A Partner for Your Smart Phone: Pebble’s Smart Watch to Finally Launch

The purpose of a cellphone used to simply be keeping in touch with everyone wherever you went. Now, a cellphone is a smartphone. Dial-up speed used to be the Internet standard. Now, dial-up is obsolete.

The purpose of wearing a watch is to know what time it is. Now, Pebble is making an E-paper smart watch.

January 23^rd, Pebble Technology, is releasing the Pebble watch, a creative gadget that among other things, alerts you to text messages and emails by syncing with your smartphone. While the watch is certainly an interesting new technology, what is even more interesting is the way that Pebble got funding for the project.

Kickstarter is an online-based funding platform for all types of creative projects. Essentially, project creators make their case to potential backers on Kickstarter, who put up money to see projects they like get made. Project creators set a fundraising goal – in Pebble’s case, the goal was $100,000. Eventually the project received pledges that equaled more than $10 million.

Now back to the watch. Here are some basic features of this E-paper watch:

• Watch faces. First and foremost, a watch tells time. Choose between several different watch faces from text to analog to digital.
• Colors. The Pebble watch comes in five colors: Arctic White, Jet Black, Cherry Red, Orange and Grey.
• Alerts. When an email comes through, you receive a text, or even when new weather reports come in, you can set the Pebble watch to vibrate. You can even read messages on the watch, with convenient scroll buttons on the right side.
• Music. The E-paper watch syncs with iPhones and Android phones through Bluetooth, so you can play music through the watch. Control your playlists and volume the way you would on your phone.
• Exercise. Runners and cyclists love to track their stats. Athletes can download apps to their watch that use a GPS system to track pace, distance and location while running or cycling. 

The design of the watch is sleek and lightweight. The screen features some of the same anti-glare qualities as the Kindle, and retails for $150. Pebble hopes to have the first waves of watches released to investors in time to fulfill new orders in March.