Allerta Pebble smartwatch

It always pleases us when interesting Kickstarter projects do well. Especially ones that fly as well as this. Just two hours after launching, the Pebble watch from Allerta landed $100,000 in pledges. Two. Hours. When you consider the phone-friendly e-paper timepiece was being offered at $115 a pop, that's a lot of individual supporters, and therefore pre-orders to fulfill. Of course, we like to think we played a small part in this story, but the credit ultimately has to lie with the product developers themselves, who clearly captured people's imaginations. And then some. At time of writing, the tally's run to well over $1 million with 36 days still to go.

Pebble smartwatch raises $100,000 in two hours, retires on a beach originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Allerta intros Pebble smartwatch, inPulse's attractive younger sibling

Remember the inPulse Smartwatch? Say hello to its attractive younger sibling, the Pebble e-paper watch. Allerta's latest creation -- which is launching today on Kickstarter for $99 in three colors -- is "the first smartwatch to offer full iPhone and iOS compatibility". It features a 1.26-inch 144x168-pixel black and white e-paper display with backlight, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, four buttons, a vibrating motor and a three-axis accelerometer. The battery is expected to last more than seven days on a charge.

Pebble receives call, email and message notifications from iOS and Android devices over Bluetooth. It supports downloadable watchfaces and activity-specific watchapps for controlling music, cycling, running and golfing. Allerta's even teamed up with Freecaddie to create a rangefinder app for over 25,000 golf courses worldwide. The timepiece can run several watchapps simultaneously -- these can be installed over Bluetooth using the Pebble App for iOS and Android (2.3 or higher) and developed using the Pebble SDK.

Color choices include white, black, red and a fourth hue to be voted on by early backers of the project -- hurray to crowdsourcing. Pricing is $99 on Kickstarter today and $149 at retail later this year. Want more info? Check out the gallery below, then hit the break for the PR details and the Kickstarter link.

Gallery: Allerta Pebble smartwatch PR shots