New Color: Grey! Also: Enter Your Color Selection and Shipping Address

Hi Pebblers,

Due to extraordinary interest from our backers, we’ve decided to introduce a 5th Pebble colour option: Grey! Here’s the current state of the Pebble rainbow:

Here’s a render of the new Grey Pebble [not pictured: the 49 shades of grey that didn’t make the cut]

Pebble Account website

In order to keep track of every single backer’s shipping information and color selection, we created a  Pebble Account site. An invitation has been sent to the same email address that you used on Kickstarter when you backed Pebble. You can find the email in your inbox by searching for an email

From: kickstarter@getpebble.com 

Subject: Your Pebble Order – Enter shipping info and color selection

Inside that email there is a special link that invites you to create a new password for your Pebble Account. If you can’t find that email in your inbox, check your spam filter as message may be misclassified. If you can’t find it, make sure thatkickstarter@getpebble.com is on your safe-email list and then request a password reset here.

Using the Pebble Account website, you can choose your Pebble’s color, enter your current shipping address and pay any shipping fees that were not included in your pledge on Kickstarter. You have until Sept 30, 2012 to select which color you’d like. As for your shipping address, please enter your current address into the system. You can return to account.getpebble.com at any time before your Pebble ships and change your address if you move.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Q: When is Pebble shipping? A: We have not announced a shipping date. As soon as we are 100% confident we can ship by a certain date, we will announce it right here on our Kickstarter Updates section.
  • Q: I’m getting an error “The Invitation Token is Not Valid” A: You may have already clicked the link. If you can’t access your account, you can reset your password on this page
  • Q: What if I move? A: We will email you before we ship your Pebble so you can change your address if necessary at account.getpebble.com.
  • Q: Help! I can’t access my old email account. A: Please email your new address and your old email address, with your Amazon payment ID from the payment confirmation you received on May 19th to kickstarter@getpebble.com
  • Q: Can I add more Pebbles to my order? A: You can place new pre-orders at www.getpebble.com but they will not ship with your Kickstarter rewards.
  • Q: Does upgrading to a Color option change my place in the shipping order? A: No.
  • Q: Can I upgrade from Jet Black to a Color Pebble? A: Yes, you can pay $15 USD and upgrade to a Color Pebble.
  • Q: What service do you use for shipping? A: We’re planning on shipping via the postal service (eg. USPS).
  • Q: Will you mark the package as a gift or mis-state the value? A: The value on each package will be at least $99 USD.
  • Q: Can I get a white band for my Orange Pebble? A: We are shipping the orange Pebble with a Black band. We may offer the option to purchase an extra white strap at a later date.
  • Q: What does the Grey (and other colors) look like in Real Life? A: We are working hard on plastic samples. We’ll post pictures as soon as we get them.
  • Q: Can I pay shipping or upgrade using Paypal? A: No, the system only accepts credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discovery, JCB, Diners Club) or US debit cards.
  • Q: I pledged X and I only get the choice for Y watches! A: Please send us an email and we’ll fix it. It may take us a few days to work our way through all our emails though.

If you have any questions, please email kickstarter@getpebble.com

Tidbits from around the Pebble world

  • Shipping test has been working out well. We sent 120 test shipments to a few backers around the world to test our logistics provider and optimize the process to ensure that packages arrive safely, quickly and with as few fees as possible to our backers.
  • Backers, you’ve been asking about the backlight! We’ll post a video on our social media accounts (twitter/Facebook/Vimeo) showing it off fairly soon
  • Andrew is in Taiwan right now working on our production test plan (among other things). Here are the latest pics
  • Here’s a short video of a pug-based screen saver/graphics test on a pre-production Pebble. This is NOT the real strap, just a random sample I had on-hand.

As usual, we’ll continue posting small updates in between our Kickstarter Updates onTwitter.com/pebble, Facebook.com/getpebble, Pinterest.com/getpebble and responding to questions on the Pebble Forum.

Thanks again for backing us, Pebblers!

Eric + Pebble Team

140 Comments

 

User Interface Preview + Updates

Update

Bit of business before we get to the cool demo. I’d like to apologize for the abrupt way that I mentioned we would not be able to begin shipping Pebbles in September (inUpdate 17). It’s clear now that this information should have been highlighted and discussed more thoroughly.

Planning and scheduling a major manufacturing project is complex. We’re working hard to complete the interconnected tasks that make up the production process. For me and the hardware engineers on the project, a large percentage of our time is spent exchanging complex spreadsheets filled with components specs by email, Skyping about the dimensions of minute hardware requirements and IMing our manufacturing team and factory. Not super exciting. That’s why we’ve decided to share the more interesting stuff (photos, video and more!) in updates.

Our goal is to provide you with accurate information and interesting examples of our progress via these updates. We’re working quickly, but we don’t want to compromise on quality. While we won’t be posting a shipping date until we’re extremely certain that we’ll be able to meet it, our feeling is that by monitoring our progress by the updates you’ll have an excellent feel for how the project is going. When we do share the ship date, it won’t be too surprising because you’ll have seen the project come together in these updates.

Ask-Me-Anything about Pebble today at 11am Pacific!

I can only go into so much detail during these updates. That’s why I’ll be hosting a thread on Reddit (www.reddit.com/r/pebble) today at 11am Pacific (2pm EST, midnight Mumbai) where you can ask me any other questions you might have about Pebble.

User Interface (UI) Preview

Martijn is Pebble’s User Interface designer and iOS developer. Check out the video in high resolution (full screen for best effect) for a preview of the Pebble UI. Keep in mind this is just a preview and subject to change as we continue to develop the software. For example, the font size is customizable, eg you can select to have emails shown on screen in arger print. The next step is to implement this UI for the watch itself and test it thoroughly on a prototype Pebble.

Martijn used iOS to create a prototype Pebble for quick designing. Here is an example of an incoming email on Pebble.

Incoming call

Music control – You can skip tracks by double tapping the centre button

Other random tidbits from the Pebble world

  • Starting a shipping test. Volunteer Pebblers around the world will receive an empty shipment from us to determine how long the shipping process will take. ThanksTwitter followers!
  • Started working on the Manufacturing Test Plan (MTP)
  • Ran into an antenna issue. Working through it with a bunch of antenna experts. We’ll figure it out.
  • Started tooling on a bunch of simple components like the USB charge cable and shipping box
  • Tested tons of different watch strap samples to make sure we get the texture just right
  • Ordered 500,000 more resistors. You can never have too many resistors!
  • We’re working on a Pebble Account page where backers can update their shipping information.
  • In the next update, we’ll post more info about the software development progress.

That’s it for now. Thanks again for backing us, Pebblers!

Eric + Pebble team.

233 Comments

Orange Wins! + Manufacturing Prototype Photos

Voter’s Choice

Without further ado, I’d like to present the Voter’s Choice color….Orange! It won with almost 2000 out of more than 10,000 qualified votes.

I think it looks pretty snazzy! The exact color appearance may vary from this rendering as we work with our plastics supplier. And if you don’t like orange, don’t worry! As a color backer, you’re entitled to pick any of the (now) 4 color options for each one of your Pebbles: Black, White, Red or Orange. We will send out a survey to request your selection later on in the project.

Manufacturing Update

The Pebble team has been bouncing back and forth between Palo Alto and Taipei a lot over the last 6 weeks. The factory that we selected has an R&D facility in Taipei while their main manufacturing and assembly locations are in China. Andrew, Steve and I have all travelled separately to Taipei to oversee the transition between the design and manufacturing stages of the project. In terms of our schedule, we’re sticking pretty closely to an aggressive timetable we put together at the end of May (remember our first timetable was created before we launched on Kickstarter, when we were expecting to manufacture just 1,000 Pebbles). While we won’t be able to start shipping Pebbles in September, our current schedule has us on track to go from manufacturing zero to 15,000 Pebbles per week as soon as possible.

Eric checking the power consumption of Pebble’s backlight module

We’re currently in a phase called Engineering Verification. During this phase, the factory produced samples of the entire product. We’re currently evaluating each individual component (case, lens, circuit board, charge cable, etc) and we’ll tweak the design as necessary. The design needs to be nearly perfect before we move into a phase called ‘tooling’ during which the factory creates hardened steel tools for injection moldingPebble’s plastic components.

Prototype Lens

Remember our tiny printed circuit board (PCB) design from Update #15? Here it is in real life attached to our custom PCB test fixture.

Another key component in our design is a flexible printed circuit (FPC). See that empty space in the middle? That’s where the battery fits in. 

Pebble Case samples getting their buttons installed

High resolution versions of each image will be available on our Pinterest page shortly.

Thanks!

Eric + Pebble Team

326 Comments

Color Voting is Now Open!

Vote on the 4th Pebble Color

After the dust settled from our #ColorMyPebble campaign, we whittled the color list down to 12 options. To check them out, head on over to:

http://vote.getpebble.com

You’ll notice that anyone can vote on this page. Only the votes of the Kickstarter color backers will count towards the 4th color option, but everyone is free to make their voice heard!

If you’re a color backer, in order to ensure that your vote is counted, please use the same e-mail address that you used when backing Pebble on Kickstarter.

If you vote multiple times, only your last vote will be counted. You can vote as often as you like until the closing date on July 21, 2012. Please help us out and complete the survey after you vote, as it helps us get a better idea of our Pebble user base!

Don’t worry about the strap color, this survey is focusing on the color of the watch body.

Thanks!

Eric + Pebble Team

(Want to see what Pebble looks like in each color? Head over to the voting pagehttp://vote.getpebble.com)

  • Image-133760-full

123 Comments

Oodles of Color

Hi everybody!

Quick update before the Canada Day long-weekend.

Color Selection

We’ve started accepting color suggestions. So if you’ve got any ideas for cool Pebble colors, here’s how you can get your voice heard! The best way to send us your color is with the hex color value. Don’t forget to create a memorable name, then send your suggestion to us via

After you post your suggestion, we’ll create a render of Pebble using your suggestion and post it on our Pinterest page. If you like someone else’s color combination, be sure to repin, tweet, like or generally talk about it!

Next week, we’ll be sending out an email to all backers of a color pebble with a link to the color voting survey, taking into consideration all the suggestions that we’ve received.

PCB Layout Complete

A major milestone is complete…we’ve created the final design for our printed circuit board (PCB). This is the main electronics board that contains all the integrated circuits and passive components that make up Pebble. It’s double sided…so that 3D render above is just one side! The wires coming out the bottom are from the vibrating motor.

This is close to the actual size of the board. It’s roughly the size of the ‘tab’ key on a MacBook keyboard.

Android Developer APIs

Pebble was at Google IO this week. We used the opportunity to start the conversation with developers around our Android APIs. If you’re interested, you can learn more atdeveloper.getpebble.com. This is just the beginning of our developer outreach, we’ll be releasing other sections of our SDK over the coming months.
Eric + Pebble team

57 Comments

Summer Plans

Hi Pebblers,

Just wanted to share our game plan for the summer. We’re putting together a lot of moving pieces:

Status

Steve from Pebble, Herman and David (from Dragon) in the middle of a plastic molding discussion

  • Factory bring-up: working with our factory to finalize the design of each individual component and subsystem of the watch, moving towards the first factory-made prototype of Pebble
  • Component sourcing: orders have been placed for all electronic components on the board multiplied by 85,000!
  • Software: a whole bunch of new software engineers joined our team very recently. They’re working on things like the user interface and interaction design (read: what the buttons will do and more!), Pebble’s Software Development Kit (SDK) and APIs for developers, and our iOS and Android apps.

Updates

Instead of keeping you wondering when we’ll post our next update, we’d like to make a commitment to post an update (at least) once every three weeks.

So that means three weeks from now, we’ll have posted our next update. We’re looking forward to sharing all kinds of cool things with you during the next few months including updates from the factory, links to developer information, screenshots of the iOS and Android app as they take shape, preview videos of Pebble in action showing off the interface, announcement of new app partners and more! One thing I want to say up front: we are not planning on announcing any new dates or timeframes relating to manufacturing. This is our first major production run and we don’t want to start making promises like ‘next week we’ll have the first samples!’. We’ll update you as much as possible, but we won’t be mentioning dates.

We’re also posting updates on Twitter @pebble and Facebook. These updates are official (from the Pebble team) but the final word about Pebble is always in an update. So if there is any confusion, the updates on Kickstarter will always be correct.

Color Selection

For all the backers of a color Pebbles…this is what you’ve been looking forward to! In an update (as well as email) we’ll be publishing a webpage where all color Backers will be able to vote on a color from a short-list of colors that we’ve seen people talk about on our comments, forums, Twitter, Facebook, other websites and more. Your vote will not tie your Pebble to that specific color…if you don’t end up liking the Voter’s Choice color, you’re free to choose one of the other 3 colors (Arctic White, Jet Black or Cherry Red).

Hiring

Pebble is hiring! We’re looking to meet an experienced Developer Evangelist and hopefully convince him or her to join our team. If you are programmer who has written APIs, consumed a lot of APIs and/or really really enjoys talking with other developers about APIs…we’d like to meet you! Please email us at jobs@getpebble.com with your experience in this area, links to github/twitter/blog etc.
Thanks!

Eric + Pebble team

84 Comments

 

Pebble Campaign Success!

Thirty-seven days are up…and we have reached the end of our campaign. We set out with a goal of raising $100,000 and thanks to you, we’ve raised over $10,000,000! We are extremely happy that you’ve given us the opportunity to make Pebble a reality. Our current goal is clear: over the next few months we’ll be working 24-7 to make Pebble as awesome as possible, and get it onto your wrist as quickly as possible.

Over the next few weeks, expect to see a variety to updates related to the voter’s choice colour survey, team introductions, and manufacturing updates. We will also be in correspondence with you via email for specifics like colour choices and shipping information.

Thank You Backers (or Pebblers, whichever you prefer)! All 68,928 of you. For those that didn’t get to participate in our campaign, you can sign up for future releases atwww.getpebble.com.

You can also get even more involved through our forums, facebook, or twitter pages.

Eric + The Pebble Team

PS. The Pebble Team has grown since we launched our Kickstarter campaign 37 days ago. Here’s a little something to help you put a face to a name:

Eric Migicovsky

Andrew Witte

Rahul Bhagat

Steve Johns

Martijn The

Sarah Otten

Matthew Zulak

Nicholas Ford

Bradley Murray

Ryan Case

+ Adam & Chris (our co-op students who are now back in school)

91 Comments

International Pledge Note

Hi Pebblers!

We’re almost there! Just a little bit of housekeeping from Pebble HQ. Our Kickstarter campaign will be closing on Friday May 18 at 8:00PM Pacific Standard Time.

At that time, your credit cards will be charged – a process that may take a few days. This is a reminder to make sure that the credit card you have used has enough credit to fulfill your pledge and is still active (has not been cancelled). We want to make sure that everyone who signed up for a Pebble receives one.

————————————————————————

To change your credit card information:

1. Click on the “Manage Your Pledge” button. You must be signed into Kickstarter to see this button.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
3. Click on the “Change Payment Method” option. Please be very careful not to press the “cancel pledge” option beside it! If you cancel your pledge, you will lose your reward and we cannot restore it!
From there you will be sent to an Amazon page where you can check on or correct your credit card information.

————————————————————————

We will also be receiving contact emails for each of our Backers through Kickstarter. In the months after the project closes, we’ll be emailing you directly with colour selection, shipping address requests and other updates.

As a bit of an aside – Eric, Steve and Andrew have sent us a couple of pictures from China. Looks like they’ve been talking shop and eating dumplings! You can follow the adventure on Pinterest or @pebblewatch.

————————————————————————————————–

This rest of this update is specifically for backers with shipping addresses outside of the United States

There has been some confusion over the international shipping fees. Since your credit cards will be charged when the campaign closes on Friday, an update seems the best way to make sure everyone has pledged properly.

Canadian or International backers: Please make sure you’ve added/included shipping fees in your pledge total.

If you have not done this, here’s how to manage your pledge and add shipping:
1. On the Pebble Kickstarter page, click on the button that says “Manage Your Pledge.” You must be signed into Kickstarter to see this button.

2. Type your pledge amount in the first box. Make sure that your pledge amount is the appropriate reward amount plus the applicable shipping fees.

Check the following table to verify your pledge level including shipping.

Please Note: If you pledge any less than your reward level, you will lose your reward position and someone else might pick it up. For example, if you pledged $115 for a jet black Pebble and forgot to include international shipping, pledge $130 and NOT just $15. You will receive a new pledge confirmation email from Amazon, and Amazon will only bill you once.

3. Click continue and confirm your pledge in the pop-up window.

4. From here you will be required to sign into your Amazon account. For this step, continue exactly as you did when making your original pledge.

 

If you have questions, please check out our forum post: https://forums.getpebble.com/topics/460 or check the comments on Kickstarter. If you really really need to, you can send me an email at sarah@getinpulse.com. But please check the comments to see if your question has been answered already.

Kind regards, Sarah + Pebble Team

98 Comments

SFO -> HKG

Hi Pebblers,

Quick checkin from our boarding gate. Andrew (lead engineer), Steve (industrial designer) and I (Eric) are about to head off on a trip to China. We’re flying to Hong Kong, then crossing over into the Dongguan area. We’ll be checking in with the factories that are helping us bring Pebble to life.

Pebble is sold out!

After we posted on Tuesday, it took about 26 hours for the remaining Pebbles to sell out. You guys move fast! For those who didn’t get one, you can still sign up here to find out when more Pebbles will be available.

Pebble + Twine

We partnered with Twine, one of the most awesome Kickstarter projects ever. Check it out at http://supermechanical.com/twine/

More soon!
Eric + Team

86 Comments

And one more thing…

Dear Kickstarter backers,
You’ve written comments, sent us email, tweeted @pebblewatch and posted on facebook.com/getpebble. I want to thank you for this. Today, we’d like to announce that your enthusiasm has helped convince us to move the entire Pebble roadmap forward and bring you a brand new feature.

Bluetooth 4.0 – inside every Pebble!

All Pebble watches will support Bluetooth 2.1 (as before) as well as Bluetooth 4.0 (Low Energy)

Here are the details:
– Bluetooth 4.0 is the latest Bluetooth standard
– It’s backwards compatible and works with all phones for which we originally pledged to support
– Please view this as our efforts to Future-Proof Pebble for our Kickstarter backers
– Bluetooth 4.0 is not a magic battery extender.
– We probably won’t enable Bluetooth 4.0 at launch, but we’ll turn it on with software at a later date (via a free upgrade)
– Our main goal in adding Bluetooth 4.0 is eventual support of wireless sensors like heart-rate and cadence (for cycling)
– It will probably not make your watch or phone battery last too much longer, but we’ll see what we can do!
Please note that we’ve been planning this addition to Pebble for a while. We made sure that the Bluetooth module that we’re using had a ‘drop-in’ upgrade option to BT 4.0. We’ve already placed a large order for the 4.0-enabled module, and it will have no effect on our timeline (hint: that’s what Update 9 was 1/2 about!).

We’re limiting Kickstarter rewards to 85,000 Pebbles 

Just wanted to let everyone know that our current plan is to limit the total number of Kickstarter rewards to around 85,000 Pebbles. As soon as the total exceeds that, all rewards will change to being ‘sold out’. Right now you have claimed 75,000 watches, that leaves only 10,000 more before Pebble is sold out!

We’ve thought a lot about this decision, and we feel it’s time. You, our backers, were the first group of people to believe in Pebble, and we want to return our focus to creating the most awesome watch possible for you.
Pebble will be available eventually for $150 USD from www.getpebble.com, but the expected delivery date will be well after the ship date of all Kickstarter backers.

Reddit AMA: Ask Eric Anything!

Any Reddit.com fans out there? I will be hosting an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on www.reddit.com/r/iama today at 1pm EST (10a PST). Please feel free to drop by and ask me a question.
I personally can’t thank you enough. The whole team has been in a constant state of excitement over the last 4 weeks, and it’s all thanks to you. Summer is around the corner, and I feel like the adventure is just starting. It’s awesome that we’re going to be able to share it with you, our proud backers. Thanks!
Eric + Pebble Team (Andrew, Steve, Rahul, Chris, Adam and the new ones: Sarah, Martijn, Nick, Matt, Brad, Ryan)

185 Comments