Gadgetory

I mean let me set this up yo pebble we talked about them on the show hable the watch to watch the starter watch uh they obviously blew past their funding goals jam-packed to be clear they wanted to sell a thousand these watches I sold 80-85 I owls they've hit over 10 million million u.s. stars so to show that they're all done they sold itself eight days to go and they just saw vacation up they're done they can't make anymore maybe five thousand eighty five thousand one hundred and sold before anything is actually what do you why are we talking their online to okay okay Eric Eric Eric from pebble Eric pebble arik air travel Eric PS can come on the line yeah this is cool con an exclusive conversation Eric you're on the line can you hear us hi how are you now how many bottles of champagne haven't had today I want to get a gauge of how much you've been drinking since discovering that you level today i've been i've been eating right next to my desk is a empty bag of dried mangoes that's what i've been shutting down is that it was a delicious is that those get you high yeah right about okay hey so let me ask you why did you cut this off it seems like you could have just kept going forever you already passed 85,000 but yeah sizable number so one of the big concerns for us was being able to source enough components in short term to complete the build on schedule and so we really in the interest of like delivering the absolute best product to our kickstarter backers we decided to cough um cut off the rewards at the moment i'm assuming you can still like donate a dollar or two here now you just don't want to watch are you still getting donations today like decent amount yeah I think yeah there were a couple hundred people that have sort of done a dollar keep on track but I mean we are committed to selling more pebbles in the future so for example as soon as Kickstarter closes we're going to put up a little page that lets people sort of get in mind to to buy one of the first couples when they are available after Kickstarter so what so what's the okay so you've got and million dollars now you don't do have them you don't actually have the money yet this thing has to close nope nope and when we've the project closes on the 18th okay and that's when people's credit cards will be as processed against that and so explain to me I'm as we receive the transaction so so explain to me how this works so you have literally I i I'm not trying to be you know rude I just want to understand what happens you now have 10 million dollars in credit card transactions that will be what will happen on this date Kickstarter will charge go from 0 to 10 million in your bank account somewhere will suddenly have 10 million dollars in it it's actually an Amazon Payments account since Kickstarter's partnered with Amazon to process all their credit card but like but you will have access to 10 million dollars when this thing closes yes our company well hi Thank You person are you I'm not gonna like I mean how much of this is just your party but you to finally close out your prime all your prime items are you that right good your witness I actually I actually I think I should check to see if it's now going to be like I can just spend a lot of money on amazon or where they're actually good you get the money yeah so I have some I have some questions for you about the watch I'm really curious I'm a SmartWatch fanboy I have been and this is I think the reason this is caught on us because it has a lot of the pieces that people have wanted in a device so the first one is just can you talk to us about how it actually works with iOS because that seems to that seems to be the thing that has made this one really interesting right is yep so I think there's there's a car there's some things I can't really talk about too much until we've gone through the final stages of the process but you know II in Britain briefly you know we've we've you know we're following the mfi guideline made for iphone guidelines and I think one of the things that we've done differently is we've used a couple different Bluetooth profiles so in order to get phone call notification on the watch we're actually using the hfp profile of bluetooth that's the headset profile recent an extensive testing to show that you can connect to an iphone with pebble as well as a you know another headset so on where you can get caller ID information oh oh that's right see wait let me just paint this picture so you have a knife you've got a bluetooth headset in your ear and you've got a SmartWatch and they're both can you get a call then you answer it with your watch and then begin talking is that is that correct eric is that right to you you you get a call you're notified on the watch you can answer it on the watch in it and it bounces it to the head but you can't them you can't answer like there's no speaker microphone no no I know that but you but you take action on the call and then it bounces the call to the headset essentially right now we have the color ID showing up on the watch so you can't take action on it it's possible that we made that in we can carry it right now okay are you have you worked with Apple on this at all I mean have you has there been any you probably can't talk about it even if you did but I just wonder if there's been any conversation with anybody there in terms of how example that what I've just described is a plain bluetooth spec thing we're also using another thing that we've done that other people haven't done is used avrcp the audiovisual remote control profile to be able to control music on either phone or android so these are so these are the profiles you're using they're not some sort of custom spec these are no these are like standard anybody could tap into this it's just that correct nobody seems to have done it or done it done it correctly I've done it went but soda and then there's a provision where you get your app gets to run in the background because it's connected to the watch right correct so that's really interesting how did you how did you kind of negotiate that is that gonna kill battery life so to negotiate that's another that's something that came around with iOS 5 so up until iOS 5 you know with iris for there were some provisions for doing background on stream music like Spotify or if you did location-aware apps like Foursquare something like that yeah but there is no exception or background exemption for Hardware up until iOS 5 these are but they run these discrete processes right i mean they're kind of you know actually back rounding the entire app your your band is actually background of that there's there's some crazy stuff that's going on the OS but right yeah and so and so this is so you're you'll be tapping into that to keep a constant connection yeah yeah and what is there is there a battery life concern is there I mean is what what kind of what is that put on the phone side no not in particular I mean we did we haven't released you know precise uh numbers but we don't we haven't seen much is it the equivalent to say when I'm in my car and you know my phone is connected obviously via bluetooth mean similar connection like in terms of battery life concerns uh probably a little bit less because with of a car kit especially when you're making call with making calls at the constant Bluetooth connection right all right ours is very intermittent and you're not actually you'd use a lot utilizing the watch for the call so right and then so the other big piece of news you just had was you upgrade to the phone the phone I've by the way I keep calling it a phone that's so part of fun you should it's it's Ross as fun to watch you should make a phone next um just just can't collapse them all um no so you just upgraded to bluetooth 4.0 which was actually the very first when I first saw the watch I was like well why isn't a bluetooth 4.0 and then so you kind of made my day there what do you expect to me when I think it was a matter of like you know so when we started up the Kickstarter project we were estimating that we were going to be able to manufacture you know a thousand watches if we raised a hundred thousand dollars and so I mean we we obviously had a plat plan the path for larger amounts of manufacturing that's what we're pursuing right now but at the end of the day you know we were just you know really hardcore focused on making watches so we sort of we wanted to bite off what we could chew and that's why we targeted to 11 + edr to serve with right because I was available and so I have a question um is it was the response bigger than you expected I mean it seems like it was way bigger than you expected I'd like to know yeah was it and what yeah what are you kind of dealing with like what do you think the cause of it was like what is it that you did or what is it about your product that you think is I mean what have you heard from people they were like I've got it buy into this like can you can you communicate that can you tell me that yeah I mean we're still in the process of figuring out because that's going to be a pretty valuable insight to figure out from what I've here I mean just just talking about you know parents and my relatives like this is the first product that i've created that really sort of bit of my hands on Isis oh yeah that's really cool that means that we're sort of reaching beyond our comfort zone which is the tech and the geek in the gadget guys and you know crossing over into our mainstream iphone users android users and so so what what I've heard from from you know basically my relatives are some of the people that have been talking to the most no they like the idea of customizing their watch being able to download a different watch face and right on your watch and I think that's pretty cool I mean how and how come fast can you get with this I mean this is an e-ink display right it's a paper is it see paper sorry is it is it yank or is it a paper is it as he has a tray as a brand is the right is a brand didn't get the brand name Jesse paper and and what are you doing in terms of levels of gray I mean how do you tell can you go what's the rep you know I guess there's no such it's just black and white at the moment oh it is ok and so and so uh third party faces is that a thing that you may do yeah definitely yeah so you might get like bell and ross or somebody to do a costume like custom that we're starting with just anyone who wants to make one concern right writing a watch face i was thinking you could do like swatch could be a partner they kind of funky yeah actually have you talked to any any watch companies yeah he was also like damn it we've been trying to do this for 20 years you would think that yeah we have what have it were legit you know like already established watch companies reached out and said I don't why I'm saying legit a lot on this show yeah um school like just Superman for MC Hammer um have watch him he's reached out to you guys have you gotten people sniffing around outgoing hey we want this technology uh not yet but I'm sure once they do you know we'd be happy to chat yeah would you consider licensing this technology for other for other devices other watches we haven't really nailed down no that kind of future stuff we're really at the moment just focus on getting these out there for so what what is what exactly is next for easy yeah have you is the design finished are you just wanting to buy the parts I you try that you're by the more you buy the poster brothers world but go ahead and say sorry go ahead hey we're placing large component orders get anything getting everything lined up for starting production now later this summer so actually I've kind of two questions ones like kind of minor and one's bigger and I think the big one is really interesting so you start out saying we want to make a thousand watches we want to prove the model we want to show people that we can do this if there's a way to make a better watch and then you ended up with 10 million dollars in 85,000 orders what changed over the course I mean how did you react to first the first explosion and then how did you react to kind of okay now we have to really do this yeah i mean when you're when you're talking about a thousand devices that's a that's a boutique right order as a pretty concept that's a right i mean that's a very small run when you get up to what you're at now you must have had to scale up i mean the infrastructure to produce 85,000 versus a thousand has got to be somewhat differently actually when we started when we started working on pebble tuples of our you know our second watch we worked on impulse the blackberry SmartWatch for a while we actually so we had design right after iOS 5 hit last summer we started buying pebble working this new display that we had sourced been lined up a manufacturer we had lined up you know a whole team for for making sort of a large-scale product but we just didn't have the capital to be able to support that you know we have attempted to raise venture capital from the VCS and just reward people to get any any sort of traction in the Capital Metro capital market so we had this great plan and with this great product we just had no cash to be able to pull it off so we scaled back our dreams we said ok you know maybe we had this great sort of wash that we want to design what's a subset of that what's what could we launched on you know a finite amount of money and that's what we came up with with her you know with civil so you see you scaled back there's a difference started as a different watch is what you're saying it didn't snow sorry the watch the watch is the same watch but we scaled our manufacturing plant ok ok so it's it's you weren't like we want to do this crazy watch but we can do half the fee so do you feel kind of indicated that all the species turned you down and now you've like gone to the buckle to be honest I'm just really happy that I get to make pebble right I would would have hated I mean ice I wouldn't have given up we would have figured out how to get it you know out there somehow but it probably would have ended up with just me making more watches in our garage so generation so the 18th is when you close right when this when the kickstarter project closes what is the very first thing that happens after that i'm just curious you know like literal to process literally you get them you have the money right you've obviously got the plans for the watch i assume you know you've got your your suppliers in place so what is the very first thing you do you have the money like how do you start the first dominic actually happened about four weeks ago so the day after we opened kickstarter and you know the first engadget article hit it sort of exploded and we made engadget huh but we flip the switch real rag which that day and gadget you say it's fine interesting yeah so sure you put them there i've heard of them I think sound familiar and and so and so then and so then the next thing is you get the money and are you like writing a check to a supplier is that is that the next thing do you have to fly due to go remote reading a lot of different checks but no so so for example we we phoned up our contract manufacturer you know the day after Kickstarter started very like well we're going to order a lot more watches we studied that's been in the works for four weeks the thing for sure that's going to happen at the end of May is I'm going to sign several very large checks for long lead time components interesting hello Eric did we I hey sorry ah and and and these are all sold yeah that's the nice thing he's not like you're like hey we're going to make 85,000 watches and we don't know we're going to do with them I mean these are so so explain to me how that works is this the watches are manufactured overseas right yeah okay and then they just being shipped directly to the customers uh we're not out of isn't sure how the logistics will work out but we'll probably figure it what's the best way to get them up to all over the world and following the 85,000 that you've that you've now sold right they're all spoken for correct right so beyond that do you haven't are you planning on ramping to getting CI are you gonna go to stores and yeah you distribute these are gonna talk to this you can try to put them in apple stores or bestbuy or you know what's the plan beyond the Kickstarter people um what we're building it for production so like the production setup that will have to make the Kickstarter batch will be the same factory the same setup that we could use to make more watches if you what's the rant between filling out the Kickstarter orders and then selling it to the public yeah having a lot of people are serious call it is a major thing at the holidays and we were only I mean like we're shipping you know in September and were just you know the Kickstarter backers of the premier people so Rankin's watch before anyone else and if we're able to make more watches before Christmas you know that's cool but I'm not as worried about that as much as just making sure that our Kickstarter backers are as happy as possible and it's too late now I can't get one you're done are we get one for agent didn't back it well I i did i i i i i was gonna back it today so now salty you're gonna hate my gosh Amos you're gonna hate me Eric but I'm a big fan of analog watches I actually don't really like digital watches it oh there's an analog face now I know that what I want is a watch this is my dream watch maybe you'll make it for me I want to watch you remember you remember the motorola hora phone that had the circular display on the front yeah so what I want is a is a watch that looks like a regular like a classic watch but the display is a circular digital display and it looks like a regular watch until you swipe to the side and then you get all kinds of other features or whatever that's my kind of dream that's the watch that I think I'm going to be really fall in love with though perhaps when I see they have a watch in person and you're gonna freak out why are you really on a lie you got away right what color you don't like a black jet black do you get one no I I found this I found the story out by going to the Kickstarter page and realizing i cant donate i feel by the way it's rare that you get to talk to the Creator the back sir side Aaron but before Derek on the show it's rare that you get it's rare that you get to talk to him and tell him that you didn't buy the product in here first-hand his the disappointment and some and I think a little anger actually yeah opportunity you know if you didn't get it there's probably a few other people out there that didn't get it as well that's right no I mean maybe they'll be some people for the next batch oh I think they'll be people for the late I think you owe for this I two questions one one from the listeners which i think is hilarious a second my next question which is a little question is are you are you at all worried about like Apple kind of rejiggering the ipod nano now that they've seen your success kind of rejiggering the Nano because already doing the watch stuff with it to make it connect with the iphone is that concern you all are you making our profitability I that's not super frightened um I think you know he still has my thousand right out okay you've got ten million dollars like you're good right yeah I might be able to afford one with that haha okay in the second question and this is from the listeners are you kind of mad samsung just released a product called the S pebble because they did that's truly just one of the colors like it's a little mp3 player it's a SS square it's a tiny little mp3 player that it's thanks to the phone it's an accessory for the phone a k-9 tell time it syncs yesterday ya know it was when they announced the galaxy s3 it sinks to the thought that was just a color no no if you think one of the s3 colors was purple no it's an accessory for it and it's like a little square that you used to play we convince an mp3 file it controls the music on the phone you know it's an mp3 player thanks to the phone I don't understand nobody understands nobody understands it but it is in your space now you better watch out yeah will Google this right now you may have heard of the small company samsung they're challenging you on the day pebble well there's Damon's pebble its pebble no don't say it looks cool yeah don't give anybody any you don't give them any credit stands like Samsung's lawyers listen to the verge cast now they do their listen already about it but Eric listen I'm sure you got you have a champagne to drink over there and watches to manufacture so we're gonna let you go watches to make but um we would love to have you come on the show we do this you know on the Virgin we almost had you guys come on the last one and it didn't work out uh you don't have to tell me now but you know hopefully we can make that happen because we'd love to talk to you and maybe see a prototype yeah it'd be cool to show you show you the the UI as it progresses the summer and now we drink you know to the developer kit wonderful that'd be great hey if you want to come on we have a show next week hey 17 just start pimping it now yeah I mean you know you're welcome want to fly in I want to check it out anyhow but Eric thank you so much and we will definitely be talking to you soon and we're I think we're all really excited about yes I think what's cool about this is you know we cover products all the time and it's like they're all from big big companies and I we just had Tony Fadell on the on the last show and we were talking about how hard it is to ya to create a hardware startup and you guys have not only done you're not only a hardware startup but you're doing it in a way that is totally unorthodox and completely new and i think really exciting because it's like yeah your idea is has been validated by a public by the pub you know the buying public before you've ever you know put Robert a road so by the way don't screw it up because otherwise you know pressure but just 85,000 people at Ted billion dollars riding on it so I know that Erik good luck we're really excited about we can't wait to watch what you guys are doing and um anytime you want to talk where we're happy to do it portrait all right thank you fight