We live in a day where all of our toys are smart.
Phones are smart. Cars are smart. Games are smart. And soon, your watch will be smart.
While those awesome calculator watches I desperately wanted growing up were smart, this new invention makes those look like child’s play.
Thanks to a new start-up from a little company called Pebble Technology, the smartwatch will soon be on everyone’s wrist.
The company raised more than $4 million for the project on Kickstarter, a website which allows users to fund new projects and even pre-order or buy the product only eight days after posting.
“We are blown away by the Kickstarter success. We were
estimating $100K – we clearly beat our expectations,” Eric Migicovsky, Pebble Technology’s founder, said in an interview with ABC News.
Pebble isn’t the only game in town, though. Companies like Sony and WIMM are also making smartwatches.
So what makes these watches so smart? And why is Pebble garnering so much support?
The Pebble, like its competitors, uses Bluetooth to connect to Android phones, but it’s the Pebble’s eInk screen – as seen on Amazon Kindles and other eReaders – and exclusive ability to wirelessly connect to the iPhone that make it stand above the crowd.
iPhone support is huge these days if you want your company to make it big in the mobile arena.
Once paired to your phone, The Pebble allows users to view text messages, incoming calls, tweets and more on its eInk display – which is great for
outdoor viewing.
The device also lets you control your phone’s music, record how many miles you’ve run and check the weather.
It’s essentially an extension of your phone.
It’s surprising a company like Apple allowed a third-party manufacturer connection to its phone instead of developing something in-house like an iWatch.
When the sixth generation iPod Nano was released in 2010, for instance, it featured a smaller, 1.54-inch touchscreen.
One of the lock screens for the Nano was a clock face, and many companies were creating watchbands to use as cases. Most were bulky, but they seemed great for runners or those who want to wear an iPod on their wrist.
It seemed obvious for Apple to include a Bluetooth adapter so it could connect to people’s iPhones for wireless music playing, earpieces for talking and headphones for running.
Unfortunately, the iPod Nano “watch” never really caught on because running a headphone wire to your wrist was pretty impractical.
Apple really dropped the ball on this one.
The Pebble will cost around $150 at launch, which isn’t necessarily a bad price considering everything it can do, but with the iPod Nano only costing $129 – and able to do so much more – it would only take a simple Bluetooth adapter for Apple to steal Pebble’s thunder.
Whether it’s Pebble’s smartwatch, an improved iPod Nano or another device from a different company, soon everyone will be wearing mini computers on their wrists just like everyone carries one in their pocket.
This leads me to think: What’s next?
Google is working on augmented reality glasses called Google Glass, which will make us see the world like a computer with a heads-up display.
Perhaps next a company should make earrings that can wirelessly play music only the user can hear.
Another company can make shoes that will automatically walk us to our destination after we’ve typed in the address.
Finally, all of these devices – our watches, glasses, earrings, shoes ­­- will wirelessly connect to the cell phone in our pocket, making us a bunch of cyborgs walking around communicating by beaming messages into each other’s heads – wirelessly, of course.
Yeah, that’s the kind of future I’m excited to live in.
Adam Arinder is a 22-year-old communication studies senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_aarinder.
 
____
Contact Adam Arinder at [email protected]