Pebble (watch)

Development

The original Pebble Smartwatch was designed based on a concept by Eric Migicovsky describing a watch that could display messages from a smartphone and select Android devices. Migicovsky successfully took his idea through the Y Combinator business incubator program, and unusually for a startup company at Y Combinator, Migicovsky's business actually generated revenue during the program. Migicovsky was able to raise US$375,000 from angel investors such as Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, but was unable to raise additional funds. Discussing his inability to raise further funds, Migicovsky told the Los Angeles Times, "I wasn't extremely surprised... hardware is much harder to raise money for. We were hoping we could convince some people to our vision, but it didn't work out."

Funding

After raising venture capital for the product under their former name Allerta (which had already developed and sold the inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry devices), the company failed to attract traditional investors under their new Pebble brand name, so the company requested crowd funding in April 2012.

Migicovsky's company Pebble Technology launched a Kickstarter campaign on 000000002012-04-11-0000April 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, and within six days, the project had become the most funded project in the history of Kickstarter to that point, raising over $4.7 million with 30 days left in the campaign.

On 000000002012-05-10-0000May 10, 2012, Pebble Technology announced they were limiting the number of pre-orders. On 000000002012-05-18-0000May 18, 2012, funding closed with $10,266,845 pledged by 68,929 people. The product's funding was so high, it at the time held the world record for the most money raised for a Kickstarter project

Production

Pebble worked with consulting firm Dragon Innovation to identify suppliers and manufacturers. After overcoming manufacturability difficulties with the prototype design, Pebble started mass production with manufacturer Foxlink Group in January 2013 with an initial production of 15,000 watches per week. Shipping was originally expected to begin September 2012, but Pebble Technology encountered manufacturing difficulties and began shipping units on 000000002013-01-23-0000January 23, 2013. Pebble shipped 300,000 units by 000000002013-12-01-0000December 2013 during its first year of production, over 400,000 by 000000002014-03-01-0000March 2014, 450,000 as of July 2014, and 1 million by 000000002014-12-31-0000December 31, 2014.

Hardware

The watch has a 32-millimetre (1.26 in) 144 × 168 pixel black and white memory LCD using an ultra low-power "transflective LCD" manufactured by Sharp with a backlight, a vibrating motor, a magnetometer, ambient light sensors, and a three-axis accelerometer. It can communicate with an Android or iOS device using both Bluetooth 2.1 and Bluetooth 4.0 (Bluetooth Low Energy) using Stonestreet One's Bluetopia+MFi software stack. Bluetooth 4.0 with low energy (LE) support was not initially enabled, but a firmware update in November 2013 enabled it. The watch is charged using a modified USB-cable that attaches magnetically to the watch to maintain water resistance capability. The battery was reported in April 2012 to last seven days. Based on feedback from Kickstarter backers, the developers added water-resistance to the list of features. The Pebble has a waterproof rating of 5 atm, which means it can be submerged down to 40 metres (130 ft) and has been tested in both fresh and salt water, allowing one to shower, dive or swim while wearing the watch.

Software

As of February 2014, the Pebble app store had over 1,000 applications. These include notifications for emails, calls, text messages & social media activity; stock prices; activity tracking (movement, sleep, estimates of calories burned); remote controls for smartphones, cameras & home appliances; turn-by-turn directions (using the GPS receiver in a smartphone or tablet); display of RSS or JSON feeds; and hundreds of custom watch faces.

The Pebble was originally slated to ship with apps pre-installed, including a cycling app to measure speed, distance & pace through GPS, and a golf rangefinder app supporting more than 25,000 courses. These apps use data received from a connected phone for distance, speed and range information. More apps are downloadable via a mobile phone or tablet, and an SDK is freely available. Not all apps were installed when the watch originally shipped, but CEO Eric Migicovsky announced on January 9, 2013, that every 2–3 weeks updates for the watch's operating system would be released until all features are added.

The Pebble integrates with any phone or tablet application that sends out native iOS or Android notifications including from any app, including text messaging and phone call apps.

The watch's firmware operating system is based on a FreeRTOS kernel and uses Newlib, the STM32 Peripheral Lib, the Ragel state machine compiler, and an unnamed UTF-8 Decoder.

Gadgetbridge is an alternative companion application for Android. It is open source, does not require account creation and supports features like notifications, music playback and watch application installation/removal.

Pebble SDK

Pebble Technology announced that an open Pebble software development kit (SDK) would be released before shipment of the watches began. A proof-of-concept watchface SDK and documentation were released on April 12, 2013. The released SDK was limited to development for watch faces, simple applications and games. The second release of the SDK (renamed PebbleKit) was released on May 17, 2013, and added support for two-way communication between Pebbles and smartphones running iOS or Android via the AppMessage framework.

The 2.0 Pebble SDK, as of February 2015, included APIs to access bluetooth messaging, background workers, the accelerometer, the compass, and Javascript apps. Applications written with the second, PebbleKit SDK are not backwards compatible with 1.x apps, and developers had to port their apps to the second-gen firmware.

Reception

The Pebble Watch's first edition was released to mixed reviews. The design was acclaimed for being innovative, and the watch vibration results in higher awareness of phone alerts. Later Pebbles were described similarly, as simple and effective but lacking some features of competitors like the Apple Watch.

Pebble Steel

The Pebble Steel is a steel-bodied variant of the original Pebble smartwatch. Announced at CES 2014, it has a thinner body, tactile metal buttons, and Corning Gorilla Glass. It comes in 2 variations: a black matte finish and a brushed stainless steel finish, with both a black leather band and a matching steel band. It was released in February 2014. The CNET reviewer liked the design, readability, swim-friendliness and selection of apps, while he disliked the lack of storage that limits to 8 user installed apps and the lack of a heart-rate monitor.

Pebble Time

On February 24, 2015, Pebble announced the Pebble Time, their second-generation Pebble smartwatch via its Kickstarter campaign. In late May, Pebble Time started shipping to backers. It is was available on Pebble's website via Best Buy.

The Pebble Time Steel is a stainless steel variant of the Pebble Time smartwatch, available in multiple finishes: silver, black or gold with either a leather or steel band. Pebble claims it has a 10-day battery life.

The Pebble Time Round is also made of stainless steel and 2.5d gorilla glass, with five finishes, including the new rose gold. Pebble claims it has a 2-day battery life, dramatically decreased because of the shape and size but still significantly longer-lasting than the Apple Watch's 16-hour life.

Hardware

Pebble's second generation comes with various improvements over its predecessors, such as a 64-color e-paper display with Gorilla Glass a thinner and more ergonomic chassis, plastic casing and a microphone. The Pebble Time retains the seven-day battery life and water resistance found on the previous two Pebble watches. It has a 150mAh battery.

Alongside the Pebble Time Steel, Pebble announced its open hardware platform called "Smartstraps". This lets developers develop new third-party straps that connects to a special port at the back of the watch and can add new features like GPS, heart rate monitors, extended battery life and other things to the watch. This new platform prevents smartwatch bloat and making the watch bulky like most of its competitors' smartwatches.

Software

The Pebble Time also includes a new interface designed around a timeline, which is similar to what is found in Google Now on Android Wear. In December 2015, all old Pebbles got a firmware update, enabling support for the timeline and removing the maximum of 8 apps-restriction, letting additional apps load directly from the connected phone. It is backwards compatible with all previous apps and watch faces.

Third parties have created apps for Pebble Time, as contactless payment (tap to pay).

Funding and records

The Pebble Time retails for $199. The project reached its Kickstarter funding goal of $500,000 in 17 minutes. The project took 49 minutes to reach $1 million, which is a Kickstarter record. The project raised $10.3 million in 48 hours, another Kickstarter record. On March 3, 2015, Pebble Time became the most funded Kickstarter ever with nearly $14 million funded, while having 24 days left in its campaign. At the end of the funding, March 27, 2015, Pebble Time received pledges of $20,338,986 from 78,471 backers.

Pebble 2

Pebble 2, the company's 3rd generation smartwatch, launched on Kickstarter on May 24, 2016 with an offer period of 36 days at discount introductory pricing, and shipment of the new models anticipated in the October–November 2016 timeframe. Among the new features is a heart rate monitor and speaker, along with waterproofing. Many new features are documented as part of the Kickstarter prospectus, while other technical specifications of the forthcoming products are not yet disclosed.

The Pebble 2 product line adds a new device called the Pebble Core, "a tiny wearable computer with Android 5.0" featuring a 3G modem, GPS, and Spotify integration backed by an open development community. Pebble 2 is officially released in September 2016 with new design and functions at $129. When Pebble sold parts of its company to Fitbit in late 2016, Gizmodo criticized the company for collecting $12.8 million in the product's Kickstarter and delaying shipments for half a year without being forthright with their supporters. Kickstarter backers who have not received the product are expected to receive refunds in 2017.

Closing of Pebble

As of December 7, 2016, Pebble has filed for insolvency and Fitbit has acquired most of the company's assets and employees. The selling of Pebble Smartwatch to Fitbit is credited to Charles River Ventures who invested $15 million in the company in 2013.

The purchase excludes Pebble’s hardware, Fitbit said in a statement Wednesday. The deal is mainly about hiring the startup's software engineers and testers, and getting intellectual property such as the Pebble watch's operating system, watch apps, cloud services and all patents.

Fitbit paid $23 million for Pebble's intellectual property, despite Pebble's debt and other obligations exceeding that. Fitbit is not taking on Pebble's debt. The rest of Pebble’s assets, including product inventory and server equipment, will be sold off separately. Following the acquisition, Pebble's offices will be closed and it will be up to Fitbit to decide whether to continue using the Pebble brand. The former Pebble engineers will relocate to Fitbit’s offices in San Francisco.

Pebble had announced three new watches in May: the Pebble 2, Time 2, and Pebble Core. The Pebble 2 has already started shipping to people who funded the startup through crowd-funding site Kickstarter. The Time 2 and Pebble Core will be canceled and refunds will be issued to Kickstarter backers.

The deal will mean the Pebble stock held by employees is worthless. The money will instead go to debt holders, vendors, some of its main equity investors, and Kickstarter refunds for the Time 2 and Pebble Core orders.