see of them, but I can't help but feel that Pebble will go down as a textbook example of first mover advantage being short-lived.

Fundamentally there is nothing compelling about the technology or the design other than the fact that they are sort-of first to the market.

Tablets make sense to me as a post-PC device. So far I haven't seen anything that makes me understand why I'd want something on my wrist telling me about the emails in my pocket.

I agreed with your comment until I realized it was critique against smartwatches in general. I'm very happy with my smartwatch and can't imagine a life without it.

I am a big fan of my Pebble and I could extoll its virtues in many ways but I'll just point out one in reference to your last statement "...in my pocket"

In my opinion that's exactly the point. First off when I'm working on-site I don't want to pull out my phone every time it chimes at me to see what the email or text was. When it alerts dozens of times a day you quickly learn the advantage of a quick wrist glance vs. pulling it out and unlocking it over and over.

Next, in meetings it's wonderful. I put the phone on complete silent and I get a small vibe on my wrist that I can assess with a glance.

And lastly, I find it highly useful when it's not in my pocket. Around the house I don't want to carry my phone, so I wear the Pebble. It will alert me for texts or email, despite the phone being upstairs.

When I first got it I was very much in the "gimmick" camp... but 6 months in now I am fully convinced that some form of wearable notifications are something I will want. I'm excited to see where it all heads. The new Pebble 2.0 has expanded the use a lot with the new apps, but I also wonder if Pebble is about to be steamrollered by the "big guys" like Google's new wearable line. I won't tell anyone to go jump on-board just yet, but my experiences already have convinced me that this is going to become a very common device category in the near future. Especially as it matures.

I'm curious what percentage of smart watch wearers, having sported one for a while, view their devices as essential to having them on their person every single day. Did the anticipated use cases map with reality? Execution-wise I see a lot of complaints, but I wonder how much of what they're getting right is still "wrong".

Watches have ceased to have real use in modern society? For most people (or rather me and my immediate society at least), a watch is now a piece of jewelry.

A pebble is thus more of a want than a need.

Different strokes etc. I suspect that it is partially an age thing. I've always worn a watch and like being able to glance at my wrist casually and see the time--and it's just a cheap digital Timex, nothing jewelry-like. (And, in general, I hate jewelry; a watch is the only thing I wear.)

I don't know if I would call it essential, but it is very nice. When I was debating to purchase one, the main argument was I don't wear a watch, and I generally don't like anything on my wrist or hands. The only time I'd wear a watch is camping, since I generally don't have a phone that is powered on on camping trips. This particular watch also has a barometer to help with rapidly changing weather.

I bought a Pebble, and wear it everyday. I don't miss much of anything anymore from my phone. Sometimes I'd put my phone down somewhere and forget it for a couple of hours, or not feel it when I'd vibrate in my pocket. One of the other reasons I didn't really wear a watch is I'd get bored of the watch face and want to purchase another watch. I can change watch faces easily now.

I can definitely call it essential. There have been days when I've forgotten it at home and it's crazy how much you miss it.

I can't say it's essential to have it on the wrist every single day, but I found it nice to have. And yes, my anticipated use-case almost completely maps with reality.

Now, before I explain myself, a bit of disclaimer (apart from the obvious - I'm not a native English speaker ;) ). I like to wear a watch, taking out the phone from the pocket to check the time don't work for me. Also, for various reasons I usually can't ignore notifications from my phone (my employer is in different time zone than me, I have small kids, etc). So this is my use case, I have no doubt that other people have different expectations/needs.

The original Pebble looked too plasticky to me, Samsung watches are abominations, we all hear that Apple and Google is cooking something but v1 from Google is usually a disaster and v1 from Apple is usually pricey, shiny and pretty limited, so I ordered Pebble Steel in early January. My experience so far:

- I stopped checking the phone every now and then, especially during the conversations/meetings - if there is some notification, I'll see it on my wrist. No more "did the phone vibrated?" moments.

- Having notifications delivered to my wrist is super useful when I'm home, and the phone is not in my pocket.

- Even more useful having a smartwatch is when I'm driving - instead of pulling the phone from the pocket and trying to stay on track, I can just glance on the wrist and see is it something important or ignorable.

All of these use cases is something I anticipated, and so far I'm happy. But not everything is smooth:

- I have an iPhone, the Pebble app on iOS don't work always as expected. So I developed a habit to run the app in the morning, to prevent it to be kicked from the memory.

- Someone would expect to have basic watch functions on the watch. Pebble don't have a stopwatch, so I need to run third-party app to measure time. Which is nice, but Pebble OS don't support multitasking, so if I exit the app (accidentally or on purpose - maybe I want to check time), stopwatch stops. Same for timer applications. I would be nice if the OS have some basic hooks for such essential functionality

- Alarms are dumb. I can have working-days-only alarms on my old G-Shock, but I can't have it on smartwatch?

- Currently I can't buy a plastic/rubber/silicone wristband for my Pebble Steel (because of "smart" case design), so I can't swim with my watch.

So use-case wise you think the implementation is on point, it just needs better execution it sounds like...

I bought it just because I wanted a smaller platform to do some hobby development on but getting notifications on my wrist is really fantastic. I feel more connected but much less bothered.

It's very good for delivering information from the smartphone without having to reach in your pocket. Any notification has its text delivered to the watch. On the other hand I haven't found it to be terribly useful at taking input. Awkward buttons with awkward placement on the wrist, it's just easier to pull out the touchscreen. Still, just as a satellite screen it's really nice to have. Sure, I could technically live without it just as I could technically live without a smartphone, but I have chosen to wear mine every day for the last year or so.

I had one on for several days and then never wore it. Charging it is annoying and just using it for a phone notification pusher does not do much for me. Maybe it is the problem on me to expect 'the future is here' on a watch that is nicely executed but nowhere near future is near type. I hope there can be some great apps as they released ios/android appstore. I might change my mind and put it on again if there are some great apps along the way.

But I very much admire Pepple's hard working in its involvement with tech related events. Saw them talking and trying to let hackers write apps for them in many hackathons, and that is great. And I know they were/are talking to universities to offer discount, and that is great, too. To me that is a great example of a YC company not satisfying with its current success and keep pushing forward with determination. Way to go, pebble.

I'm curious as to what people think the future of Pebble is. Would I be a fool for buying a Pebble today with the Moto 360 right around the corner? This isn't rhetoric btw, I'm genuinely curious.

I would wait to see the price and the battery life of the Moto 360. My Pebble lasts me around 5 days. The Samsung smart watch lasts 24 hours and is much more expensive.

Moto 360 only supports Android (from what I can tell)

where pebble is compatible with everything.

although a touchscreen in a watch might be a great idea if done well.

It's really a matter of personal preference. I haven't been able to find much on the Moto 360 (they seem to be keeping a bunch under wraps(I could be looking in the wrong places though)). But I assume it has a LCD screen. Which is potentially hell for battery life. The Pebble has around a 4-5 day battery life for me. This isn't constant text messages though.

Another thing you might want to keep in mind: Moto 360 will only work on Android. This isn't a negative for most people, except for those that might want to get an iPhone in the future. Pebble works with both (for the most part (from what I've heard, I have only actually experienced the Android side)).

Archos is working on a $50 smartwatch it will release in the summer. Unless you're interested in premium products in general ,it might make sense to wait.

Mine's still processing and I bought it in January :(

mine too, and they never reply to customer service enquiries when asking for updates. Now the google watch has been announced i might hang on.

I am very disappointed with my pre-order, I bought mine mid-February when they were estimating by the end of the month and then (without even an email) they changed my order to "backorder" status and changed the delivery dates to be 6-8 weeks. My card hasn't been charged yet and I could cancel but I've been looking forward to getting one for quite some time so I probably wont.

I wonder if they'll be smart enough to hop on the Google freight train and implement Android Wear...

Kindles still sell. Maybe there's room in wearable for different form factors.

The Kindle Fire is a disaster, but the main product is still wonderful.

sold quantities, revenue figures - but no margins, no profits.

funny, this is a hardware business, not a software startup. running on losses scales up quickly as you need to pay real money for every unit you build. can't cheat costs as say whatsapp buy running lean and taking a lot of shortcuts under the hood of the product - if quality is shit people will not buy or return.

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