The Pebble smartwatch launched on Kickstarter last 2012 set records and placed e-watches at the forefront of technology. Now, the latest device from Pebble, the Time, has again gained universal recognition by breaking its $500,000 goal in mere minutes.
Recognizing crowd sourcing as the most effective method in fund raising, Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky, in an interview with The Verge, stresses that, "We're there (on Kickstarter) because we wanted to introduce Pebble Time to the people who supported us, the people who were standing by us the last three years, to say, 'We liked your product so much we're going to support it and be the community around it'."
Migicovsky is the creator of the original Pebble and the CEO of the company headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
Retaining the specs of the old Pebble that made it revolutionary during its launch, the new Time is also water resistant and customizable, fully compatible with all existing Pebble apps and watchfaces. It also sports a powerful 7-day battery life.
What's new about the Time is its overhauled interface called "Timeline," promising to simplify how one uses the smartwatch. It also boasts a new color e-paper display and designed to be much thinner than the original Pebble, with a scratch-resistant Gorilla glass for its lens. The Time also comes equipped with a microphone, enabling users to send voice replies to incoming notifications or dictate short voice notes.
Slated to be funded on March 28, Pebble targets deliveries for backers to be made by May, much later than the rumored release of the Apple Watch.
In terms of crowd source successes, the Kickstarter community already considers the Time as another roaring triumph for Pebble. As of press time, the Pebble Time project on the crowd sourcing platform now has pledges amounting to almost $12 million, already surpassing the final $10.2 million raised by the original Pebble watch.
