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Comment by fudged71 | Hacker News Reader

Pebble crowdfunded as an alternative to venture capital. Their huge success on the platform was an inspiration to so many other hardware startups that it sparked an entire generation of products (in my opinion). Kudos to that.

I still wear my original Pebble. It's reliable with very long battery life, and is one of the very few wearables that works well while wearing gloves.

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I think the problem with crowdfunding (and early adopters in general) is that product hype can be a product unto itself. That's part of the value that Kickstarter provides, but it disappears when a product hits the wider market, and all that's left is the actual value of the product.

Wearables will gain more traction when wearing them actually enhances their value (fitness trackers that measure your pulse, VR headsets glasses that change what you see).

Smart watches, unfortunately, were just redundant. The entire idea of a smart device is that it has everything you need on one device. Carrying two smart devices makes no sense, and the phone got here first.

>> Carrying two smart devices makes no sense, and the phone got here first.

I've always believed the watch will replace the phone. It's easier to carry than a phone. I would replace my iphone with a smartwatch in a heartbeat but unfortunately the current models are too limited: no 4g/lte, poor battery, no carplay, not easy to read data(i.e emails), too bulky etc. The main issue is that the watch is just not good enough for now but eventually it will get a big chunk of the marketshare.

The biggest limitation is the screen size. Watches could arguably be made to do everything we want, but we'd still need to plugin an external screen. I'd like to see someone give an futurama style armband a go.

This would probably work better with a thinner, smaller smartphone.

https://www.amazon.com/Premium-Sports-Armband-iPhone-MyBand/...

With an armband you lose a hand for interaction. But I agree that screen size will forever be the watches' undoing. Where they will excel is any segment that has an item you have to mindlessly carry on your person all day: security badges, wallets, door keys, insurance trackers, health-device controls. Everything else will stay on phones or similarly-sized devices.

You could in theory just have a very thin remote display with the "brains" inside of the watch. In theory that display could be made much cheaper so you have no/less concerns about dropping/breaking/losing it. Pretty hard to misplace a watch that's always on your wrist.

> With an armband you lose a hand for interaction.

I think the comparison being made was between armbands and smart watches, not armband phones vs. regular phones. I don't know about you, but I _certainly_ can't use both hands to interact with a watch on my wrist.

> he comparison being made was between armbands and smart watches

Well, we were talking about watches completely replacing the phone, then saying you need a bigger screen for that, so at that point I think it's legit to compare "a watch with phone-like screen" vs regular phone.

> With an armband you lose a hand for interaction.

Absolutely true.

What you gain is (some are more or less debatable and/or situational):

1) Stability. The device cannot be knocked out of your hands or dropped, unlike 5" phone. I can give you two situations where this is very safe where a phone isn't: in a store, and on a bike.

2) 24/7 on you, with the advantages you mentioned.

3) Less chance of the device getting grabbed out of your hands. If the device looks like a normal watch (and not like an Apple Watch) the chance of getting robbed for your watch stays approx the same.

4) Information leaking. Phone has this too. Phone has larger screen, watch with t-shirt is 24/7 seen.

What ever happened to picoprojectors?

They are still around. The user experience is less then optimal.

You mean the Cicret? That was bullshit.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbgvSi35n6o

Or the more realistic kind that project on a wall in a dark room?

I mean TI's DLP-based picoprojectors that were supposed to be built into phones.

Has anyone figured out how to integrate a camera into a watch? Nobody would replace a phone with a device without a camera.

I totally would almost all the time. I use my phone's camera maybe once or twice a week, otherwise its just a useless extra, and I know the occasions on which I'm going to want a device with a camera so I could easily plan for them and take my phone (or a real camera) with me.

That sounds like a minority use case- most people take pictures with phones these days, unless they're professional or amateur photographers.

I have a nice camera with good lenses, filters, etc., but I nevertheless probably take more photos with my phone: it's the camera that's always in my pocket, any time I see something interesting.

Same.

Also, I take way more pics of the kids with my phone than my dSLR simply because I never know what they'll do next and I always have my phone with me.

I used to work in the phone industry and there actually is a niche of people willing to pay a bunch of money to get a device without a camera, usually because they work in some high security area.

There's the CMRA which adds cameras to an Apple Watch band: http://www.recode.net/2016/11/2/13489812/glide-camera-apple-...

Samsung did. Search this page for my username, another comment has the link (somewhere around this indent level).

The original Samsung Galaxy Gear[0] had one, but it was very low-resolution and kind of creepy[1].

0: http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/mobile-devices/wearables/...

1: even the marketing video has a guy taking creepshots: http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/22/5235278/samsung-awkward-g...

I got a Moto 360 Sport for <$100 on black friday and at that price point it's proven pretty useful for me as a general secretary and meeting tracker. That said, I would say it absolutely fails that "good enough" test - most of its useful functionality just moves Google Now to my wrist. It is helpful to see if I am being urgently hailed during a meeting or while out of the office, but again, I can't fathom it ever being worth its original asking price of $300 with those limited use cases and its assortment of small, frustrating problems.

You can't take photos and videos with watch.

Samsung's first iteration of the Gear had a camera, IIRC. I also recall the picture quality was reported to be about as good as you would from a device that size.

(Ah, here we go: http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-gear-camera-sam...)

Dick Tracy wasn't carrying around a lump of plastic in his pocket.

It's just a shame that when we get to the point of having all the world's intelligence accessible to us instantaneously, it's going to be mediated through institutions that are actively selling us out to the prison system.

I have a Pebble Time Steel, and I couldn't disagree more about it being redundant..

I don't care about apps or watch faces or any of that stuff.. I use it for (1) notifications and (2) the calendar timeline..

Being able to glance at my wrist when I get an email or a phone call (or any notification) without having to fish my phone out of my pocket, especially in the winter when it's deep inside my coat, is invaluable.. I can quickly decide "do I need to deal with this right now" (which for me, during the work day, is important).

Being able to tap the down button and see the next thing in my calendar (or the thing after that, etc) is also super useful.

For me personally, that's the killer app, and it's why I am so sad that Pebble is gone, because their calendar timeline was innovative and super useful (to me at least), and combined with quickly checking notifications, made my Pebble Time as essential as my wallet when leaving the house.

Also, it looks great.. Better than any other smart watch that provides the same functionality.. And the battery lasts for a week..

Ok I'm going to stop, because now I'm just bumming myself out that my Time Steel 2 will never arrive.. :-(

Totally agree. I haven't owned a Pebble, but I have been wearing a Microsoft Band 24/7 for over two years and really depend on its functionality now. Quickly scrolling through email, texts (and occasionally replying), calendar, stocks - all from a quick to use interface is a real time saver. It also tracks my sleep every night and wakes me up in the morning in an unobtrusive way that my partner appreciates (no more alarm clock/phone alarm). I also track my steps, heart rate, and workouts every day, but the fitness stuff is a bonus to me and I would still find the Band very useful without it. Unfortunately, it looks like the Band has been abandoned by Microsoft, so like you I'm a little bummed out and will have to start looking at alternatives (once my supply of Bands runs out anyway...)

Well -- they also raised ~$15MM right after they finished their crowdfunding campaign.

Yes, but... During YCombinator they weren't fundable, so they tried crowdfunding. The article mentions that they crowdfunded a SECOND time because they were unable to raise another round of funding.

>Pebble crowdfunded as an alternative to venture capital. The last time it was out of necessity, because there were no investors interested. And the way they did crowdfunding was basically selling their product at a steep discount, basically leaving a lot of money on the table. I don't know if that was a good strategy.

It's understandable you want to offer attractive perks with your Kickstarter, but at that time the Pebble brand among tech enthousiasts was big enough to limit the discount and stress the early adoper angle. You have several thousands of customers eagerly waiting for your next generation product, in that case there's no need to give steep discounts in the perks.

I guess the Pebble management was too focused to make the last Kickstarter another well-publicized runaway success, so that they could use that success to convince investors once again. But in the process they discounted their product, their brand and ultimately their chances of survival.

Not sure I agree with you, you're saying there's no value dropping the prices.

What the crowdfunding platform was able to do for them was to gamify the process, and reward early adopters. It's part of the reason why they have a great community behind them. They treat their early adopters well.

I'm intrigued, can you list any successful members of this generation of products inspired by Pebble?

I think in some ways this should be a wake up call for Kickstarter, Pebble was their biggest success story until now.

There are thousands, maybe 10s of thousands. My product company is one of them, www.therooststand.com. In my sphere, I know 10+ KS creators running healthy businesses, most bootstrapped, that started with Kickstarter. TC article on my story and Eric's influence: https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/05/roost-laptop-stand/

I also know a few creators that didn't find profitable distribution models and/or demand post Kickstarter.

I also know a few creators that failed to execute production and folded before delivering rewards.

^^^^^ These sound like fates of business of all types started from many different sources of capital.

I do know the path Eric and Pebble carved was inspiration to all the above. And many feel indebted.

It's very sad news on Pebble, tho 'shock' is not the right word for it, as many of us physical product KS creators know too well the risks of development, tooling up, cash flow, and managing delivery expectations. It is a high stakes game.

We had a crowdfunding success that was largely inspired by the marketing strategy of the Pebble campaign. I'm sure thousands of others were too.

How about the Coolest Cooler? You don't think they were inspired by Pebble? Or the Ubuntu phone?

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