Wearable technology exceeds the expectations of those who buy the smartwatches
Eric Migicovsky is the king of Kickstarter. For the second time in three years his brainchild, the Pebble smartwatch, reigned supreme on Kickstarter, the crowd-funding phenomenon. In just 49 minutes, the campaign听raised over听$1 million. Two days later, 47,000 people had backed the Pebble campaign to the tune of $10 million.
Pebble Technology, founded by Migicovsky, 27, launched its first Kickstarter campaign in 2012. Three years ago, it broke a Kickstarter record by taking 听just 38 days to reach the $10 million mark.听This year, on February 24 when the new 听campaign for Pebble Time hit the Internet, money started rolling in immediately. 听By听the end of the campaign,听 $20,338,986 had been raised from 78,741 backers 鈥�听another Kickstarter record.
Migicovsky, a 蓝莓视频 systems design engineer, 听says Pebble is successful because the wearable technology exceeds the expectations of those who buy the smartwatches. 听He chose to go the Kickstarter route a second time because he knew the community loved the Pebble and the funding platform is听the most efficient way to get his latest product to its core users. Strategically, Migicovsky also beat Apple to the punch 鈥�听after two years of development, Apple听finally launched its initial smartwatch on March 9, 2015.
Core users of Pebble are early adopters and tech savvy individuals who saw the ability for humans and computers to interact more closely. They love the idea they can glance at their wrist to check incoming calls, emails and texts.
鈥淏eing able to get notifications on my Pebble has really changed my relationship with my phone,鈥� says Matt Gorbet, who runs an international experiential design and consulting company and jumped on the initial Kickstarter campaign three years ago. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 take my phone out nearly as often, and I can tell at a glance if a notification is important. It鈥檚 incredibly robust, stylish and useful.鈥�
Pebble Time, the company鈥檚 third-generation watch, is more stylish as well as being 20 per cent thinner and lighter than earlier versions, says Migicovsky. The new watch comes with a colour e-paper display and microphone that will allow people to respond to notifications. And yes, people will now literally be talking into their watch.
Migicovsky, named to Business Insider鈥檚 30 under 30 鈥淢ost Influential in Tech鈥� list in 2014, says 蓝莓视频鈥檚 systems design engineering provided him with the ideal entrepreneurial training. The program offered an interdisciplinary mix of courses and a strong emphasis on design, he says. Group work and design projects mimicked the real-world, small-team atmosphere of startups, while co-op terms inspired him to pursue an entrepreneurial career.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the best of all worlds,鈥澨齅igicovsky says of his 蓝莓视频 Engineering education.
It was while Migicovsky was on an international exchange term in 2008 that he came up with the Pebble concept. He was biking along the canals in Holland when his mobile phone began buzzing.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 want to risk dropping my new phone into the water, but I wanted to know why it was vibrating in my pocket,鈥� says Eric Micigovsky.
Imagining how useful it would to be to get a notification through his watch, he cycled back to his dorm and began cobbling together his first smartwatch prototype using spare cellphone parts. When he returned to 蓝莓视频, he moved into the University鈥檚 entrepreneur-focused Velocity Residence and continued honing the prototype. After launching a less popular watch called inPulse, 听he redesigned the watch, coming up with Pebble.
鈥淚t needed to be simple, it needed to be small, it needed to have a long battery life,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t had to be something that fit into people鈥檚 lives.鈥�
The new Pebble was all of that and more becoming the original smartwatch that would be in the vanguard of wearable technology.
This last听for the , ended on March 27, 2015.
