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Introducing Pebble Time

kickstarter.com

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Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#361

Post by krrrh »

ChristianGeek wrote: post #197
mikestew wrote: post #130

I was waiting to see what Apple had in store but...oh, what the hell, I'll pull the trigger. Fact is, I'm pretty satisfied with my original KS-backer edition Pebble. Apple is going to have to have a pretty convincing story for me to charge a watch every single day. I spend enough time away from 5VDC power sources that such short battery life could become occasionally annoying. The original Pebble does what I want it…

My biggest problem with the Apple watch is that I don't want to have an expensive, high-demand Apple device on my wrist...it's going to be a bigger thief-magnet than a new iPhone. For that reason alone it will be a while before I consider getting one.

Thefts of iPhones actually dropped massively since iOS 7 introduced activation lock. Some cities published stats. Interestingly thefts of Samsung devices went way up as the market for useless stolen iPhones dried up.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#362

Post by notatoad »

riyadparvez wrote: post #211
mahyarm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it is too bad. I know many people who will not wear a smart watch if it doesn't look good. And these are people who have / wear many fashion watches of various sizes. The apple watch is the first watch that they actually like appearance wise. At least come out with a shiny gold, brass and rose gold colored versions. Not actual gold mind you, just gold colored. There are certain market segments that love those co…

I don't need fashionable watch. But this thing looks so childish.

I don't need a fashionable watch, but I really don't need an ugly watch. My phone tells time, shows notification, and does everything this does perfectly fine.

If it were fashionable, I'd be tempted. But it has to be at least one of useful and fashionable.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#363

Post by willtheperson »

I don't understand how this many people are supporting a new version. Anyone I've talked to who bought one was extremely disappointed with the product.

I had one to work on some prototypes about a year ago and it was nothing but frustration. Bad documentation, scattered, outdated already.. Getting code running on it was painful and most ideas were very limited by the watch abilities.

To top it off, the ios application to sync notifications was a complete joke. Bluetooth is pretty typically bad about staying connected, but the Pebble should win an award for how frustratingly often it would drop. To get it back, you must open the app or repair.

Beginning to end, a very poor experience. I get the design being pretty poor on the first version, but it seems like they didn't work very hard to fix that for v2.

Maybe I just happen to meet the only people who had these problems too, and every other person who bought one was very happy, but I'm honestly baffled.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#364

Post by baldeagle »

alistairSH wrote: post #239
eitally wrote: post #151

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.

Another option is the latest Fenix from Garmin... https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/on-the-trail/wrist-worn/feni... While it isn't a true smart-watch, it does provide alerts from your phone. I imagine for many users, that's enough. If I hadn't stopped wearing a watch completely a few years ago, I'd probably buy this one.

If that did sleep and activity tracking, then I would be in. Also, I didn't see battery life, but that might be an issue also. All I want is to log my heartrate throughout the day via my phone along with good sleep tracking. I'm ok with wearing a heart rate band.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#365

Post by mod »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #128
georgeecollins wrote: post #49

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 agree. Voice control in the Apple/Android paradigm is... weird. Talking to the phone, requiring Internet connection, unusable on a busy street. Take out the phone, unlock it, move it in front of your face (now I can't see a thing and start bumping into people), "ok Google", say it again, wait for the S4 to react, say something, see it's interpreted wrong... I very much prefer to type, it's faster even on a touch sc…

Android has offline speech recognition.

I'm not sure if it'll use it anytime there's a data connection, though.

I've also noticed it has a couple of flaws, like you can't use "newline" with it.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#367

Post by swalsh »

DenisM wrote: post #287

As I look at the total pledge amount climbing higher and higher, at $5.5m presently, I can't help but think that VCs and bankers got completely cut out of the "deal". It used to be that you had to please a whole bunch of finance guys to get anything done, but this time they weren't even invited to the table. It's a big change. I also keep thinking about other ways in which the financial sector can get disintermediate…

VC's provide more then money too. They provide connections/strategy/experience just as much as they provide cash.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#368

Post by karmacondon »

DenisM wrote: post #287

As I look at the total pledge amount climbing higher and higher, at $5.5m presently, I can't help but think that VCs and bankers got completely cut out of the "deal". It used to be that you had to please a whole bunch of finance guys to get anything done, but this time they weren't even invited to the table. It's a big change. I also keep thinking about other ways in which the financial sector can get disintermediate…

Despite what the text on the page implies, these are essentially pre-orders for the Pebble and not "funding" in the VC sense. They didn't raise $5.5MM, they sold that roughly that many of their products. It's an impressive achievement, especially relative to most other Kickstarter campaigns. But if apple only sold $5.5MM in pre-orders for their new watch, they wouldn't be very happy and someone would probably get fired.

As far as B2B bootstrapping goes, companies invest in other companies all the time. Mostly for the reasons that you've outlined, because they want to help potential partners to grow and often as a precursor to an acquisition. They generally don't do it at the very early seed stage because it's too speculative. That's what angel investors are for.

Kickstarter has become a sales platform, whether that's what they wanted to be or not, and they should just embrace that. It started off as "fund great ideas and help them get off the ground" but as soon as they allowed products to be given away as rewards it became "buy stuff that doesn't exist yet, and you may or may not receive it". There's clearly a demand for it, and it doesn't seem like the failed products are enough to stop people with disposable income from parting with a few hundred dollars to be early adopters and feel like they're helping someone else. It's worth noting that under this system the amount raised almost always reflects revenue as opposed to funding/profit. A campaign that raises $100k on Kickstarter will usually only get to "keep" $40k-$60k of that as actual funding, because they have to pay for the cost of the products and swag that they give out as rewards. Sure beats starting from scratch though.

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#369

Post by delecti »

fudged71 wrote: post #331
untog wrote: post #96

I'll admit to being disappointed. After the Pebble Steel I thought they were going to take appearances seriously, but the Pebble Time barely even looks better than the original Pebble. Maybe if they make a Pebble Time Steel it'll be the one for me (and the sales figures suggest plenty do not agree with me). That said, kudos to them for getting it out and being independent competition to Android Wear and the Apple Wat…

Just wait for it. In the coming weeks we will probably see a steel version added to the Kickstarter

Nah, they'll probably wait a year first like last time. They know that too many people would just shift their pledge over to a steel version. It'd make waiting to release it pointless

Re: Introducing Pebble Time

#370

Post by downandout »

I have to think that Pebble, and most other smart watches, are going to get crushed by the Apple Watch. iOS has an amazing ecosystem of developers that enhance the value proposition of owning iOS-based products to the point where literally no one can compete. People argue over the size of the smart watch market, but whatever it is, Apple will take a huge chunk of it. I see Pebble faltering before the end of the year, so I wouldn't want to buy one at this point.
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