Pebble Time smartwatch $500k Kickstarter goal achieved in just 17 minutes
It took less than half an hour for Pebble Time Kickstarter campaign to achieve its funding goal of $500k. Pebble today announced its next generation smartwatch called Pebble Time. The funding campaign for which the deadline to reach the required sum was a month just complete its pledged goal of $500k in just 17 minutes.
Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky said in an interview that the only reason they went for a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund their upcoming smartwatch was to prove how effective this kind of marketing strategy is. He said that he wanted to give a tribute to the community (Kickstarter) from which Pebble was born.
We decided to go back on Kickstarter, and it’s a pretty important choice that we’ve made. When we started it were three people working on this thing that we knew was going to be big but that the world hadn’t woken up to yet. When we started making Pebble Time and Timeline, we decided to make it available to the people who supported us first. These are the people all around the world that backed us.
Talking about the new Pebble Time, the device features a color e-paper display, a much thinner design than the previous Pebble smartwatch, has a microphone and a new ‘timeline’ user interface. The smartwatch is also said to be water resistant and will come in three color. The backers who backed the Kickstarter campaign for the device will receive a special edition of the device with engravings on it. The device is said to be priced at $199.
One of the biggest selling point for Pebble against other smartwatches available in the market was its battery life which according to the company lasts for about 7 days on a single charge. The response that Pebble Time smartwatch has received so far indicates that the device will be an instant hit when it launches.