

Pebble's E-Paper Watch Exceeds $10 Million Raised On Kickstarter - UnfalseDesign
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android/backers

======
nextparadigms
Just to make it clear for everyone, it's _not_ e-ink display. It's a
transflective LCD display, which isn't the same thing and it's not nearly as
efficient as e-ink either (although I have no idea if e-ink would even work
properly on a watch). My guess is it's around 2x more energy efficient than a
color LCD watch. This is what they're using for Pebble:

<http://www.sharpmemorylcd.com/1-26-inch-memory-lcd.html>

~~~
toemetoch
With e-ink, how would one at a glance know wether the battery is dead or not?

~~~
zumbojo
E-ink Kindles write a "Your battery is empty" message to the screen shortly
before the battery becomes completely discharged.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickbilton/3636447946/>

------
devinmontgomery
Alternate title: Kickstarter raises $500K in Pebble funding round

------
debacle
Maybe what we're in isn't a funding bubble, but a trust bubble?

Edit: I don't mean to say that Pebble will not deliver, and in fact I think
they will, but at some point one of these high-profile kickstarters is going
to fail to deliver (possibly at no fault of their own) and that is going to be
unfortunate for everyone involved, and will probably cause a big stir.
Hopefully Kickstarter handles it well.

~~~
DanBC
Here are two projects which are having trouble delivering. [oh, the pens have
shipped, and people are very happy with them.]

([http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-
mini...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-minimal-pen))

([http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-
an-o...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-open-
source-light))

------
Timothee
I'm just learning that they're renting a billboard along 101 in San Francisco:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/pebble-buys-san-francisco-
bil...](http://www.businessinsider.com/pebble-buys-san-francisco-
billboard-2012-5#comments)

According to some comments on Business Insider, such a billboard is… well,
pricey, and they would get the KickStarter money only after May 18th. (I
haven't confirmed that part)

Could one speculate from there that they have been raising money from yet-to-
be-announced traditional investors? Considering their new position (i.e.
demonstrated demand), it wouldn't be that surprising.

~~~
OzzyB
Sure, I can speculate:

They could very well be _Factoring_ [1].

Since the Kickstarter payout is pretty much guaranteed at such-and-such date,
they could quite easily "unlock" (factor) some of their future Accounts
Receivable for a small percentage discount.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoring_(finance)>

~~~
joejohnson
One thing I hate about finance is how every little trick is named by borrowing
the name from an existing concept in mathematics which only barely relates to
the financial trickery.

~~~
ojbyrne
That Wikipedia page says the practice originated before 1400, so it could be
that mathematics stole the word from finance.

~~~
razzaj
Are you saying Mathematicians did not know how to factor before 1400? hmmm ;)

~~~
ojbyrne
No, but I bet they used a different word.

------
melling
This site lets you track the funding progress of Kickstarter projects:

[http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-
wa...](http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-
iphone-and-android/)

------
Aethaeryn
There are apparently less than 400 Pebbles left[1] before they sell out at
85,000 watches[2]. If you wanted one and haven't ordered it yet, your
opportunity is almost gone!

EDIT: (30 minutes later) There are only about 150 left.

EDIT: (60 minutes later) They're past 85,000, but the announcement they made
said "around 85,000 Pebbles"[2] and not _exactly_ 85,000. They could disable
the preorders at any time, but there's no way to predict exactly when they're
officially sold out.

EDIT: (70 minutes later) They've just created a $1 tier that provides 0
watches, and they set all the other tiers to eventually run out.

[1] <http://computingeureka.com/pebble/>

[2] [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-
paper...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-
for-iphone-and-android/posts)

~~~
xmmx
Is there a name for this kind of behavior? I've known about the project since
day one and didn't feel like buying one, but now that there's only a few
watches left, I bit the bullet and gave them my credit card.

~~~
joezydeco
Marketing types call it the "Bandwagon Effect".

<http://www.marketing91.com/bandwagon-effect/>

84,600 customers _all_ can't be wrong, right? The project is a guaranteed
success (or so you would believe) and if you don't buy now, you will literally
miss the wagon...

~~~
aqme28
Sorry to be pedantic but you made a common mistake that always bothers me.
Don't say "literally miss the wagon" when you mean a figurative wagon.

Not attacking you or anything. Just trying to help.

------
ZanderEarth32
Assuming that the Pebble will cost $150 once (if) it becomes available for
retail, and factoring in the fact that some of these watches might never
actually ship, I'd rather invest an extra $40 once the watch comes out and I
know the quality rather than risk $115 now to save $40.

------
bwm
In my mind this shows that crowdsourced funding + low cost prototyping (eg
arduino) and manufacturing (eg 3d printing) could really disrupt consumer
electronics. It'd be really cool to see the next must have smartphone/tablet
built by a few guys in their basement and sold to millions of consumers.

------
goatcurious
Is this funding or working capital? Most watches come at cost through KS. They
would need to seriously ramp up the supply chain to fulfill the orders in the
promised timescale. And that would need expensive resources - some of which
cannot be met via the $10mm (as most of it might get consumed in
manufacturing). Though further traditional funding should be the least of
their problems - bet the VCs are clamoring for a piece now.

Hope they can find a Foxconn to manufacture everything in time and they can
ramp up their operations team. My best wishes to them - really hope they nail
it. I bet next few months would see war scale efforts from them.

------
simcop2387
Wow and I had expected it to take a while to break the $3.3 million record
that doublefine set on the site. It's honestly amazing what some of these are
doing financially.

~~~
veb
My question is, will they actually be able to meet anyones expectations?

~~~
GuiA
That will be very interesting to see. Statistically, it's likely that there
will be disappointed people— but what if the product just plain sucks? It's
unlikely, but very much possible.

~~~
upinsmoke
The expectations are much higher now.

------
chrisacky
Just published another story here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3950628>

Pebble has now been closed on KickStarter. You cannot pick up any from the
KickStarter project.

If you wanted to "pre order" you will have to go through GetPebble.com when
they get made available.

------
allbombs
insane

------
smackfu
The end result better come out good.

