I think it’s very fitting that we start ARM Kickstarter Week with a teardown of the Pebble watch. To me the Pebble was a breakthrough hardware product on Kickstarter and it broke new ground in two ways; first it showed there was a real market for Smart watches and wearables after years of other failures, second, it proved spectacularly that Crowdfunding was a viable way for new companies to get to market. Pebbles’ Kickstarter ended with $10.2m in orders and the company has thrived ever since with the watch selling at Best Buy and its App ecosystem expanding rapidly (check out the Pantelligent interview later in the week).
So how did it all begin and what makes the watch tick (couldn’t help myself). Let’s start with a video interview of the unassuming Pebble CEO, Eric Migicovsky here. Next let’s take a look inside the watch with our friends from iFixit.
The Pebble was designed back in 2001 and the key component is the STMicro STM32 with a Cortex-M3. I have worn a Pebble for over a year now and have found the battery life to be at least 4 days and 6 if I’m not getting a lot of notifications so it’s a viable product in the Smartwatch category. You can see the whole teardown at iFixit and if you have a tech obsessed person you need to buy a holiday gift for you can’t beat an iFixit tool kit. If you want to buy a Pebble the classic version is going for $79 this month.
What’s your take on Smartwatches?
STMicroelectronics has enjoyed supporting this amazing achievement with STM32 F2 powering or 'braining' Pebble Watch a new path indeed in the ways of funding innovations and a real technological breakthrough in the wearable world.