Pebble, the makers of one of the first (and best) smartwatches and who made $10m through kickstarter, have launched their new version product again
through kickstarter. They hit their target in about half an hour and are at just over $4m at time of writing. It's a colour e-paper screen smartwatch with a bunch of interesting UI decisions.
Obviously they've decided to take on the Apple Watch head on and it has some definite advantages over what we've seen and heard of that so far (battery life is a major differentiator) but I kind of think it looks a bit.. kiddy. The massive bezel really doesn't look good. Kickstarter payments will be taken on March 27th, but the watches themselves won't ship until after the Apple Watch, if that ships when Tim Cook said they planned to ship it. There's a fair chance of pre-orderer's remorse I think (and yes, I know 'pre-orderer' is a horrible word).
Also, I'm kind of non-plussed about Kickstarter being involved. As far as I was aware, Kickstarter's rules specifically disallow using the service purely for marketing or for 'selling' pre-existing inventions. Given the watches are going to ship in a couple of months, they plainly
are a pre-existing invention. By Kickstarter's rules, Pebble should not be able to do this. I guess 10% of $10m (which is what this will get if fully funded) is enough to bend the rules significantly.
