6 ms·

Pebble Raises $15 Million as Wave of Smart Watches Arrives

58 points by taylorbuley 13y ago

bane 13y ago
I'm strongly cross-dominant [1], I write left-handed and mouse right-handed (I also swing right-handed in baseball and golf, but box southpaw so go fig). As a result, I have no comfortable hand to wear a watch. In high school I got by with cheap pocket watches for awhile. But let's be honest, pocket watches are not a great fashion statement. The mas market adoption of cell-phones was great for me, since they're essentially pocket watches with a phone (and now a computer) attached. I've seen various smart watches over the years, but I inevitably fall back to "but I'd have to wear a watch". 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dominance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dominance
- mikestew 13y ago
  I do some things right-handed, some left. I manage to get along with wristwatches just fine. They're going to occasionally get in the way regardless.
  - bane 13y ago
    Yeah, it just turns out that all the things that require my wrist to be moving around on top of my desk I do with both hands. Dragging a wristwatch around gets old fast.
    - adventureloop 13y ago
      I would go as far as saying I am cross dominant, but I certainly have a weird mix in that regard. I tend to take watches off as soon as I am stationary (I've lost a few F-91W's this way). I guess you could just take the watch off when you sit down like myself. Though to refer to your original comment I don't think you are too concerned either way.
- bryantraywick 13y ago
  Wow, I'm the same and never knew it had a name. I write left-handed use use a fork with my left-hand and generally consider myself left-handed. But, I throw right-handed and swing right-handed (although I became a decent switch hitter in little league, I had more power left-handed but more accuracy right-handed). Some tasks I have trouble picking a hand and go back and forth between the two. When I bowl (which is usually only about every 5 years or so) I spend the entire time switching between both hands to find one that feels more comfortable. I also pass a tennis racket from hand to hand depending on which side the ball is on, but I play ping-pong solely with my left hand. When I first started using computers in elementary school I made a conscious effort to use the mouse with my right hand because even then I knew that every computer I came to would have the mouse on the right side. However, I usually use a laptop trackpad with my left hand. I, like you, found wrist watches uncomfortable to use. I wore one in high school and always put it on my left wrist but I had to remove it every time I sat down to write or type. I think smart watches could have some useful applications, especially when cycling as a glance-able cycle-computer paired with a ride tracking app, but I just don't think I could put up with the pain of wearing a watch every day to get any benefit from one.
  - bane 13y ago
    Yeah watches just ended up being a huge irritant to me as well. It bothered my father tremendously as he thinks not wearing a watch is a symbol of being a "layabout". But of course I always had a watch or clock on me or near me, just not a wrist watch.
micahroberson 13y ago
I still can't see myself ever wearing one of these. It's cool and all and I would love to write some custom apps for it, but its just not there yet aesthetically.
- andyjohnson0 13y ago
  In my opinion the Microsoft SPOT watches from 5+ years ago were more aesthetically pleasing than the pebble.
- marknutter 13y ago
  That is a very easy problem to solve from their standpoint. The next step after this first round of watches is to offer different styles, I'm sure.
mikestew 13y ago
It will be interesting to see what happens if rumored watches show up from larger companies. If that happens, I think Pebble is done. I have one, I like it (but I don't "love it!"). Pebble has demonstrated trouble with coordinating all of the moving pieces, from manufacturing to software and firmware. I don't fault them, it's a tough job, but their window is shrinking. At the moment they have yet to fulfill all of their Kickstarter backers, and I just don't see that happening until at least July. Those 600 "apps" the article mentions? They're just watch faces (and a few small games, I guess). Those were built with an alpha version of the watch face SDK, with the warning that your watch could be bricked if you install any of those 600 "apps". A real SDK with two-way communication with the watch is nowhere to be seen. Maybe that $15 million will allow them to get cracking on getting that SDK out the door. Without some real dev support, allowing them some real traction, I suspect they will suffer the same fate as Microsoft's SPOT watch.
- evan_ 13y ago
  The just released the two-way SDK today. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android/posts/482492 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper...
jtchang 13y ago
Pebble is in the land grab stage right now. Their primary advantage being that they are the first mover. Their #1 priority is to win the hearts and minds of their users. A successful kickstarter campaign is a good start but to create "raving fans" they need to be hyper focused in getting you to love the product. To adore it. Otherwise competition will rip them to shreds. So those of you that have a Pebble? How do you like it? Is it everything you hoped for?
- JonLim 13y ago
  I was mentioning this in the office and had someone show me their Pebble and tell me that they absolutely loved it, aside from the battery life. It seems convenient and well made, and I'm now considering getting one.
- chriswarren 13y ago
  I've had mine for a couple of weeks, using it with an iPhone, and so far it's a neat toy that doesn't do very much. I can see text messages, and I can see the phone number of the person calling me (not their name yet, though). I can control the music playing on my phone. That's about it right now. I haven't tried Runkeeper yet. I've heard that Android users can hook in to a lot more. Hopefully iOS opens up more access for other apps to send notifications to it. The feature I probably use the most is the watch itself - I don't have to pull my phone out of my pocket to check the time, and flicking my wrist to activate the backlight works really well.
  - Alphasite_ 13y ago
    It looks like there could be a lot of interesting things on the horizon: Watchfaces augmented with data from the internet Remote controls for internet connected devices Multi-player Pebble games 4sq/Facebook/Yelp Check-in Apps Sports/Weather/News/Traffic tickers Emergency beacon activator Deeper sports integration (skiing, hiking, surfing, tennis, soccer score keeping)! Bitcoin price trackers (most important watchapp?)
  - antidaily 13y ago
    Exactly what I was about to write. Went back to my Nike Fuel band almost immediately. As a watch, it's just ok. Beyond that, it just isn't that useful. And as phones continue to get thinner and lighter -- I guess I don't see the point.
Cardeck1 13y ago
I wouldn't call them first-movers because there are some companies including Nokia, Apple and Microsoft that already had a smartwatch project on hold. Plus the fact that Pebble is focusing on sports watches.The others will focus on a full-featured smarwatch.
- bvdbijl 13y ago
  They are however the first the ship, and that's what counts
  - Cardeck1 13y ago
    We will see in the near future I guess...
kailuowang 13y ago
I think a good combination might be Smart watches + Google Glass. Smart watches can provide more sophisticated input while glass provides great output and camera. I don't really see the value of a smart phone + smart watch combination.
- evan_ 13y ago
  You don't? The phone stays in your pocket and when you get notifications they go to a device that's strapped to your body- this describes Glass and Pebble. The watch and HUD both have poor res and inputs, things the phone does better. I think you'll see people using a phone+wearable a lot more frequently than two wearables.
- andrewljohnson 13y ago
  How about getting alerts on your watch, while your phone is in your pocket? Or syncing your watch with your iPad after taking a run, over bluetooth, automatically? Or talk into your watch while your phone is a camera?
andrewljohnson 13y ago
Smart Watches are on my radar. We develop a lot of GPS type apps, so this sort of platform is an easy and natural shift for us. It seems like there is a lot of uses for smartwatches, from health and fitness, to productivity and and people management. I think the watches will have a quicker start than the glasses out of the gate, and usher in the era of cyborgs. I'm not sure if there is iPhone-level of money for the first to reach the platform though. It's really PC, Internet, and iPhone sized shifts you get the most from recognizing.
roc 13y ago
Wearables ought to ditch the attempted interaction. The second I'm prodding at a watch to do more than triage notifications or cycle through a couple google-now-style 'cards', I might as well have pulled out my phone. They should focus on data collection -- which they can be awesome at; notification triage -- which they can be legitimately more-convenient for, and some security integration [1]. And if they did some NFC-triggering, that'd be cool too. Even supporting deeper interaction is going to relegate these things to 'calculator watch' territory. [1] if my watch is near my phone, phone should only require the 'simple' unlock code (or none). if watch isn't around, require the full password. also: lock my workstation when the watch 'leaves' the presence of the PC.
- marknutter 13y ago
  Whether interaction is required is entirely up to the person developing the app.
  - roc 13y ago
    Having the capability and giving people enough rope to hang themselves is one thing. Just don't try to sell it that way. And for goodness' sake, don't implement the core functionality that way.
- rhplus 13y ago
  You'd need some pretty hefty antennas to trigger NFC tags at the range of watch-to-phone or watch-to-computer (say 1 to 2 metres max). Most NFC readers operate around a couple cm, maybe 10cm max. Your computer would lock every time you sipped your coffee :-( The general idea is great though. I'm not sure what the right proximity tech would be. Someone else can no doubt chime in. Bluetooth would be overkill, NFC not enough.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - jessriedel 13y ago
    Is there one can't just use Bluetooth instead of NFC? Does the power consumption get bad?
kirillzubovsky 13y ago
It's funny right, there was a time when investors didn't think smart watches were going to be of any interest to anyone; that was just a few years ago. This is really the difference between a visionary entrepreneur and the rest. Congrats Eric and the team, great job and looking forward to see what's to come. Pebble glasses, perhaps ?
salimmadjd 13y ago
They raised from CRV. George Zachary is one of the best VC guys in the valley. No matter what, he always replies to your email. You'll get a reply from him which might come 1-2 weeks later on Sunday midnight. Which means he is working all the time and tries to respond to everyone! Big congrats to the Pebble team from starting a whole new market segment with their vision starting from the kickstarter till the closing the round to all the stuff that they'll be doing in the future!
rdl 13y ago
I got a pebble to try to build a specific app: electronic leash (using bt 4.0le) to a phone and/or laptop. It's pretty easy to do electronic leash of a Mac laptop (or Linux, or Windows) using an iPhone; hard to do for the iPhone/iPad alone due to Apple. Presumably feasible to do on Android, but most hardware still seems to lack 4.0le, which would kill battery. Wouldn't wear it as my watch in general. It's really "tall" (not thick, not wide) -- I have decent-sized wrists, and the watch still bumps against stuff more than what I wear otherwise. I really prefer metal-cased watches with deployment clasps and tritium gtls, too, which would be difficult to Pebble-ify. The pebble is really well made for a kickstarter'd consumer electronics device, and well made for any non-Apple consumer device in general, but it's still not quite a $100+ wristwatch mechanically or aesthetically. Otherwise, the "show a notification" thing is interesting, but I can feel my iPhone vibrating in my pocket, so if I have a way to tune notifications (like dnd mode) and lock-screen viewable messages, it's pretty close. I'd still prefer the Pebble for quickly glancing on public transit, or in any situation where I'd feel uncomfortable taking out my phone.

58 points by taylorbuley 13y ago

bane 13y ago

I'm strongly cross-dominant [1], I write left-handed and mouse right-handed (I also swing right-handed in baseball and golf, but box southpaw so go fig). As a result, I have no comfortable hand to wear a watch. In high school I got by with cheap pocket watches for awhile. But let's be honest, pocket watches are not a great fashion statement. The mas market adoption of cell-phones was great for me, since they're essentially pocket watches with a phone (and now a computer) attached. I've seen various smart watches over the years, but I inevitably fall back to "but I'd have to wear a watch". 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dominance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dominance

mikestew 13y ago
I do some things right-handed, some left. I manage to get along with wristwatches just fine. They're going to occasionally get in the way regardless.
- bane 13y ago
  Yeah, it just turns out that all the things that require my wrist to be moving around on top of my desk I do with both hands. Dragging a wristwatch around gets old fast.
  - adventureloop 13y ago
    I would go as far as saying I am cross dominant, but I certainly have a weird mix in that regard. I tend to take watches off as soon as I am stationary (I've lost a few F-91W's this way). I guess you could just take the watch off when you sit down like myself. Though to refer to your original comment I don't think you are too concerned either way.
bryantraywick 13y ago
Wow, I'm the same and never knew it had a name. I write left-handed use use a fork with my left-hand and generally consider myself left-handed. But, I throw right-handed and swing right-handed (although I became a decent switch hitter in little league, I had more power left-handed but more accuracy right-handed). Some tasks I have trouble picking a hand and go back and forth between the two. When I bowl (which is usually only about every 5 years or so) I spend the entire time switching between both hands to find one that feels more comfortable. I also pass a tennis racket from hand to hand depending on which side the ball is on, but I play ping-pong solely with my left hand. When I first started using computers in elementary school I made a conscious effort to use the mouse with my right hand because even then I knew that every computer I came to would have the mouse on the right side. However, I usually use a laptop trackpad with my left hand. I, like you, found wrist watches uncomfortable to use. I wore one in high school and always put it on my left wrist but I had to remove it every time I sat down to write or type. I think smart watches could have some useful applications, especially when cycling as a glance-able cycle-computer paired with a ride tracking app, but I just don't think I could put up with the pain of wearing a watch every day to get any benefit from one.
- bane 13y ago
  Yeah watches just ended up being a huge irritant to me as well. It bothered my father tremendously as he thinks not wearing a watch is a symbol of being a "layabout". But of course I always had a watch or clock on me or near me, just not a wrist watch.

micahroberson 13y ago

I still can't see myself ever wearing one of these. It's cool and all and I would love to write some custom apps for it, but its just not there yet aesthetically.

andyjohnson0 13y ago
In my opinion the Microsoft SPOT watches from 5+ years ago were more aesthetically pleasing than the pebble.
marknutter 13y ago
That is a very easy problem to solve from their standpoint. The next step after this first round of watches is to offer different styles, I'm sure.

mikestew 13y ago

It will be interesting to see what happens if rumored watches show up from larger companies. If that happens, I think Pebble is done. I have one, I like it (but I don't "love it!"). Pebble has demonstrated trouble with coordinating all of the moving pieces, from manufacturing to software and firmware. I don't fault them, it's a tough job, but their window is shrinking. At the moment they have yet to fulfill all of their Kickstarter backers, and I just don't see that happening until at least July. Those 600 "apps" the article mentions? They're just watch faces (and a few small games, I guess). Those were built with an alpha version of the watch face SDK, with the warning that your watch could be bricked if you install any of those 600 "apps". A real SDK with two-way communication with the watch is nowhere to be seen. Maybe that $15 million will allow them to get cracking on getting that SDK out the door. Without some real dev support, allowing them some real traction, I suspect they will suffer the same fate as Microsoft's SPOT watch.

evan_ 13y ago
The just released the two-way SDK today. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android/posts/482492 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper...

jtchang 13y ago

Pebble is in the land grab stage right now. Their primary advantage being that they are the first mover. Their #1 priority is to win the hearts and minds of their users. A successful kickstarter campaign is a good start but to create "raving fans" they need to be hyper focused in getting you to love the product. To adore it. Otherwise competition will rip them to shreds. So those of you that have a Pebble? How do you like it? Is it everything you hoped for?

JonLim 13y ago
I was mentioning this in the office and had someone show me their Pebble and tell me that they absolutely loved it, aside from the battery life. It seems convenient and well made, and I'm now considering getting one.
chriswarren 13y ago
I've had mine for a couple of weeks, using it with an iPhone, and so far it's a neat toy that doesn't do very much. I can see text messages, and I can see the phone number of the person calling me (not their name yet, though). I can control the music playing on my phone. That's about it right now. I haven't tried Runkeeper yet. I've heard that Android users can hook in to a lot more. Hopefully iOS opens up more access for other apps to send notifications to it. The feature I probably use the most is the watch itself - I don't have to pull my phone out of my pocket to check the time, and flicking my wrist to activate the backlight works really well.
- Alphasite_ 13y ago
  It looks like there could be a lot of interesting things on the horizon: Watchfaces augmented with data from the internet Remote controls for internet connected devices Multi-player Pebble games 4sq/Facebook/Yelp Check-in Apps Sports/Weather/News/Traffic tickers Emergency beacon activator Deeper sports integration (skiing, hiking, surfing, tennis, soccer score keeping)! Bitcoin price trackers (most important watchapp?)
- antidaily 13y ago
  Exactly what I was about to write. Went back to my Nike Fuel band almost immediately. As a watch, it's just ok. Beyond that, it just isn't that useful. And as phones continue to get thinner and lighter -- I guess I don't see the point.

Cardeck1 13y ago

I wouldn't call them first-movers because there are some companies including Nokia, Apple and Microsoft that already had a smartwatch project on hold. Plus the fact that Pebble is focusing on sports watches.The others will focus on a full-featured smarwatch.

bvdbijl 13y ago
They are however the first the ship, and that's what counts
- Cardeck1 13y ago
  We will see in the near future I guess...

kailuowang 13y ago

I think a good combination might be Smart watches + Google Glass. Smart watches can provide more sophisticated input while glass provides great output and camera. I don't really see the value of a smart phone + smart watch combination.

evan_ 13y ago
You don't? The phone stays in your pocket and when you get notifications they go to a device that's strapped to your body- this describes Glass and Pebble. The watch and HUD both have poor res and inputs, things the phone does better. I think you'll see people using a phone+wearable a lot more frequently than two wearables.
andrewljohnson 13y ago
How about getting alerts on your watch, while your phone is in your pocket? Or syncing your watch with your iPad after taking a run, over bluetooth, automatically? Or talk into your watch while your phone is a camera?

andrewljohnson 13y ago

Smart Watches are on my radar. We develop a lot of GPS type apps, so this sort of platform is an easy and natural shift for us. It seems like there is a lot of uses for smartwatches, from health and fitness, to productivity and and people management. I think the watches will have a quicker start than the glasses out of the gate, and usher in the era of cyborgs. I'm not sure if there is iPhone-level of money for the first to reach the platform though. It's really PC, Internet, and iPhone sized shifts you get the most from recognizing.

roc 13y ago

Wearables ought to ditch the attempted interaction. The second I'm prodding at a watch to do more than triage notifications or cycle through a couple google-now-style 'cards', I might as well have pulled out my phone. They should focus on data collection -- which they can be awesome at; notification triage -- which they can be legitimately more-convenient for, and some security integration [1]. And if they did some NFC-triggering, that'd be cool too. Even supporting deeper interaction is going to relegate these things to 'calculator watch' territory. [1] if my watch is near my phone, phone should only require the 'simple' unlock code (or none). if watch isn't around, require the full password. also: lock my workstation when the watch 'leaves' the presence of the PC.

marknutter 13y ago
Whether interaction is required is entirely up to the person developing the app.
- roc 13y ago
  Having the capability and giving people enough rope to hang themselves is one thing. Just don't try to sell it that way. And for goodness' sake, don't implement the core functionality that way.
rhplus 13y ago
You'd need some pretty hefty antennas to trigger NFC tags at the range of watch-to-phone or watch-to-computer (say 1 to 2 metres max). Most NFC readers operate around a couple cm, maybe 10cm max. Your computer would lock every time you sipped your coffee :-( The general idea is great though. I'm not sure what the right proximity tech would be. Someone else can no doubt chime in. Bluetooth would be overkill, NFC not enough.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jessriedel 13y ago
  Is there one can't just use Bluetooth instead of NFC? Does the power consumption get bad?

kirillzubovsky 13y ago

It's funny right, there was a time when investors didn't think smart watches were going to be of any interest to anyone; that was just a few years ago. This is really the difference between a visionary entrepreneur and the rest. Congrats Eric and the team, great job and looking forward to see what's to come. Pebble glasses, perhaps ?

salimmadjd 13y ago

They raised from CRV. George Zachary is one of the best VC guys in the valley. No matter what, he always replies to your email. You'll get a reply from him which might come 1-2 weeks later on Sunday midnight. Which means he is working all the time and tries to respond to everyone! Big congrats to the Pebble team from starting a whole new market segment with their vision starting from the kickstarter till the closing the round to all the stuff that they'll be doing in the future!

rdl 13y ago

I got a pebble to try to build a specific app: electronic leash (using bt 4.0le) to a phone and/or laptop. It's pretty easy to do electronic leash of a Mac laptop (or Linux, or Windows) using an iPhone; hard to do for the iPhone/iPad alone due to Apple. Presumably feasible to do on Android, but most hardware still seems to lack 4.0le, which would kill battery. Wouldn't wear it as my watch in general. It's really "tall" (not thick, not wide) -- I have decent-sized wrists, and the watch still bumps against stuff more than what I wear otherwise. I really prefer metal-cased watches with deployment clasps and tritium gtls, too, which would be difficult to Pebble-ify. The pebble is really well made for a kickstarter'd consumer electronics device, and well made for any non-Apple consumer device in general, but it's still not quite a $100+ wristwatch mechanically or aesthetically. Otherwise, the "show a notification" thing is interesting, but I can feel my iPhone vibrating in my pocket, so if I have a way to tune notifications (like dnd mode) and lock-screen viewable messages, it's pretty close. I'd still prefer the Pebble for quickly glancing on public transit, or in any situation where I'd feel uncomfortable taking out my phone.