Items tagged with Pebble
If you've bought into Fitbit's ecosystem of fitness-oriented wearables, then you might want to keep an eye on the company's next entry into the smartwatch space. After last year's $299 Ionic smartwatch launched to an unimpressed audience, Fitbit is reportedly back with an all-new design that is said to have "mass appeal". Leaked images of the smartwatch come courtesy of Warable, which show the device in a number of different colors with a multitude of band options. The smartwatch, which could be called the Blaze 2, will run an updated version of the Fitbit OS that debuted on the Ionic. The device is said to be smaller than the somewhat unwieldy Ionic, and more closely aligns with the original...
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Smartwatch maker Pebble recently sold itself to Fitbit, saying that it could no longer function as an independent entity due to "various factors," which we presumed to mean financial—the company previously laid off a quarter of its workforce and followed by an industry wide precipitous drop in smartwatch sales. That's obviously concerning news for Pebble smartwatch owners, though Fitbit has promised to support the Pebble experience through next year. "Fitbit is going out of its way to keep Pebble software and services running through 2017. To be clear, no one on this freshly-formed team seeks to brick Pebble watches in active service. The Pebble SDK, CloudPebble, Timeline APIs, firmware availability,...
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If you were hoping to get your hands on an next generation Pebble smartwatch, think again. The company has been acquired by Fitbit. This purchase includes Pebble’s personnel and intellectual property related to software and firmware development, but excludes the company’s hardware products.James Park, CEO and co-founder of Fitbit, remarked, “With this acquisition, we’re well positioned to accelerate the expansion of our platform and ecosystem to make Fitbit a vital part of daily life for a wider set of consumers, as well as build the tools healthcare providers, insurers and employers need to more meaningfully integrate wearable technology into preventative and chronic care.”According...
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Pebble Core backers on Kickstarter are getting a little something extra. They will be first to experience Amazon Alexa on Pebble’s infinitely hackable ultra-wearable when shipping begins in early 2017. The company claims to be bringing “Amazon’s acclaimed voice services to a fully-independent, 3G-connected wearable device for the first time ever.” Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky stated, “Experiencing Amazon Alexa on-the-go right from Pebble Core is game-changing for wearable technology. We’re longtime fans of the powerful voice services Alexa delivers, and it only gets smarter and more useful over time. It’s an approach we embrace with our own products.” The combination of Alexa and Pebble Core can...
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Pebble is back at it again with its third Kickstarter funding campaign. For those that were up in arms over Pebble’s decision to revisit the Kickstarter “well” with the Time last year instead of funding its own future, those concerns won’t be alleviated this year. Pebble today is announcing the Pebble 2, Time 2 and the Pebble Core – and of course, it has returned to Kickstarter. The Pebble 2 is the spiritual successor to the original Pebble that hit Kickstarter three years ago. The design language is familiar, but the Pebble 2 is both thinner and lighter than its predecessor. Its e-paper display is now covered in Gorilla Glass for enhanced protection, includes a built-in microphone, an optical...
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Pebble was one of the first companies to create a viable smartwatch for the masses, but now the company is having to downsize amid growing competition in the sector. The company is laying off 40 employees, which represents 25 percent of its workforce. "We've definitely been careful this year as we plan our products," said Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky. "We got this money, but [Silicon Valley VC funding] is pretty tight these days." Nearly a year ago, the company was riding high with the announcement that it had raised $20 million at the end of its Time Kickstarter campaign thanks in part to nearly 79,000 backers that were willing to purchase Pebble’s first color smartwatch. But that was before Apple...
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If you’ve been eying Pebble’s higher-priced smartwatch products, but were hesitant to take the plunge, now’s your chance to strike. Pebble has cut the price on both the Time and Time Round by $50, which means that you can purchase the former for $149.99, while the latter will now set you back $199.99. Unfortunately, Pebble isn’t budging when it comes to pricing for the Time Steel, so that particular model will still cost you $249.99. Pebble says that the price cut is permanent, solidifying it with a frank, “No bird sh*t.” The Pebble Time features a small, color e-paper display that boasts battery life of up to seven days per charge. That’s roughly three times better than even the most efficient...
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Pebble might have been one of the first companies to enter into the smartwatch arena back in 2013, but it has faced some stiff competition as new players have entered the market. Google threw its hat into the ring with the Android Wear operating system last year and hence gave birth to a number of smartwatches including the Motorola Moto 360 and the LG Watch Urbane. Likewise, Apple launched its Apple Watch earlier this year, and has seen a great amount of success in the market. Pebble hasn’t exact stood still; it announced the Pebble Time with a 64-color e-paper display and followed up with the Pebble Time Steel, which ditches the plastic body for, well, steel, and slightly longer battery life....
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Pebble launched its Kickstarter campaign for the Time smartwatch in late February, and by late March the company raised over $20 million for the project. Although many questioned the need for Pebble to dip into the Kickstarter well again with the Time given that it is an established player in the smartwatch space, you can’t argue with the results. For those that weren’t able to get in early and secure a pre-order for the Pebble Time before the Kickstarter campaign ended, the smartwatch is now up for pre-order at Best Buy. You can pre-order the smartwatch in black, red, and white at a cost of $199.99 each. Unfortunately, even if you pre-order the smartwatch today from Best Buy, it won’t arrive...
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Apple has sold 2.8 million Apple Watches in the U.S. since putting their fancy-schmancy smartwatch on the market just two months ago, this according to the e-mail receipt tracking company Slice. The company's report also says that 17% of those buying the wrist adornment are shelling out for an extra watch band, too, giving the Cupertino timepiece producer a nice double-dip into the cash reserves of their beloved customers. The sales figures for Apple Watch are said to put the timekeeping device at the definitive forefront of the smartwatch market, well ahead of Samsung (which sold 1.2 million smartwatches over the entire course of 2014), Pebble (which reached the...
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Back in April, Apple gave us the impression that it considers Pebble to be a big threat to its own Apple Watch platform, as it began banning apps that merely mentioned the competition by name. To Apple's favor, that is something mentioned in the developer guidelines, but that doesn't make it any less sketchy. After the collective Web made a massive stink about the situation, Apple admitted defeat and began enabling such apps on its store again. As we can see today, that's continued to prove true all the way up until the ultimate source, the maker of the competing smartwatches. On its Kickstarter page for the Pebble Time smartwatch, the company tells us that its accompanying iOS app is now available...
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It's often said that records are meant to be broken, and every once in a while, they're downright shattered. Case in point, the Pebble Time smartwatch is now the most funded Kickstarter campaign in the history of the crowdfunding site, having raised over $17 million from more than 67,000 backers with 18 days still remaining. It will likely double the nearly $8.8 million raised for Exploding Kittens, the highest funded game in Kickstarter's history. And it's already collected $7 million than Pebble's own E-Paper Watch from three years ago, which at the time was also a record. But it's the Coolest Cooler that's now been eclipsed -- it raised over $13.2 million last summer...
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Last week, Pebble caught the attention of the wearables market with the announcement of the new Pebble Time. The smartwatch is 20 percent thinner than the original model, includes an e-paper display, and still manages to last for seven days on a single charge. I stated in my previous article that I was a bit disappointed with the toy-like looks of the Pebble Time and hoped for a “Steel” version to up the style content. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Pebble has answered rather quickly with the Pebble Time Steel. The Pebble Time Steel trades the mainly plastic casing for CNC-finished 316L stainless steel. Upgrading to the more premium material results in some additional heft and thickness (10.5mm...
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Pebble is launching a new Kickstarter campaign, and the star this time around is its new Pebble Time smartwatch. In a nascent market that is seeing the rise of LCD and OLED-powered smartwatches running the Android Wear operating system (the much-hyped Apple Watch is still two months away), the Pebble Time forgoes those power-hungry displays (well, power-hungry when we’re talking about the tiny batteries included on smartwatches) in favor of a color e-paper display. The use of the e-paper allows for the use of [relatively] vibrant colors while retaining the seven-day battery life that Pebble users have grown accustomed to. For comparison, Android Wear smartwatches last anywhere from one to two...
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