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Introducing Pebble Time

kickstarter.com

181–190 of 403 posts

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#181
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's currently trending towards a cool 68 million dollars: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/597507018/pebble-time-aweso...

Hmm are there even enough levels for them to reach that goal?

Nope.. Adding up all the tiers up totals a maximum of $9,550,000, for a total of 56k watches.

Interesting that they didn't design this to break their 10.2M record of the first campaign. I'd bet they are going to increase the slots or or announce addons for the pledges to go for it. At this rate they are going to be sold out in a couple hours, if that.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want jewelry, buy a necklace. Or maybe an Apple Watch. Yeah, yeah, I get it. But I want a functional device as I'm one of those "a Rolex doesn't tell better time than a Casio" types. What's next, artisanally-crafted pocket knives? I'll stick my bland yet functional Victrinox or Case. To each their own, and may both markets be well-served. For those that would rather pay for function, there's the Pebble that do…

> What's next, artisanally-crafted pocket knives? You can spend a pretty penny on pocket knives.

[deleted]

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really just want a "normal" watch that has some "smart" features. I already have a sports tracker (Garmin Forerunner), and I have given up wearing my Moto360 because it's almost never useful in compelling enough ways that I don't just pull my phone out after seeing a notification ... and I have to charge it nightly.

If you want a normal watch combined with a fitbit, check out: http://www.withings.com/us/withings-activite.html

That's a sexy watch, not sure how i didn't see it before. Thanks for the link.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#184
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave my original away. The novelty lasted about 2 hours. They don't even have an estimated ship date. That worries me a bit.

This isn't a pre-order. Even if they wanted to provide a ship date, it will inevitably change.

... how the hell is this not a pre-order? Are the rewards just going to up and disappear after the campaign is over? Not from an established group like this.

> EARLY BIRD: Your choice of one Pebble Time watch in any of the three colors. Regular retail price will be $199. Estimated delivery: May 2015 Ships anywhere in the world

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#185

What I think is good about this is that they are thinking of a new paradigm for UI on a wearable. For Android Wear devices it feels like Google just decided that voice was going to take care of UI, and no decisions about physical controls needed to be made. But there are two problems: voice isn't that reliable, and more importantly, there are a lot of situations where you want to use your watch but not talk to it.

I disagree with you in parts. I've a pebble while my wife has an android watch. The killer feature on the android phone is voice commands. I agree that when in public it's a privacy concern to use voice commands hence an alternative is necessary. But its incredibly convenient and useful to control your phone and watch say when you are driving or at home. It's incredibly useful to set reminders just by saying "Ok Goog…

> Just swiping and tapping to control is useful than having to fiddle with 4 buttons

What's fiddly about buttons? It's much faster than swiping a couple of times to get to the option you want.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#186

$2million in an hour. Is that a record? (What else has sold anywhere near this fast?)

I don't think it's fair to consider this campaign as any sort of 'record'. Pebble is an already successful company with a history of success using Kickstarter as a store. If Apple decided to release the iPhone 7 on Kickstarter it would also break a ridiculous amount of records, but it's still not really 'fair'.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#187

3 million dollars and they can't hire an industrial designer to make it look like something other than a preschool toy? They feel like a bunch of developers competing against Apple. No offense intended, I'm a developer myself. I think they'll have more and better features, since that is how developers think, but you need to look good to really capture all the consumers.

Out of curiosity, how much do you think it costs to hire a top industrial design firm?

Divided by a couple million watches? Like $5...

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with you in parts. I've a pebble while my wife has an android watch. The killer feature on the android phone is voice commands. I agree that when in public it's a privacy concern to use voice commands hence an alternative is necessary. But its incredibly convenient and useful to control your phone and watch say when you are driving or at home. It's incredibly useful to set reminders just by saying "Ok Goog…

I agree that voice commands are sometimes useful, but they also sometimes aren't. One problem is that voice is more reliable when it has context, like a complete sentence. That doesn't always fit the use case of openign an oddly named app. Another problem is typified by a commmon Android Wear app which allows you to request a fake phone call on your phone. This example shows one of the use cases for a wearable: its a…

voice is more reliable when it has context, like a complete sentence. That doesn't always fit the use case of opening an oddly named app.

One could get around most of that by being able to set aliases for often used apps, like, "quick open 1." If it's hard to open a seldom used app, it's not that big a deal.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#189

3 million dollars and they can't hire an industrial designer to make it look like something other than a preschool toy? They feel like a bunch of developers competing against Apple. No offense intended, I'm a developer myself. I think they'll have more and better features, since that is how developers think, but you need to look good to really capture all the consumers.

Have you ever seen a normal watch? Like a Wal-Mart, off-the-shelf Timex? They're hideous. Absolutely atrocious. If people want a nice looking watch, they buy a Rolex or a Tag. What people get from a Timex is a functional watch that is easy to read, relatively oops-resistant (can take some damage and go under water without breaking), and has some features they really need. A $500 Rolex probably doesn't have a stopwatc…

A little correction from someone who happens to wear one: An actual Timex will probably run you $30-50, depending on how good a deal you find. Walmart knockoffs are cheaper, but much less durable; I bought one once, and the face was almost unreadably scratched within a month.

It's not a piece of jewelry, i.e. a status symbol, but it's comfortable, inconspicuous, and functional. It gives me the date and time at a glance, is accurate, times things, and has an alarm. I can strap it on my wrist and forget about it, because it lasts years on a single battery, and endures in the face of dust, water, scrapes, and bumps.

I actually think Pebble is going in the right direction here, with longer battery life and color e-ink, but smart watches have a long ways to go before they can compete with plain old digital watches. I have to worry about charging and protecting my phone, as I would with a smart watch, but my current dumb-watch is entirely worry-free.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#190
post #94

I've owned an original pebble for a couple weeks now, but I'm still skeptical on their usefulness. I save maybe 5-10 minutes of time per week by being able to check the weather forecast or dismiss non-urgent emails and texts using my watch instead of having to pull my phone out of my pocket, but that's about the only benefit I'm seeing so far. Maybe a smartwatch would be more useful to me if I was more popular and ha…

For me its not necessarily a raw measure of just time saved.

I realized that the physical habit that we've all developed of pulling our phones, unlocking , checking time or messages etc is a really really annoying physical habit.

It's disruptive and awkward to do, interrupts conversations or basic interactions with things in your environment.

A two handed fumbling time check/message check becomes a no handed operation with a smart watch.

I don't actually check my messages any more often, in fact less, since the notification is actually much more obvious then phones chirping in a pocket and my decision about whether to handle the information now or later is just much more quick and fluent.

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