Pebble finally started shipping their E-Paper display watch product, for iPhone and Android, on Wednesday after a four month delay.
The Pebble watch is a companion device to your smart phone and connects seamlessly via Bluetooth. The Pebble watch can show e-mail, text and Facebook messages received by the nearby smartphones.
CEO – Eric Migicovsky
Pebble’s Canadian founder and primary engineer.
The Pebble watch costs $150 and can currently only be ordered directly from getpebble.com
“Migicovsky’s company Pebble Technology launched a Kickstarter campaign on April 11, 2012, with an initial fundraising target of $100,000. Backers spending $115 would receive a Pebble when they became available ($99 for the first 200), effectively pre-ordering the $150 Pebble at a discounted price.
Within two hours of going live, the project had met the $100,000 goal. Within six days, the project had become the most funded project in the history of Kickstarter, raising over $4.7 million with 30 days left of the campaign.
On May 10, 2012, Pebble Technology announced they were limiting the number of preorders. On May 18, 2012, funding closed with $10,266,844 pledged by 68,928 people”.
The initial shipments will be made to the 85,000 backers who will be the first to receive the new devices. Pebble is aiming to produce 2,400 products per day at maximum capacity, so it will be some weeks before this backlog is cleared.
In Europe there is a small Italian company who excel in design, style and innovation called I’m Watch – LINK
Massimiliano Bertolini, a co-inventor of I’m Watch
It is a given that the “Big Boys” Sony, Apple, Google will enter the market very soon with their own connected timepieces, but for me small is beautiful. Both Pebble and I’m Watch have market leading products.
The Pebble E-Paper display is monochrome whilst the I’m Watch display is colour and has more features, for example it can show Instagram pictures.
The I’m Watch is priced at around $475 compared to the cost of a Pebble at $150. You pay extra for the I’m Watch ecosystem.
A key selection criteria for your purchase may be having a monochrome vs a colour type display.
Think Kindle vs Kindle Fire.
The start-up, design, development and deployment of the I’m Watch product suite has been funded by H-Equity in the traditional business model.
The Pebble watch is the most successful Kickstarter campaign ever and is a real “game changer” challenging existing barriers to market entry.
This People’s funding model enables small exotic boutiques to be able to release their products directly into the marketplace.
So start kicking around your new product ideas.
thisiswhatgoodlookslike 