If you’re one of the few lucky enough to score a Pebble smartwatch, here’s a piece of advice: Don’t try to crack it open.

Gadget teardown experts iFixit did so, and the results weren’t great: Instead of getting an unhindered view of the device’s innards, the team ended up busting up its screen.

The Pebble’s display cracks under pressure.

“It is impossible to open the device without destroying it or at least compromising its waterproofing, making internal repairs infeasible,” iFixit says.

Like most devices these days, the Pebble is tightly designed and not meant to be opened. This means that a broken Pebble is essentially an unfixable Pebble, which means it’s a dead Pebble.

Elsewhere, iFixit praises the Pebble’s low power consumption, which decreases the need for charging, and, as a result increases its lifespan. Still, iFixit pegs the Pebble’s total battery lifetime at anywhere from six to 10 years, which means the Pebble probably won’t be a timepiece you pass on to your grandkids.

That’s an important detail, and for me throws some cold water on this brave, bold future of smartwatches. The watch is one of the most personal things someone can own, so it’s a bit disheartening to learn that longevity and repairability aren’t high on the priority list with the first batch of smartwatches. Then again, the industry is still young, and perhaps future, more expensive watches will outlast the average smartphone.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The much-hyped Pebble smartwatch started shipping yesterday, but the smartphone apps that help the watch really tick hadn’t been approved yet.

Thankfully, the apps for iPhone and Android are now available — just in time to help those who get the watch first. While the first of 89,000 Pebble orders are out the gate, it will likely take several more weeks to fulfill all of the orders.

Pebble got a lot of notice as one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever, with more than $10 million raised. Pebble integrates with your smartphone, and uses an E-Ink display to show information like call data, calendar entries, and social media updates. The apps for Android and iPhone help you install custom watch faces and more.

The Pebble app for the iPhone and Android provides a dashboard for your Pebble smartwatch and does the following things:

• Notifies you when software updates for Pebble ready to install
  
• Installs and remove custom watchfaces onto your Pebble
• Sends ping test messages to your Pebble
• Helps you troubleshoot issues

Check out a demo we did with Pebble in the video below.

Photos via Apple App Store

As promised during CES, Pebble has begun shipping its long-awaited smartwatch to Kickstarter backers today.

But don’t go throwing away your current watch just yet. Judging from the company’s production and shipment capacity, and with more than 89,000 Pebble orders to fulfill, you’ll likely be waiting for your Pebble watch for a few more weeks.

The company notes that its factory is currently building around 800 to 1,000 watches every day, but it’s still working on achieving full capacity of 2,400 daily units. Pebble is also building batches one color at a time, starting with black. So if you’re eager for that red or orange Pebble, expect to wait even longer.

“Since black was by far the most popular color, we started with a run of black Pebbles,” the company wrote in a blog post today. “I realize that this is different than what I said before … [The company previously said it would fulfill orders based on when someone backed the project.] While we would have liked to be able to ship out all the colors at the exact same time, it’s proven to be impossible. We’re doing our best to bring production of other colors on-line as soon as possible.”

Completed Pebbles are being shipped to the company’s Hong Kong and U.S. distribution centers one to two times a week. The company notes that there’s a five- to seven-day lag between a unit’s completed production and its arrival at a distribution center. Due to issues with airport documentation, only 500 Pebbble units are getting shipped today.

Pebble’s Kickstarter campaign was a smashing success — it raised more than $10 million. But after delaying its original launch date from last September, it also quickly became a warning sign for potential problems with the crowdfunding model. Now that it’s actually shipping, new problems lie ahead for Pebble. The company needs to make sure it can ramp up production, ship devices efficiently, and also deal with any issues that come up.

Design issues managed to defeat the far more experienced and well-funded Jawbone with its first Up health wristband, so Pebble can’t rest easy just yet.

Pebble says its iPhone app has been in review by Apple for the past two weeks, but it’s unclear when it will actually be available. For now, iPhone-touting Pebble owners will be able to see notifications and control music but won’t be able to install new watch faces or upgrade the Pebble’s software. The Pebble Android app will be available tomorrow.

Check out our CES demo with Pebble creator Eric Migicovsky below:

The CST-01 is just .8 millimeters thin — an astounding .0314 inches — and weighs just 12 grams, less than half an ounce. And it does precisely nothing but tell time, sort of the opposite of the other famous watch to hit the big time on Kickstarter, the Pebble.

“Everyone has crowded around this smart watch market,” project cofounder Jerry O’Leary told me. “But there hasn’t been any innovation in the actual timepiece itself. We thought: What if instead of adding as much as we can, we took as much as as we could?”

So with cofounder Dave Vondle, the two IDEO designers built an intensely minimalist watch. It’s nothing more than a “time embedded in a band,” as their Kickstarter project page suggests.

Source: Central Standard Timing

The CST-01 sits on its charging station.

Where Pebble, which raised over $10 million on Kickstarter, went big on customizability and apps and APIs and features, Vondle and O’Leary wanted a wristwatch that was thin, flexible, robust, and stylish — and not much else. In fact, nothing else.

“We wanted to redesign a timepiece from the ground up,” O’Leary says. “So we went back and looked at what’s unique about E-Ink … and we fell in love with those qualities.”

The previous thinnest watch in the world, the pair told me, was a .98 millimeter watch by Concord, created in the 1970s. Called Delirium, it was fully mechanical, not electronic, and so delicate that it could not be worn: The case would bend if you strapped it to your wrist. It was an “engineering marvel,” Vondle says, but it also cost about $15,000. And, of course, you could never wear it.

In contrast, the CST-01 is made of durable stainless steel, with its tiny components shoehorned into a tiny .5 millimeter “pocket” etched into the band. It’s electronic, powered by a micro-energy cell that can be recharged 10,000 times and lasts over 15 years. It has no buttons or knobs of any kind (all time-setting is done on the charging station). And it costs only $99, if you get in on the Kickstarter campaign.

Which happened almost by accident, according to the project leaders.

“We kinda backed into the Kickstarter campaign,” O’Leary says. “We were invited to CES by E-Ink, so we thought we had to time it and actually launch something in conjunction with the show. Essentially, we used it as a deadline.”

Source: Central Standard Timing

Also available in black …

The initial goal was $200,000 in funding, the “bare minimum,” according to Vondle. At that amount, the pair would have been able to built the watch, but they would have had spare components littering their homes and workshops afterward due to minimum order quantities for some of the components. As a result of going over $500,000, the project is starting to hit its sweet spot, and the projected quantities are now actually closer to what Vondle and O’Leary wanted to produce.

The watch will be assembled in the U.S., O’Leary told me, and some of the components will be produced locally as well.

“Right now, we’re talking to several US-based manufacturers, and signing non-disclosure agreements, so we can start doing some assembly,” Vondle said. “The majority of the product will be manufactured here and assembled here.”

The pair won’t disclose how high they think the Kickstart funding will eventually grow (“we’re superstitious about that stuff”) but they did say that they are considering other product options, such as sizes.

Whatever amount the campaign raises, backers can expect to get their world’s-thinnest watches in September of this year.

Image credits: Central Standard Timing

The Pebble smartwatch is almost here. In a jam-packed press conference this morning, Pebble creator Eric Migicovsky announced that it will begin shipping the watch Jan. 23.

I chatted with Migicovsky after the press conference, and he showed off some of his favorite features from the watch.

Migicovsky demonstrated Pebble’s “Fuzzy Time” functionality, which gives you plain language time readings (like “Quarter past five”), and a binary clock watch face. And he showed how easy it is to control your phone’s music with the watch.

It may just be running a black-and-white display, but the Pebble feels every bit as exciting as an ultrapowerful tablet. It foretells a new age of devices that are less focused on killer specs and more about evolving how the devices we already rely on function. While its initial delays led to some criticism of the crowdfunding model, the final product looks good enough to show that crowdfunding could be a viable path for consumer products.

The much-delayed Pebble E-Ink smartwatch is almost here. The Pebble team just sent out invites to a press conference taking place at CES at 9 a.m. Pacific on Wednesday. It will also be streamed online at the company’s site.

Pebble raised more than $10 million on Kickstarter, leading some to herald it as a champion of the crowdsourcing model (especially since traditional investors passed on it). The watch connects to your smartphone to show incoming data like caller info and calendar entries, and it can also run a variety of apps. We’ve seen many attempts at smartwatches, but for some reason the Pebble struck a chord with its more than 68,000 backers.

But after missing its initial ship date of last November, and with few updates from the Pebble team, it also quickly became an example of the dangers of crowdsourcing. A ton of funding, after all, isn’t going to teach an inexperienced company how to manufacture at a large scale.

The last we heard, Pebble’s lead designer Steven Johns was “stuck in Asia” trying to get the watch out the door.

VentureBeat will be on the ground at Pebble’s launch announcement next week, as well as for the rest of CES 2013.

Ever since the iPod Nano was slightly less Nano’d just a few months ago, there’s been increased speculation about an iWatch to replace it. Now there’s chatter about a new device — an iWatch, perhaps —  from Apple for specifically that purpose.

Nano is Apple’s smallest iPod with a screen, bigger than only the Shuffle, and the sixth generation has been used extensively as a watch with the simple addition of a wristband. At 1.55-inches square, the Nano was perhaps a little awkward but an excellent beginning — and perhaps a precursor — to the Pebble smart watch.

That’s no longer an option with the seventh generation iPod Touch, which sports a 2.5-inch multitouch screen and a longer, rectangular body.

Cue iWatch?

The speculation is that Apple will be releasing a product in the next six months, possibly with an Intel chip, that communicates with your smartphone via Bluetooth. If so, it needs to be much more than a watch, and much more than a way to communicate with the device that is already just a few inches away in your pocket.

In other words, it needs to be a personal quantification device for the masses.

There are currently 505 tools listed in the Guide to Self-Tracking Tools on Quantified Self. Jawbone’s UP, Fitbit’s err bit, Nike’s FuelBand, the Basis Band, the Zeo “personal sleep coach,” the Stresswatch, the Adidas miCoach and dozens more are devices built to measure, track, and encourage you to modify fitness activities.

This is more than a fad — it’s a movement. And while smartphones like Apple’s iPhone are often components of these systems, they’re just one component in an ecosystem that includes sensors, apps, online social experiences, and analytics. Apple could be so much more, if it wanted to play in this market.

As The Next Web mentions, 2013 could be the year when wearable computing leaves the geek and enthusiast community. And isn’t popularizing and improving emerging technologies what Apple does best?

The iWatch is just a rumor right now, but I’m hoping it’s more … much more.

photo credit: griffintech via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Waiting for your Pebble to drop? Rest assured the team is working around the clock and pulling out all the stops to get it done.

I just learned that Pebble’s lead designer, Steven Johns, is, according to my source, “stuck in Asia” working with Pebble’s manufacturing partners to get the product out the door. And he’s canceled a speaking appearance later in October, so he’s planning to stay there for some time.

Source: Kickstarter

Pebble raised so much money that they broke Kickstarter’s site (design).

Pebble is one of Kickstarter’s most successful crowdfunding projects ever, raising over $10 million from nearly 70,000 backers after setting a goal of just $100,000.

But the project is also a poster child for what can go wrong with crowdfunded projects. It’s been delayed multiple times — after an initial shipping date of September, the team has refused to publish a new projected shipping date, not wanting to overpromise and underdeliver.

The project has also been critiqued for lack of updates, which team leader Eric Migicovsky addressed today by showing a new version of the watch, new software and screen designs, and new apps (see his video update below).

In the video, Migicovsky says he’s just back from Taiwan. But designer Johns is still there, according to my source. Johns was scheduled to speak at Interface 2012, a digital health innovation conference in Vancouver, Canada, on Oct. 16-18.

(Here’s his speaker page on the conference organizer’s site.)

But that appearance has been canceled, as Johns will now be staying in Asia, working overtime to get Pebble ready for shipment.

In Migicovsky’s update, he says that the remaining challenges include quality control, wrist strap color variations, and finalizing the Pebble’s software. Pebble is also undergoing various tests: salt water (some people sweat), water proofing, UV aging, dropping, abrasion, and impact testing, and more.

What that adds up to is two to three more iterations before mass production.

But what it means for almost 70,000 project backers, hopefully, is a better quality, fully functioning watch when Pebble finally does ship.

The challenge is not small: How to fit displays and controls for music, email, apps, timers, rangefinder, clockfaces, and any other apps developers dream up … all into one tiny 144-x-168 pixel black-and-white display.

Pebble’s user interface engineer, Martijn Thé, had a clear goal:

Source: Pebble

Prototyping designs in real time.

“I figured Pebble should be so easy that our grandmothers should be able to pick it up and use it right away.”

The difficult part, however, was how to make it simple enough for granny and also support the needs and desires of power users.

To design the Pebble’s interface efficiently, the team created a tool that allows them to prototype designs while viewing them in real time on a mock up (see image). Pebble will be making the software available for developers to use as they create third-party apps for the device.

In addition, the company created an iPhone app that acts as a Pebble, so that designers can interact with it on their wrists and ensure that the feel of the interface is natural and simple.

See it in action in the video below:

Image credit: Pebble

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The team behind the much-talked-about Pebble smartwatch has finished taking orders on Kickstarter, with 85,000 orders placed for the device and $10.1 million raised thus far.

While there are eight days still to go on the Kickstarter countdown, people can only donate $1 now that the 85,000 order limit has been reached. A $1 donation will get you “exclusive updates” about Pebble going forward.

Pebble integrates with your smartphone via Bluetooth, and uses an E-Ink display to show information like call data, calendar entries, and social media updates. After more than a few terrible attempts at creating a decent smartwatch, it looks like Pebble has found the right elements with an elegant design and customizable app experience.

More than 66,000 people have donated to Pebble’s Kickstarter thus far. To fulfill its side of the deal, the Pebble team has about five months to build and ship all of the watches people have ordered. People who pledged to Pebble paid between $99 to $125 for a watch, whereas the device will retail for $150 after it gets off the ground.

Pebble has already begun grabbing app partners, with Runkeeper — a popular app for measuring and tracking your fitness — being announced as the first official app for Pebble.

The Pebble story and a few other standouts like Double Fine Adventures are indicative of the new wave of user-powered funding. Crowdfunding contributed an estimated $1.5 billion to new ventures in 2011 and that number will likely double by the end of the year.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

First seen at the Consumer Electronics Show in early 2012, Sony has launched its SmartWatch, an Android-powered watch with its very own apps.

The watch connects with your Android phone and will vibrate when you get a text message, phone call, or email. And don’t bother digging through your purse or pockets for your phone, the watch will even display messages on its tiny 1.42-by-1.42-inch screen.

Sony has priced the device at $150, which is cheaper than the competitors. The watch connects via Bluetooth to your Android phone to get all those must-have updates. You can also download Google Play apps to the watch, though it’d be hard to read Twitter on such a tiny screen. It comes with a default black wrist band, though pink, white, mint, grey and blue bands are available for $20 each.

If this watch-from-the-future looks familiar, it’s because you’ve probably seen something a lot like it before. There is the Pebble for iOS and Android, which just netted $1.17 million in 30 hours on Kickstarter, and the I’m Watch, which also made it big on Kickstarter in late 2011. Watch maker Fossil used the technology from Metawatch to create its own smart watch. Even Apple is in on the game with the sixth generation iPod Nano. The little square MP3 player Apple debuted in 2010, can be placed in a watch band, and of course supports Apple based apps.

As ugly as Sony’s Smartwatch and others like it are, I’d probably wear one. My phone blows up all day long with notifications and while I could just shut them all off, most of them are important. Instead of looking at my phone every time it vibrates, I could glance at my wrist and determine if what happened is worth my attention. Random emails from someone I don’t know would be read later, and calls from my mom would be answered immediately, provided I had a Bluetooth headset handy.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Using Bluetooth, a prototype smartwatch called Pebble will connect to your iPhone or Android device to fetch calendar alerts, show social media updates, display caller ID for incoming calls, and run simple applications.

The watch, currently being showcased on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, is not for sale (yet), but it’s already in hot demand. In just 30 hours, more than 8,500 backers have committed $1.17 million in funds to see the Pebble become a very real thing of connected beauty on their wrists.

There have been other smartwatches. You’ve no doubt heard the rumors that Apple is working on an iOS watch. Well this is different because the watch is not trying to run an OS. By using the phone to do the processing, the watch is basically a semi dumb display that uses your phone to get and process data. However, I say ‘semi’ because you can load simple apps that can execute basic programs, as well as use it as a bike computer, control music on your phone, and create iftt (if this then that) commands to make your own rules for when the phone sends messages to your watch.

Here’s what the makers of Pebble say about the watch:

Apps bring Pebble to life. We’re building some amazing apps for Pebble. Cyclists can use Pebble as a bike computer, accessing the GPS on your smartphone to display speed, distance and pace data. Runners get a similar set of data displayed on their wrist. Use the music control app to play, pause or skip tracks on your phone with the touch of a button. If you’re a golfer, feel free to bring Pebble onto the course. We’re working with Freecaddie to create a great golf rangefinder app for Pebble that works on over 25,000 courses world-wide. Instead of using your phone, view your current distance to the green right on your wrist. These apps will be the first, with more in the works!

Want to code an app yourself? For now you need to write in C, so this not for your amateur coder. But who knows? Perhaps someone will write a Python or PHP layer on top.

The Pebble will retail for $150, but early Kickstarter backers can pledge a bit less to the project and pre-order the smartwatch before it starts shipping.

Interestingly, Sony announced today that it is releasing a similar Sony SmartWatch that connects to Android only. Based on the press release it takes the same approach Pebble is taking, however for $150, on Android only, and not quite as attractive. I’m leaning towards the Pebble.

This edited post originally appeared on Perivision