The New Pebble Smartwatch

The new pebble smartwatch was one of the most anticipated gadgets for this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It has cost the manufacturers no less than $15...


The new pebble smartwatch was one of the most anticipated gadgets for this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It has cost the manufacturers no less than $15 million to build the new device and, most important, all the money was made available through crowdsourced funding. One of the striking aspects you will notice from the first look at the smartwatch is its e-ink display, which is similar to what Amazon used for their Kindle.

In addition to this, despite its small size of 1.26 in, the display is capable of running various apps simultaneously, in addition to its basic function of telling the time. Pebble, as the device was named, is by far the most successful project started on the famous Kickstarter website, but so far there have been numerous development delays. The initial release date was Autumn 2012, but it was delayed and developers allowed that the device will start shipping in the first part of this year, initially to those who contributed to the funding of the project, followed by those who have pre-ordered it. The price set by the manufacturer is $150 and the very first models will start shipping on January 23. Eric Migicovsky, the founder of the impressive project, announced as part of the same event that there will be a production of approximately 15,000 units per week and everyone will be able to purchase Pebble in at most two months.

Developers of mobile applications have already shown their interest for building apps compatible with the system used by Pebble and ideally also pair them up with applications running on iOS or Android, two of the most popular mobile operating systems. As part of the demonstration at CES, Migicovsky demonstrated the use of Pebble to control the behavior of the smartphone. Specifically, he controlled the music that was playing on a phone located on a docking station using just the watch. In addition to this, emails and text messages could also be read from this device, as well as managing incoming calls. This new device weighs 38.2 grams and, despite its black and white screen, the functionality is absolutely impressive. Another feature worth mentioning is the integration with the service known as IFTTT, an acronym that stands for If This Then That. This website allows the creation of custom notifications for events such as weather changes or updates on a web page of interest.

Pebble’s battery requires a cable attached to it in order to be charged and it was also announced that between 5 to 10 percent on a daily basis will be consumed from the battery of the smartphone it will be synchronized with. This issue has raised some controversies. For example, Accenture representative Thomas Stuermer said power consumption is already a problem with smartphones and that some people may skip investing into Pebbles for this reason. On the other hand, the first contactless power chargers are already shipping but most of the current technologies require placing the devices onto special pads.