The Pebble smartwatch has appeared at the 2013 International Consumer Electronic Show. At its first ever press conference today*, the company’s CEO Eric Migicovsky announced that Pebble is in mass production and is being shipped to its Kickstarter backers on January 23.
Migicovsky says that it will take 6-8 weeks to get all the initial orders out — a rate of 15,000 pebbles a week. Those who backed the device earlier will receive the smartwatch first.
If you’re not familiar with this device, it first made its appearance on Kickstarter where it received more than $10 million in pledges and sold all of its 85,000 watches. It became the record-holder for the highest amount raised, surpassing the previous record of $3.3 million.
As we reported last Spring, the Pebble is a slim, attractive watch with a Sharp display. While the device has a vibrator and a three-axis accelerometer with gesture support, it has Bluetooth 4.0 EDR for software updates that allows wearers to connect the device to their iPhone or Android device. The company says that it has a battery life of 7 days, has a scratch-resistant lens, and charges via USB.
Migicovsky also announced that the device will have a magnetic charging cable that it says will help to keep it waterproof. The watch will also have an ambient light sensor.
Developers will also find Pebble interesting as well. Migicovsky said developers will be able to push notifications to the watch like Facebook Connect. It’s already testing it with IFTTT as “an email in-point”. Additionally, the company is working on developing an SDK to have third-party apps developed with the watch run on Pebble. Right now, it’s being beta tested with a small group of developers and centered around tweaking the watch face, but eventually it will be expanded further.
As mentioned earlier, Pebble has mobile apps that can be paired with the Pebble watch. Through the app, wearers can modify the watchface that are displayed on the device.
Additionally device also includes email and incoming call notification:
A sample watch face created by a developer was displayed at the press conference:
After becoming the fifth Kickstarter project to top $1 million, Pebble partnered with RunKeeper to compete with the Nike+ Fuel band and other similar devices.
Pebble said that it will be continuing to post updates every 2-3 weeks until it completes all the features it announced and says that Kickstarter-backers will be one of the first to see its evolution.
* You’ll note that the photos above show the colors inverted. This occurred on Pebble’s livestream from the press conference.
Click here for all of our 2013 CES coverage.
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