A Samsung vice president has made it clear that the company is developing an upcoming watch product, which will likely compete with Apple’s heavily rumored “iWatch” smart watch.

But the VP, Lee Young Hee of Samsung Mobile, also hinted that the watch wasn’t just a knee-jerk response to Apple’s rumored product, Bloomberg reports.

“We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long,” Lee said. “We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them.”

It’s not surprising to see Samsung tackle a smartwatch (again), especially after all of the hype surrounding the iWatch. With every new report, it seems clearer that our wrists will be a significant part of the future of mobile computing. But Samsung will likely want to make it clear that it isn’t just copying Apple’s game plan, given the contentious trial where Apple accused Samsung of copying its smartphone and tablet designs.

The watch category isn’t anything new for Samsung. The company released the S9110 watch phone (above) back in 2009 at a slightly cheaper price than a competing LG watch phone. Apple’s iWatch is expected to serve more as an accessory for your smartphone rather than a completely separate phone, so I’d expect Samsung’s upcoming smart watch to follow suit.

Unfortunately, Lee didn’t have anything else to divulge about Samsung’s upcoming watch. The company is also getting into the fitness gadget arena this year with a new S-band activity monitor, activity scale, and heart monitor, all of which will synchronize with the company’s new Galaxy S IV smartphone.

How do you successfully leak a story? The recent spat of Apple iWatch news could be a solid lesson.

After reports that Apple was developing a curved screen smartwatch from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal this weekend, now we’re hearing that the company also has 100 designers working on the project in the latest report from Bloomberg.

It’s tough to call three reports from major publications within just a few days coincidental. While Apple has never admitted to the practice, it’s widely believed that the company often leaks significant news to the press (it helps to control the story, and it’s a nifty way to squash erroneous rumors). And right now it appears that we’re seeing Apple’s press manipulation in full swing.

Consider how each report gave us a sliver of information: The NYT kicked off the recent rumor and brought up the notion of curved glass (using new technology from Corning); the WSJ pointed out that Apple has been in discussions with Foxconn about it; and now Bloomberg’s report is hinting that it’s likely closer than we think. Apple doesn’t throw 100 designers at something that won’t make it to the market, after all.

It’s almost as if the iWatch reports are each conveniently placed pieces of a larger puzzle — ultimately, they lead to the compelling narrative that Apple is about to revolutionize the industry yet again with a new smartwatch.

Bloomberg notes that Apple’s James Foster, a senior director of engineering, and Achim Pantfoerder, a manager within the company, are part of the project. Intriguingly, Apple has also considered wearable fitness trackers in the past that were never released, the report says.

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple debut the iWatch this year. It’ll give the company a shot of life in a year where it’s expected to introduce a slightly better iPhone 5, the iPhone 5S, and minor revamps to the iPad and iPad Mini. There are also rumors that Apple is considering a bigger iPhone, but even that honestly doesn’t seem that innovative. I don’t expect the iWatch to be as revolutionary as the iPhone, but it has the potential to be a popular accessory that further cements consumers into the iOS ecosystem.

Photo: A series of iPod Nano watchbands from Griffin

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

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.