The first Pebble Time units are going to start shipping on May 27. That’s according to Pebble, who announced the news on the Pebble Time Kickstarter page. Production of the Pebble Time actually kicked off at the start of May, and at the rate that it’s going, Pebble expects all of the Kickstarter Rewards units to be made by the end of the month.
By the end of May, everyone that backed the Pebble Time should get an email to finalize their selections so that their units can be shipped out. Pebble says that all backers that ordered a Pebble Time should get a tracking number by mid-June.
Of course, a Pebble Time isn’t going to do you much good if you don’t have a companion app on your smartphone. Luckily, Pebble has thought of this, and it’s created the Pebble Time Watch apps for Android and iOS. Included with the apps will be a My Pebble screen for organizing your watch faces and apps/timeline, and Pebble notes that it’s removed the 8-app limit that was present in its old app, so you can now manage all of yours apps and faces and your Pebble Time will store as many apps locally as it can.
Speaking of old apps, Pebble says that its existing Android and iOS apps will stick around to manage the original Pebble and Pebble Steel watches.
In case this whole Pebble Time thing is new to you, I’ll catch you up to speed. It’s the new smartwatch from Pebble, who saw a lot of success with its original smartwatch on Kickstarter a couple of years ago. The new Pebble Time includes a color e-paper display rather than the black and white one found on the original Pebble, and the watch can get up to seven days of battery life. Also included with Pebble Time is a microphone, smart accessory port to let developers create additional sensors and straps for the watch, and a new timeline interface that splits your alerts and news into past, present, and future sections. For example, scores from a football game that took place yesterday will be in the past, while tomorrow’s weather forecast will be in the future.
Pebble Time looks like a nice follow-up to the original Pebble, offering some much nicer-looking hardware and a new color e-paper display, all while still getting the super-long battery life that Pebble smartwatches are known for. The Pebble Time is going facing more competition than its predecessor did, though, now that Google has Android Wear and Apple has the Apple Watch. It’ll be interesting to see how many consumers strap a Pebble Time on their wrists rather than offerings from Google and Apple.
How many of you backed a Pebble Time?
