WEBVTT - The Decline and Fall of Pebble 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.680 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.400 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, am the executive producer at 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.000 how Stuff Works, and I love all things tech. And 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.880 in our last episode, which was about Pebble, if you 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.400 have not heard that episode, I recommend you listen to 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.200 it because this is a continuation. But in that episode, 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.720 I I ended by talking about how Eric Mitchakovsky, the 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:36.640 the founder of Pebble, had launched a successful Kickstarter campaign. 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.440 In fact, it was at the time the most successful 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:45.760 Kickstarter campaign, and by the end of two thousand twelve, 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:47.760 beginning in two thousand thirteen, he was getting ready. In 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.560 fact that the opening month of two thousand thirty started 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:55.800 shipping out units of the Pebble smart watch two Kickstarter backers, 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:57.960 and then after he got through those, he started sending 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:00.840 them to preorder customers. We're going to pick up from 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.279 there and look at what the company did over the 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:07.320 following three years when Pebble would cease to exist as 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:09.200 a company, and then I'll do a little follow up 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.759 at the end with some more recent news, because even 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:17.240 after the company ended, it kind of kept going a 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:21.559 little bit until recently. More reviews for the Pebble smart 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.680 Watch once it came out, we're generally positive. They weren't gushing, 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.240 they weren't overwhelming, but they generally said nice things about 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.240 the product. They pointed out that the watch was limited 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.120 in what it could do. It was essentially a timetelling 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.680 piece that would give you a heads up on incoming 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:41.479 notifications on your phone, and there was the promise of 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.080 some other apps that would be UH compatible in the future, 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:47.480 but there wasn't a whole lot to do with it 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:51.160 raw the gate. You could you could do stuff like 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.240 read text messages that came in on your phone. You 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:58.560 could read things like Twitter responses, email. Essentially, stuff that 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:02.320 was coming into your phone be relayed to your your 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.560 Pebble smart watch, and you would use the physical buttons 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.440 on the side of the watch to navigate those messages. 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.360 You could scroll up or down. You could use your 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.400 watch to decline an incoming phone call. You get a 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:20.720 phone call, you look at your your wrist. You see, oh, 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:22.720 that's a call coming in from so and so. I 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:24.560 don't have time to talk to that person. I'm just 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:26.239 gonna go ahead and send that to voicemail. You could 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:28.280 do that from your watch as well, and had a 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.400 vibrating motor inside of it that would help alert you 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.480 to those incoming calls or act as an alarm to 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.920 remind you about upcoming appointments. So it was useful, but 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.280 it wasn't super flashy, right. It was just a monochromatic 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.640 screen and had some very basic functions. It did what 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:47.560 it did well, but it wasn't incredibly versatile, so I 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.320 wasn't trying to be a smartphone for your wrist, which 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.480 some other smart watches had kind of tried to go 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.680 down that route, and that ended up complicating things because 0:02:57.720 --> 0:02:59.840 typically it meant that you had so many features in 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:04.359 your smart watch that it either didn't do them very 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.600 well or it really had a terrible battery life because 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.320 you were trying to pack so many different components into 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.480 a very small form factor, so it didn't leave very 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.080 much room for a battery. So Pebble took a different approach, 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.120 and it helped also keep the price down. So uh, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.679 some people like me liked the Pebble because we knew 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:26.560 what we were going to get. We understood, all right, 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.240 this is a limited set of features. It's not the 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.760 end all be all of technology, but it is kind 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.080 of neat and you know what it can do, and 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:41.440 it's at the price point, and so, uh, people like me, 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.440 we were on board. Now, other people felt it just 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.640 didn't have enough features to be worth the purchase, which 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.280 is a totally valid point of view. I might add, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.480 if you look at this and you say, uh, it's 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:56.440 just telling me stuff that I can look at just 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:58.480 by glancing at my phone, I'm not going to spend 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:02.600 a d fifty dollars on that, that's a legitimate argument. Well, 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.920 the kick started campaign helped Pebble in more ways than one. 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.440 It gave them the starting capital they needed to get 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:13.480 manufacturing rolling right to start this process, to start generating 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:15.920 these these watches, to build out these watches and then 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:20.280 ship them and hopefully start laying the groundwork for customers. 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:22.920 But the truth of the matter was that the company 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.200 was going to need more money to make good on 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:31.320 the pre orders and Kickstarter orders because they were offering 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.840 those Kickstarter ones at any rate at a discount. So 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.320 you started discounting the product before you've actually started to 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:45.200 build it. Sometimes the costs can end up overshadowing the 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.360 money you're bringing in, so Midchaikovsky sought investment, and this 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:51.640 time he founded. If you listen to my last episode, 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.160 you know he had a real hard time finding investors 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.880 because they were shy about supporting what appeared to be 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.279 an upstart hardware company. Hardware is a very risky business. 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:07.279 The historic success of the crowdfunding campaign, however, change the minds. 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.960 You saw investors say, huh, there. People seemed to put 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.080 a lot of stock in this not not in stock 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:17.880 exchange kind of way, but in people seem to put 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:19.760 a lot of value in this company, so maybe we 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:23.440 should invest in it. So Pebble received about fifteen million 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.400 dollars in investment, and that helped the fledgling company fill 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.400 all of its Kickstarter orders and many of its pre orders. 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:36.080 By May and in all, one thousand people had signed 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:41.599 up to pre order a Kickstarter watch or a Pebble 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.440 watch rather. By July seven of two thousand, thirteen, Pebble 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.120 smart watches could be found on the shelves of Best 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:53.160 Buy stores. This originally was an exclusive arrangement for best Buy, 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.479 so it was the only retail store that was carrying 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.240 Pebble watches at the beginning. Uh and at first, at 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.680 least they only had the jet black version of the 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.320 smart watch available, But this helps cement Pebble as a 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.840 quote unquote real product and not just some internet dream. 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.120 You know. It wasn't just mail order. You could find 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.040 these in honest to goodness, real stores, and for some 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.240 people that kind of sign is the only way they'll 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:24.000 accept it as being a legitimate business. Well, Pebble spent 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.760 its first year making and shipping those basic watches to buyers, 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.000 and by the end of the company had shipped three 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:36.280 hundred thousand watches to customers. Back in April, Pebble also 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:41.520 introduced a sort of proto software Developer Kit or s 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.719 d K, and it was limited in scope that original one. 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.039 It allowed developers to create new watch faces for the 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:52.599 Pebble and some basic applications, but the following month they 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.080 debuted the Pebble Kit s d K, and that would 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.160 allow developers to create apps that used two way communication 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.320 between the watch is and their paired devices, and it 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.480 opened up a lot of other opportunities for UH integration 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:11.120 with various apps. In early fourteen, Pebble announced a new 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.600 take on this basic watch and it was called the 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:19.640 Pebble Steel s T E E l so as in 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:23.679 the metal, not as in thievery. The original Pebble watches 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:28.160 had plastic bodies and they were more sporty. According to Midchakovsky, 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.080 the Pebble Steel marked a move to try and tap 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:35.240 into the more traditional watch market, something that you might 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:40.240 wear if you were dressing up, maybe your business person, 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.560 and you want to have a watch that kind of 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.440 reflects that, and you don't want some something that's bright 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.880 and colorful and plastic on your wrist. So these watches 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.440 were about a hundred dollars more expensive than the original 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.680 Pebbles when they were first announced. They looked more professional. 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.840 They had different options for wrist bands or for watch bands. 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.440 You could get a leather watch band, or you could 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.200 get um, you know, sort of that chain based kind 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.760 of watch band. And these new watch designs also meant 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.760 that the Pebble had to change up the charging cable 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.240 for the steel. The the form factor for the Pebble 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:19.880 Steel was different from the original Pebble and so the 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.880 charging cable that they had made for the original Pebble 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.320 would not fit on the steel. So classic cables were 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.360 not compatible with the new watch. That got some criticism 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.640 from some folks. They said, well, now you're confusing things 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:36.000 because if you're going to have a line of Pebble 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.360 watches and some people collect watches, well, now you're going 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.080 to have to have different cables for different models. That's 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:47.160 very confusing, but it's the way they went. Under the hood, 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.920 the Pebble Steel mostly resembled its Sport Year predecessor. One 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.600 difference was that the new watch had twice the onboard memory. 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.480 They went from four megabytes up to eight megabytes for memory, 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.120 but otherwise things were pretty much the same now. The 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.840 reason for that is the company did want to try 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.200 and avoid fragmentation as much as they could, especially on 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.719 the app side. So if they made too many changes 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.679 to the design of the Pebble, it would make things 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.760 messier for developers and for customers. So it could be 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.800 hard to explain to a customer base that because you 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.959 own an older watch, you aren't able to use certain 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.120 apps because those apps depend upon features that are absent 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.600 in earlier models. I can get very frustrating, and so 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.800 Pebble made a very careful move to avoid shaking things 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.600 up too much. Along with the Pebble Steel, the company 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.160 launched version two point oh of its software and an 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.160 app store as well, and included apps from big names 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:49.040 like Pandora, four Square, and ESPN. There were also some 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.440 games that were designed to play on the watch, and 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.240 all apps in the app store were free. It was 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.439 actually a requirement Pebble set. He said, well, he Eric 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.679 Machakovsky said that bowl apps in the app store had 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.000 to be free, uh in order to be featured on 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:09.280 the app store. However, developers were allowed to create their 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:13.080 own companion apps for the Pebble and they could have 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.640 those listed in the app store over an Apple or 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.400 Google Play, and they could charge money for those. It 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.320 wouldn't be featured in the Pebble app but you could 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:26.760 have these companion apps and you can charge whatever you liked. Um. 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:28.760 And so this looked like it was just the very 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:33.439 beginning for Pebble. The watches would allow for eight slots 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.720 for apps for third party apps, and if you wanted 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.640 more than eight apps, well you would choose whichever ones 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.560 you load onto the watch, and you would have to 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.320 unload apps if you had more than eight, you'd have 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.240 to decide, all right, well, these eight I want, but 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:49.400 these other two that I had on there, I'm going 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.200 to take off those unloaded apps would go into what 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:56.040 they called a locker on the companion Pebble app for 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.600 your smartphone, the thing that you would pair the watch too, 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.480 and that way you could swap those older apps back 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.000 in easily. You could say, all right, well, I'm going 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.280 to reinstall this app I put into the locker because 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.800 I wanted again still that that was kind of a 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.880 limitation and it rubbed some folks the wrong way, because 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:17.920 it's kind of a hassle to have to manage apps 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.599 like that, you know, to to fill up once you 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:22.840 hit eight and then you have to swap stuff out 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.400 if you happen to like having a lot of apps 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.800 at your disposal, it was it was a little frustrating. 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.560 Kneeli Patel reviewed the Steel for The Verge, and he 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.400 lamented that the apps weren't quite advanced enough for his tastes. 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.560 He pointed out that the experiences were not really location based, 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.440 which meant if you wanted to use your watch, and 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.640 let's say you want you had the four Square app 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.560 activated on your watch and you want to check into 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:51.880 the location that you were going into, you maybe you're 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.600 at a restaurant, because back in those days, four Square 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:57.760 did that that was back when four Square was a 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.319 check in service. They have since change what they do, 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.560 but that's an episode for a different time. Anyway, if 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:06.480 you were using your watch to do this your Pebble, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.079 and then that you were pressing the physical buttons on 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.079 the watch a lot in order for you to navigate 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.880 through the app and to activate the right place for 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.920 you to check in, and that this was not very 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.600 user friendly. Why would you do that when you could 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:24.280 just take your phone out and do the same thing 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.800 much more quickly. Patel said, what really should happen is 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.280 there should be some more predictive elements to the Pebble. 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.920 It should be able to pull information from your paired 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:39.320 phone and say, all right, well, clearly this person that 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:43.480 my wearer just walked into this restaurant. So when my 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.480 wearer checks the phone, I'm going to suggest the four 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.600 Square app and I'm already going to have the place 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.839 pulled up for them to check in if they want to. 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.160 But that was not something that was happening in those 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.120 early apps. Some of the companion apps got pretty neat. 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.720 For example, developers created a Companion nap that would let 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.040 you use the Pebble with certain WiFi enabled cameras, so 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:06.160 you can actually use it like a remote control for 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.280 those cameras. I think that's kind of cool. The Pebble Steel, 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.720 like its predecessor, landed a distribution deal at best Buy. 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.040 Customers would be able to buy a steal for two 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.640 nine dollars, but they were only able to get it 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.360 with the leather straps. So this is kind of similar 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.000 to how when the original Pebble came out, the only 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.840 color you could get was jet black. It's it's similar 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.120 to that. Well, I've got a lot more to say 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:34.280 about Pebble's decline, but first let's take a quick break 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:44.800 to thank our sponsor. In the summer of fourteen, Google 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:49.000 was getting ready to unveil Android Wear, which is a 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.560 version of the Android operating system. It's a platform for 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.680 wearable computing. It makes sense just from the name. Meanwhile, 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.400 Pebble continued to foster it's developer community and to make 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.880 deals with other companies, such as a wearable company called 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.480 Misfit that made activity trackers. So Misfit made an app 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.959 for Pebble that would take data from the watch's accelerometer 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.440 and essentially turned the watch into a pedometer and a 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.880 step tracker. In other words, the first Android ware watch 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:23.440 to hit the market was the LGG Watch. This watch 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.640 was the first to use Android ware as its operating system, 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.000 and other companies also announced their own Android based smart 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:36.400 watches in the summer of fourteen, But Google's approach was 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.720 different from what Apple would do. Google's approach was to 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.240 create a platform, you know, Android war and to let 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:48.080 other companies produce the actual hardware. And that meant that 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.200 there were a lot of competing watches that were on 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:54.200 the way without really a clear front runner in those 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.560 early days. So there wasn't one single Android based watch 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.360 you would point to and say, this is the Pebble killer. 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.040 But it had to be worrisome because there were a 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.360 bunch of different ones that were coming out, and there 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.120 was a lot of interest in that original LGG watch, 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.520 and that was a pretty limited implementation of Android ware. 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:17.760 When it came out. In September, Pebble reduced the price 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:21.840 of its two watch lines, The Classic Pebble, the sporty 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:26.240 version would drop down to and the Pebble Steel was 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:31.600 reduced to one. Pebble also made new agreements with companies 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.200 like Jawbone and swim dot Com, which helped expand the 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:39.600 Pebble's utility as a fitness and sleep tracker. Again mostly 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:47.360 just detecting movements through the accelerometer, so pretty simplistic variation 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.000 of fitness tracker. They a lot of the more advanced 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:55.160 fitness trackers take into account more information than just an accelerometer. 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.200 The company had also moved beyond its exclusive deal with 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.800 best Buy. It was already available in Target and also 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.240 on Amazon dot Com, but in the fall of it 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:09.040 also started to show up in stores like Fries and 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.240 Sam's Club, and it also became available in the UK 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.960 and across Scandinavia. And perhaps it was a combination of 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.120 all of these different efforts that pushed Pebble sales to 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.360 hit one million units by the end of so For 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:28.400 a new company, brand new hardware company with an unproven 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.760 form factor smart watches had not really taken off before this, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.960 this seemed like a pretty good pace to hit a 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:41.040 million sales in its second year. Not bad. However, something 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.160 else happened in the fall of two thousand fourteen that 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.120 might have been of some concern. Apple, the company that 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:52.400 had dominated by creating the iPod and really defining the 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.760 MP three era. I mean, we call them podcasts because 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.720 Apple really did have a stranglehold on that market. Apple 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.800 also was able to essentially define the consumer smartphone market, 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.720 at least in the United States, as well as create 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:12.199 the first successful consumer tablet with the iPad. They decided 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.600 to throw their hat in the ring and they finally 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.960 confirmed suspicions and rumors that had been going on all year, 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.920 and in September they announced that the company had designed 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.719 and branded its own smart watch and it was on 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:26.760 the way and it would come out the following year. 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:31.280 In now mid Yakovski greeted this announcement with a pretty 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:35.879 calm and even welcome tone. He postulated that Apple's market 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.800 was going to be for a different type of customer 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.879 than pebbles target market, and that sounds pretty reasonable because 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:46.480 it was clear, even early on, when we knew very 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:50.240 little about the Apple Watch, that that smart watch was 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.840 going to be a luxury item. It was not going 0:17:52.880 --> 0:18:00.000 to be your basic, you know, uh, ground level smart 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:01.960 aren't watch. This was something that was going to be 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:09.800 a bit of a luxury purchase. So the Pebble was 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.840 marketed as a useful piece of technology that was at 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.560 a reasonable price point, and the Apple Watch was clearly 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.960 going to be able to do a lot of the 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:22.280 stuff that Pebble could not do. But Mitschakovsky maintained that 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.960 as long as what Pebble did, it did well, and 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.960 as long as it maintained expectations, there would be plenty 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.600 of room for both the Pebble and the Apple Watch. 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.159 And besides, the Apple Watch was only going to be 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.000 in the domain of Apple. You know, there was no 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.080 one out there who thought Apple was going to come 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.199 out with a smart watch that would also be compatible 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:49.320 with Android smartphones. Everyone knew from the get go because Apple. 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:54.600 Apple's approach always has been try and get everybody into 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:59.680 the Apple ecosystem and keep them there. So no one 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:02.560 was operating under the assumption that this was going to 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:06.240 work with Android operating system phones. So that meant the 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.280 Pebble was definitely going to still have an audience as 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.080 be all the people who don't have an iPhone. Still, 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:16.480 with both Google and Apple unveiling new technologies for wearables, 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.639 some people were starting to get a little concerned about Pebble. 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:22.600 Would the pioneering company be able to stand up for 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:27.119 itself with these looming giants gaining momentum on it The 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.760 Apple question would go unanswered for the time being. While 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.120 the company would announce the watch in September two fourteen, 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.360 pre orders of the device wouldn't even start until April, 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:42.439 so that question was kind of tabled for several months. 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.159 As for Android ware watches, that number is actually kind 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.080 of hard to track. It's kind of hard to say 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:52.479 how many Android wear watches were sold in There were 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.720 multiple companies that were making Android based watches by the 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.760 end of fourteen, and not all of them shared sales figures. 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.359 Some of them would only talk about how many units 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:05.480 were shipped, not sold, So that's not necessarily the same thing. 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:10.800 So if you're shipping watches to retail locations, those don't 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.800 count as sales. That they've just been moved to a 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.960 retail location and they could be just gathering dust. But 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.879 according to the research firm kennelsts c A in A 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.880 l y S companies shipped seven twenty thousand Android ware 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:33.360 watches in Again, those are not sales, it's shipp numbers, 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:37.280 not sale numbers. But it did take Pebble two years 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.920 to reach one million units sold, and Android ware had 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.600 only been around since the summer of that year, so 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.440 I've only been on the market for six months, so 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:50.639 clearly there was a lot of movement in the smart 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.960 watch space even in before the Apple Watch came out, 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:58.040 and Pebble, while it led the way, was not necessarily 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.480 going to be the mark get leader for very long. 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.720 By early Pebble said there were more than six thousand 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:10.120 various apps available for their smart watches, and they're also 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.440 watch faces among that number, and that more than twenty 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.359 five thousand developers were part of the Pebble developer community, 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.280 which was a pretty nice thing to be able to 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.640 point to and say, we have a very healthy community 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:26.680 of developers that are creating innovative apps for our smart watch. 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:28.960 You can do all sorts of stuff besides just see 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.440 what time it is and see who's calling you. In February, 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.040 Pebble announced that they were coming out with the next 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:39.359 generation of their watch. This one they called the Pebble Time. 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:42.359 What a great name for a watch, calling it the 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.000 time Do you have the time rights itself? It had 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.840 a sixty four color e paper display, so it moved 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:53.600 beyond the monochromatic though, I should say this e paper 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:57.040 display it looked kind of like a comic book, like 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:00.400 like the way the inside pages of a comic look. Look, 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.080 you know, has that that almost slightly faded look to it. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:05.560 That's kind of how the e paper looked. And that 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:08.560 was because of the technology. You only had sixty or 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.560 four colors to work with. You didn't have so many 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.680 different variations that you could have lots of different vibrancy there, 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.719 but it was still a color display. It also had 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:20.520 a microphone that would let users make voice notes and 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:24.360 voice replies to incoming messages. The screen had a protective 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.720 layer made of gorilla glass, which was an upgrade from 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:32.000 the Pebble and Pebble steel. The bezel on the watch 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:35.479 was of stainless steel, and the watch was available in 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.719 three colors. Like the original Pebble. You could get it 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.639 in white, black, or red, although they were uh not 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:45.640 exactly the same versions of white, black and red as 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:49.680 the original Pebble, but still kind of in line with 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:53.760 the company's history. And here's the Kicker, or rather I 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:56.760 guess I should say here's the Kickstarter because Pebble launched 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:01.199 the Pebble Time on Kickstarter, as they had with the 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:05.480 original Pebble two years earlier, and the Pebble Time also 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:09.440 performed really well on that platform, early bird backers could 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:11.840 pledge a hundred fifty nine dollars for a Pebble Time. 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:15.359 Once those pledges were used up, backers could then reserve 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:18.399 one for one seventy nine, so early bird kickstarter. The 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:20.920 way it typically works is that you limit how many 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:25.280 people can reserve at that price point. Whatever it may be, 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:28.000 whether it's a watch like in this case, or it's 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:31.760 other special swag or giveaways, or whatever it might be 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:35.320 that's related to your campaign. You can say, all right, well, 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:37.760