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Pebble E-Paper Watch Raises $1M In 28 Hours

kickstarter.com

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Re: Pebble E-Paper Watch Raises $1M In 28 Hours

#91

Post by alecco »

qq66 wrote: post #59

What's the general-case solution to technical failure of a Kickstarter project? For example, what happens if the organizers spend the money they raised to build the product, but it turns out that they underestimated the costs, and now can't deliver what they promised to give you if you pledge $x? I ask because usually when you buy a product, it's already been made -- if a Kickstarter investment is purely a donation t…

Well, donors should be mindful of who they give money to. cough+Diaspora+cough

Re: Pebble E-Paper Watch Raises $1M In 28 Hours

#92

Post by coob »

ma2rten wrote: post #83
motti_s wrote: post #27

As a gadget freak and a hacker, I love this product. But I wonder how many people use a watch these days. Of course this is no ordinary watch, but when you have a supercomputer (in the shape of a phone) in your pocket, is it really needed? I suppose it's great for sports, but I'm not sure whether it has mass market potential (selling ~10K in a few hours is amazing, but isn't mass market yet). I'm actually on the fenc…

To us the iPhone is a powerful computing device. But I think the truth is that most people who buy an iPhone, are really buying a fashion item. How many apps do most people actually have installed? And how many of them do they use regularly? Not a lot. Now, people who wear watches these days also are also doing so to be fashionable. This is why I think this has mass market potential.

Yes yes, no one actually uses apps because the iPhone is just a fashion item.

That is why Angry Birds has sold millions and licensed their IP for physical products and a movie. That's why Instagram is a $1bn company.

Bullshit.

Re: Pebble E-Paper Watch Raises $1M In 28 Hours

#93

Post by ableal »

adiM wrote: post #65
phlyingpenguin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the change in fashion that I'm taking issue with. Standing in front of a group of people with your attention fixed on a communication device is not good presentation. If it were glancing down at a clock sitting on a podium or table, that would be fine. This is not how it happens in practice. The biggest difference between a cell phone and a watch or other timepiece on a surface is that a cell phone requires…

I normally wear a watch, but still use my phone's stopwatch to keep time during a talk. I find that looking at a stopwatch during a presentation requires less mental distraction than: (i) keeping track of the time at which my talk started (I am talking about conference talks where the talks usually start a few minutes later than the scheduled time), (ii) looking at the current time and calculating how much time is re…

I recently used a pointer/controller with stopwatch that seemed to be this one: http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-2-4-Cordless-Presenter-Black/...

It was loaned, I had no idea it was so expensive. Good design, though. The stopwatch can be 'pumped up' in 5 minute increments to the time for one's talk. All there, nothing else to fiddle with.

Re: Pebble E-Paper Watch Raises $1M In 28 Hours

#94

Post by adestefan »

officemonkey wrote: post #80
adestefan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is. If you could put it on an inductive charging pad that would be fine, but I'm not going to fish around for a micro USB plug that probably has fallen behind my nightstand for the 500th time every few days.

There has been a big uptick in the last 12 years on rechargeable gadgets. We used to put double AA batteries in everything. The only thing that needed a charger was the gigantic Motorola MicroTAC cell phone. Nowadays, it's the opposite. I count seven of them in my house alone. The only thing I need a battery for is my television remote. Inductive charging pads are a great idea, but you need a big vendor to make a sta…

I already know where I would instantly put 2 of them and probably a third if this ever came to fruition.

Re: Pebble E-Paper Watch Raises $1M In 28 Hours

#95

Post by vacri »

icebraining wrote: post #87
vacri wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB is also a crappy way to recharge things. It takes ages for the paltry USB power to recharge my smartphone, particularly if I don't turn the screen off (phone stays awake with USB attached)

USB doesn't really have anything to do with it, it's about the devices (both the phone and the charger). The specs say an USB charger can provide up to 5A, which is more than enough to reach the battery charging limits, AFAIK.

my mistake - I thought USB was limited to 500mA. Whatever it is, my phone is annoying to charge...

Re: Pebble E-Paper Watch Raises $1M In 28 Hours

#96

Post by qq66 »

alecco wrote: post #91
qq66 wrote: post #59

What's the general-case solution to technical failure of a Kickstarter project? For example, what happens if the organizers spend the money they raised to build the product, but it turns out that they underestimated the costs, and now can't deliver what they promised to give you if you pledge $x? I ask because usually when you buy a product, it's already been made -- if a Kickstarter investment is purely a donation t…

Well, donors should be mindful of who they give money to. cough+Diaspora+cough

Well, donations to Disapora were never really marketed as "Pay $x, get this thing Y in return," while a lot of Kickstarter products do exactly this.

Re: Pebble E-Paper Watch Raises $1M In 28 Hours

#97

Post by pazimzadeh »

regularfry wrote: post #76
pazimzadeh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an MVP, I'm sure future versions will compensate. Anyway, flip-phone batteries can last weeks but I'm sure you still use a smartphone.

They won't compensate unless the market pushes back. If they can sell this with a 7-day life, my guess is that they will keep that battery life and use tech advances to add features. That's precisely what's happened in the smartphone market.

That's a good point. And it does look like their UI will have to be refreshed or embellished in the future to make this a better mass market product.
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