Pebble Steel
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Pebble is a discontinued
smartwatch A smartwatch is a wearable computer in the form of a watch; modern smartwatches provide a local touchscreen interface for daily use, while an associated smartphone app provides management and telemetry, such as long-term biomonitoring. While ea ...
developed by Pebble Technology Corporation. Funding was conducted through a
Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
campaign running from April 11, 2012, to May 18, 2012, which raised $10.3 million; it was the most funded project in Kickstarter history, at the time. Pebble began shipping watches to Kickstarter backers in January 2013. Pebble watches can be connected to
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and
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devices to show notifications and messages. An online app store distributed Pebble-compatible apps from many developers including
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,
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,
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, and
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. A steel-bodied variant to the original Pebble, the Pebble Steel, was announced at CES 2014 and released in February 2014. It has a thinner body, tactile metal buttons, and a
Corning Gorilla Glass Gorilla Glass is a brand of chemically strengthened glass developed and manufactured by Corning, now in its seventh generation. Designed to be thin, light and damage-resistant, the glass gains its surface strength, ability to contain flaws, and c ...
screen. 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. In 2015, Pebble launched its second generation of smartwatches: the
Pebble Time Pebble Time is a discontinued smartwatch developed by Pebble Technology and assembled by Foxlink, released on 14 May 2015. This is the first Pebble to introduce a color e-paper display, as well as a microphone, a new charging cable and a new Peb ...
and Time Steel. The devices were similarly funded through Kickstarter, raising $20.3 million from over 75,000 backers and breaking records for the site. In 2016, Pebble shut down their subsequent Time 2 series watches and refunded Kickstarter backers, citing financial issues. On December 7, 2016, Pebble officially announced that the company would be shut down and would no longer manufacture or continue support for any devices, nor honor any existing warranties. Pebble's intellectual property was purchased by Fitbit, a wearable technology company specializing in fitness tracking, who also hired some of the Pebble staff. Further clarification on the transition timeline and efforts to render Pebble OS and its watchfaces/apps more self-sufficient was posted to the Pebble Dev Blog on December 14, 2016. Support for the Pebble app store, online forum, cloud development tool, voice recognition, and voice replies ceased in June 2018, although support for some online services was restored by the unofficial "Rebble" community.


History


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 The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', "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 Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
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 pursued crowd funding in April 2012. Migicovsky's company, Pebble Technology, launched a Kickstarter campaign on , 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 its $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 , Pebble Technology announced they were limiting the number of pre-orders. On , funding closed with $10,266,845 pledged by 68,929 people. At the time, the product 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 . Pebble shipped 300,000 units by during its first year of production, over 400,000 by , 450,000 , 1 million by and 2 million by December 7, 2017.


Features


Hardware

The watch has a 144 × 168 pixel black and white memory LCD using an ultra low-power "
transflective A transflective liquid-crystal display is a liquid-crystal display (LCD) with an optical layer that reflects and transmits light (''transflective'' is a portmanteau of ''transmissive'' and ''reflective''). Under bright illumination (e.g. when expos ...
LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but in ...
" manufactured by
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; it contains a backlight, vibrating motor,
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, ambient light sensors, and three-axis
accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is accele ...
. It can communicate with an
Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
or
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
device using both Bluetooth 2.1 and Bluetooth 4.0 (
Bluetooth Low Energy Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE, colloquially BLE, formerly marketed as Bluetooth Smart) is a wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) aimed at novel applications in ...
) through Stonestreet One's Bluetopia+MFi software stack. Bluetooth 4.0 with low energy (LE) was not initially supported, but was later added through a firmware update in November 2013. The watch is charged through a modified
USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...
-cable that attaches magnetically to the watch to maintain water resistance capability, with a reported seven-day battery life. Water-resistance was added during development based on feedback from Kickstarter backers. The Pebble has a waterproof rating of 5 atm, which means it can be submerged down to , and has been tested in both fresh and salt water, allowing the user to shower, dive or swim while wearing the watch.


Software

, the Pebble app store contained over 1,000 applications. Applications included notification support for emails, calls, text messages and social media activity; stock prices; activity tracking (movement, sleep, estimates of calories burned); remote controls for smartphones, cameras and home appliances; turn-by-turn directions (using the GPS receiver in a smartphone or tablet); display of
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or
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feeds; and hundreds of custom watch faces. The Pebble was originally slated to ship with its apps pre-installed, including a
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app to measure speed, distance, and 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 pre-installed when the watch was originally shipped, but CEO Eric Migicovsky announced on January 9, 2013, that updates for the watch's operating system would be released every 2–3 weeks until all features were added. 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 such as notifications, music playback and watch application installation/removal.
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users can access the Pebble using libpebble's tools enabling experimental alpha level services with several Linux distros including the
Maemo OS Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to c ...
Nokia N900. There is also a commercial app called Rockwatch for the Meego Linux OS Nokia N9 that provides services including managing the Pebble's firmware and apps running on the watch.


Pebble SDK

Pebble Technology announced that an open Pebble
software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...
(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, , included APIs to access bluetooth messaging, background workers, the accelerometer, the compass, and Javascript apps. Applications written with the second PebbleKit SDK were not backwards compatible with 1.x apps, and developers were required to port their apps to the second-gen firmware.


Reception

The original Pebble Smartwatch was released to mixed reviews. The design was acclaimed for being innovative.Pebble Watch Review
. Business Insider (April 17, 2013). Retrieved on 2014-01-14.
CNET praised the design, readability, and water-resistance of the Pebble Steel, but criticized the limit of eight user-installed apps and the lack of a heart-rate monitor. Later watches in the Pebble series were described similarly: as simple and effective but lacking some features of competitors like the Apple Watch.


Later generations


Pebble Time

On February 24, 2015, Pebble announced the Pebble Time, their second-generation Pebble smartwatch via its
Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
campaign. The Pebble Time Steel is a
stainless steel Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...
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 Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...
and 2.5d gorilla glass with five finishes. 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-colour 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 included a new interface designed around a timeline, which is similar to what is found in Google Now on Android Wear. In December 2015, all remaining 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, such as contactless payment (tap to pay).


Funding and records

The Pebble Time retailed 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 Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
on May 24, 2016, with an offer period of 36 days at discounted introductory pricing, and shipment of the new models anticipated in the October–November 2016 timeframe. Among the new features was a heart rate monitor (On +HR models), microphone, and water resistance rated for 30 m (98 ft) depth, Which was 10m less than the original Pebble because of the Pebble 2's Microphone. Many new features were documented as part of the Kickstarter prospectus, while other technical specifications of the forthcoming products are not yet disclosed. The Pebble 2 product line added 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 was officially released in September 2016 with a 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 were expected to receive refunds in 2017.


Closing of Pebble

On December 7, 2016, Pebble Technology filed for insolvency with Fitbit acquiring much of the company's assets and employees. The selling of Pebble brand to Fitbit was credited to Charles River Ventures who invested $15 million in the company in 2013. The purchase excluded Pebble's hardware, as stated by Fitbit. The deal was focused on Pebble's software engineers and testers, and the acquisition of intellectual property such as the Pebble watch's operating system, watch apps, cloud services, and its patents. Fitbit paid $23 million for Pebble's intellectual property, despite Pebble's debt and other obligations exceeding that. Fitbit did not take on Pebble's debt. The remainder of Pebble's assets, including product inventory and server equipment, was set to be sold off separately. Following the acquisition, Pebble's offices were closed and Fitbit held control over the use of the Pebble brand. The former Pebble engineers were relocated to Fitbit's offices in San Francisco. As a result, Pebble was forced to cancel shipments for its Pebble 2, Time 2, and Pebble Core smartwatches, refunding Kickstarter backers.


Rebble

An unofficial developer group called Rebble was created to extend support for the Pebble watches' online services that were discontinued on June 30, 2018. Pebble users and enthusiasts created the Rebble.io website in December 2016 following the announcement of Pebble's shutdown. Users can switch their devices from the original Pebble web services to the Rebble Web Services to restore some of the lost features; some features require a US$3 monthly subscription to cover the costs.


See also

*
Pebble Time Pebble Time is a discontinued smartwatch developed by Pebble Technology and assembled by Foxlink, released on 14 May 2015. This is the first Pebble to introduce a color e-paper display, as well as a microphone, a new charging cable and a new Peb ...
* Wearable computer


References


External links

* {{Smartwatch Kickstarter-funded products Products introduced in 2013 Products and services discontinued in 2016 Smartwatches Watch brands Wearable devices