VENTURE BEAT - Mar 26 - The campaign’s initial goal was $500,000. The Pebble Time is the company’s third device, a $159+ smartwatch with several new features. Among them, a redesigned OS, a colorful display reminiscent of e-paper, a Gorilla Glass screen, and a smaller form factor.
by Harrison Weber & Fletcher Babb
See full article at VentureBeat
EXPERT REVIEWS - Mar 25 - Many European backers are cancelling their orders for the device, after the prolonged shipping dates and extra costs were revealed in an update from the Pebble team. The Pebble Time campaign remains massively over-subscribed, however, with just shy of $20 million pledged so far.
by Barry Collins
See full article at Expert Reviews
TECH CRUNCH - Mar 19 - Pebble is looking to third-parties to help build up the smartstrap ecosystem. It will be combing crowdfunding platforms to find out about smartstrap projects, and will back those it deems worthy. The company is also soliciting pitches via Twitter and email for anyone who might be planning a smartstrap, and isn’t pinning itself down with specifics on the terms of how it will actually allocate cash just yet.
READWRITE - Mar 3 - Like the previous Pebble Steel, the Time Steel is a higher-end version of the smartwatch, and it's available for preorder for $250. Pebble already lets developers build apps for its smartwatches. Now it's going to let others build hardware for Pebbles called a "smartstrap" that attaches to the Pebble's charging port, exchanging both data and power.
READ WRITE - Feb 26 - With SDK 3.0, the company touts the ease with which developers will be able to create new apps for Pebble Time, or let older apps take advantage of the new color screen. The preview features documentation for the new Timeline APIs, an emulator to test apps and a migration guide, to help them in the process. Pebble Time has nabbed nearly 50K backers who have pledged more than $10.5M in two days, with 29 more to go.
READWRITE - Feb 24 - The new software and its new companion product, dubbed Pebble Time, is a progression of the Pebbles that came before, with a color display, on-screen animations and a brand-new microphone—all stuffed into a device that’s 20% thinner. The new Pebble—like the old one—will still last about a week between charges.
READWRITE - Feb 24 - It took only 20 minutes for the Time to meet its Kickstarter crowdfunding goal of $500K. Only 34 minutes after launching, Pebble Time hit a million bucks in crowdfunding, and it's set to cross $2M less than an hour after launch.
TECH RADAR - Feb 19 - The official Pebble website has been taken over by a timer on Thursday morning, which is gradually counting down until the calendar flips a page to Tuesday, February 24 at exactly 10AM EST. New hardware and software are expected this year, complete with a new framework to better interact with smartphones.
by JR Bookwalter
See full article at TechRadar
TECH CRUNCH - Feb 16 - Pebble’s integration actually supports a wider selection of Android devices than Android Wear itself — Android 4.0 versus Android 4.3 — but the company still faces a huge task to stay relevant in a rapidly competitive space.
VENTURE BEAT - Feb 11 - A new report by Canalys Research said Motorola’s Moto 360 led the pack in sales of Android Wear smartwatches. LG’s round G Watch R performed significantly better than its original squarish G Watch. Pebble shipped a total of 1 million units from its 2013 launch through to the end of 2014. Fitbit remained the global leader in the basic wearable band market. Xiaomi shipped more than a million of its $13 Mi Bands.
SILICON VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL - Feb 10 - Pebble Technology is now increasingly focused on taking the information the hardware produces and turning it into something useful for the consumer. Pebble's team of about 130 is now 60% software engineers.
by Angela Swartz
See full article at Silicon Valley Business Journal
READ WRITE - Feb 3 - Whatever Pebble has up its sleeve, its success will hinge on introducing something new without sacrificing the best parts of the old Pebble experience. Benefits like long battery life and a broad app selection remain rare in the wearables category, and they’re advantages the Apple Watch isn't likely to match when it launches.
CNET NEWS - Feb 2 - The milestone was reached on December 31, the sales figure is up dramatically from the 400,000 sold as of last March. In September, Pebble trimmed the price of its standard smartwatch to $99 and its Steel edition to $199. It also added features to both models. The company will introduce new products this year as well as a new software platform for its smartwatches.
READWRITE - Jan 22 - Pebble just struck a deal with CommandWear System to become a communication lifeline for first responders. CommandWear's platform aims to help emergency workers stay connected without compromising their “situational awareness,” by adding distractions that can compromise safety.
FAST COMPANY - Dec 22 - Community tools such as CloudPebble, Watchface Generator and HTTPebble have been essential to Pebble's growth. "We've done everything we could to help [developers] continue hacking and customizing and building and extending the firmware for Pebble," Migicovsky says. "So, we're putting our money where our mouth is and saying, 'It's not just about us. It's not just about what we think Pebble is. It's much more about the community.'"
ENGADGET - Nov 18 -The payments company announced that there's now a compatible application for the smartwatch, which is available free of charge from Pebble's app store. Once installed, it can be used to make payments at any PayPal-friendly location, including restaurants and other local brick-and-mortar businesses.
WAI - Oct 24 - Here are the top things I learned at Wearable World's Glazed Conference in London this week.
THE NEXT WEB - Sep 30 - The e-paper display smartwatches are also rolling out an update that improves their health and fitness tracking capabilities. Once installed, users can run health apps in the background while another app or watchface is open. The company's wares will soon be available in Sprint stores across the US, as well as Carphone Dixons and O2 in the UK, and will launch in Benelux and the Nordics tomorrow.
ANDROID HEADLINES - Aug 24 - Shipments of wearable bands, including Fitbit and Jawbone UP, have increased 684% from the first half of 2013 to the first half of 2014, according to Canalys. For basic bands, Fitbit was top in shipments, followed by Jawbone UP and Garmin's Vivofit. For smartwatches, Samsung was top in shipments, followed by Pebble Steel and Sony's Smartwatch 2. The numbers for Samsung's Gear Live and LG's G Watch with be posted in Q3.
