The Pebble Smartwatch proved to be a Kickstarter phenomenon, managing to raise $10,266,845 in one of the most successful crowd-sourcing projects ever launched.
Billed as the ‘first watch built for the 21st century, the Pebble is an “infinitely customisable,” e-paper watch that lets users download new watchfaces and internet-connected apps like pedometers and bike computers.
Hooking up to Phone and Android smartphones via Bluetooth, the device can display live Twitter updates, Facebook status updates, weather alerts, incoming calls, calendar reminders, text messages and more.
The company has now started shipping the first batch of watches to their backers, with the first 500 units going out in the next day or so to those who committed their dosh soonest.
Posting on the Kickstarter blog, the company enthused:
Pebble will start shipping today! We’ll be sending out the first batch to the very first backers this afternoon. There are still some kinks and issues that we need to work out, but I’m glad to say we’ve made it this far.
With the project attracting an army of 69,000 backers, it looks like it’s going to take some time for everyone to get their model – the company say that they are still working to get production up to 2,400 watches a day.
Although the companion Android app is expected to be released today, iOS users are going to have to wait for an indeterminate period while Apple go through their tedious approval machinations, as the company explains:
Pebble iOS App is not yet available in the App Store. We submitted 2 weeks ago and have been responding to reviewer feedback. For the moment, iOS users who receive Pebble early will be able to do notifications/Music control but will not be able to install watchfaces or upgrade to the latest PebbleOS until the app appears in the App Store.
The Android app will go live on Google Play on Thursday Jan 24
