“Adventuresome” is perhaps a kind way of describing Pebble’s year: 2016 started in crisis. The year before, the once-profitable company dropped into the red, and hit the second half 2015 by not meeting its sales goals. Pebble would never be profitable again. In March of 2016, Migicovsky laid off a quarter of his staff of 160, just as the company moved from its cramped, loft-like Palo Alto headquarters into a gleaming, spacious new office tower in downtown Redwood City. In its optimism, the company had rented two floors; now it fit on just one.
It turned out that both Pebble^aEURS-^aEURSand, incidentally, Apple – had misjudged the wearables market. The idea of an iPhone on the wrist hasn’t caught on. The one killer app for wrist devices, at least so far, seems to be fitness. Active people find it useful to wear something that quantifies your biometrics and tracks your runs. Apple’s emphasis on fashion and Pebble’s on productivity and third-party innovation were costly detours – the smartwatch market is rooted in health and fitness. “We learned late, and Apple is learning this as well,” says Migicovsky. (He acknowledges that notifications are perhaps the other key function smartwatches perform.) “We did not get this in 2014^aEURS-^aEURSif we had come out then as the smartwatch fitness wearable, maybe it would be a bit different.”
It seems my doubts about the viability of the smartwatch market are turning out to be on point. Just as I predicted – turns out people really don’t want to strap an ugly calculator on their wrists, not even when it has a shiny Apple logo.
I love my Pebble Time, though. Not for all the apps I could but don’t use on it, but for having my text messages and calendar notifications on my wrist (saves me from pulling out the phone) and for seeing who’s calling (if I don’t want to take the call, I can just cancel on my wrist).
Oh and I like it that I don’t have to charge this thing every 1 or 2 days, too. otherwise, it would get cumbersome instead of useful (I use it as my alarm clock but for that, it must be on my wrist at night, not on the charger)
I love how people’s justification for these things boils down to “hey, I’m lazy.” Really? You can’t pull the darned phone out of your pocket when you get a chance?
This is why the market is pretty much zero for these things. They don’t do anything without a phone connected to them, and don’t really do much of anything even with a phone connected because, if you actually want to do anything with that notification on your wrist, you have to pull the phone out of your pocket anyway.
Gaah! Why do you think everyone had a wristwatch at the end of the 20th century instead of a pocket watch?
Its more convenient, harder to lose, longer battery life.
I don’t think you understand what a notification, in real life is. Its hey something happened. How you react to it is dependent on what the context is.
There are a large number of notifications that don’t require a subsequent action on phone, but an action in real life.
Its also a lot less impolite in the middle of conversation to glance at a watch than to pull out a phone and look at a notification.
Not really. Both are rude, depending on context obviously.
By the way, the polite thing to do when you’re in a conversation is to not look at your notifications.
Well,yes obviously. However, if you are waiting on a critical message. Its less rude to glance at a watch.
It’s also really useful for telling the time.
If I forget to put my watch on in the morning, I feel lost. Anytime I want to check the time, I glance at my wrist, see a blank spot, and just stare. Takes a good three or four glances at the blank spot before I realise I have a phone in my pocket with a clock. And sometimes I’ll be in the middle of doing something on the phone, glance at my wrist, and think “Shit, what time is it?!”
I’ve had a cell phone since 2001. And only really started wearing watches full time around 2010. Yet I still feel lost without a watch on for telling time.
And if the watch doesn’t have a calendar on it, I’m lost as to what day it is. 
In fact, most times I don’t NEED my phone to do anything with that notification (it tells me I have 15 minutes until the next meeting and where it’s supposed to be, reminds me to pick up bread and milk after work,…).
If I do need my phone to act on the notification, I haven’t lost much time by glancing at my wrist.
Also, when I take out my phone, I tend to get distracted by it, which is not the case when I glance at my watch.
Edited 2016-12-14 14:16 UTC
Imho the viability of the market is ok, just not as a phone-like mass market product, but more as a niche product.
I suspect that, if they had kept their ambitions more modest during the iwatch hype, Pebble’d be doing fine now.
the Apple Watch is the only viable ‘smart watch’?
Worth thinking about.
At least it seems to have a decent amount of infrastructure behind it and has sold in fairly decent numbers.
The few people I know that have one love it for making Apple Pay a dream to use. But they live and work in the middle of London.
Personally, I’ve not worn a watch on my wrist for 40 years. Now if Apple (or someone else) were to put one inside a half or full hunter case then I might buy one.
So you’d consider buying a smart watch if it only came in a pocket-ized version?
That’s pretty cool. I’d prefer a full phone in that shape, but either way it would be rather offbeat cool.
Simple, an careful assessment. Market research is openly lying or, a lot of hubris -around there. [Second intentions are not going to be my exploration, this time].
A 2-bit kickstarter project is going to have a hard time once really big players move into their space.
Pebble management had to take whatever exit strategy was left before they ran out of cash.
I don’t know anyone that would wear a smartwatch, when I walk into a tech store and get accosted by a sales associa around the wearable alley, I ask them what those are for and they never seems to know you can do something else with them than read and clear notifications.
IOT is heading the same way, just saying.
Having purchased 2 Pebbles, I was disappointed to see what happened with Pebble. However, I purchased an Asus Zenwatch 2 and I love it. Color, Sound, Wifi – a great watch, and only $99.
it’s still v1 on these things, until they can contain all of the radios they need.
as soon as you don’t NEED a phone people will get away from it.
i’d already have a smart watch if it could contain my cell radio.
Part of me agrees with you, but then the other problems would manifest. It’s not big enough to do much of anything on it. I can’t type (virtually or physically) and dictation is not always appropriate nor desirable. It can’t display much of anything in that space. And what, permanent speaker phone if I forgot my headset? No thanks!
I think the phone on your wrist would be interesting if done right (if there was a way to hold it to your ear easily), however I suspect it would require a serious re-evaluation of exactly what our phone does vs what our other devices do. It wouldn’t be fit for all the tasks our phones have integrated at this point.
The radio and the hook into your db’s are the real value — notifications from email, calendar, IM, etc.
If the watch is able to display all notifications, with basic response UI, it becomes useful assuming it’s not just mirroring a phone.
If the watch is able to be the cell hotspot for your tablet and laptop, it becomes very useful.
Just checking time, emails, IM’s, skypes, cals, even looking passwords, is helpful if i don’t nee a phone.
For reading the time, and for me at least, nothing beats a mechanical watch. Be it my automatic “Seiko 5 Sports”, 1970’s automatic Orient Sea King diver, dressy 1970’s manual-wind Swiss Elgin, etc.
Wearing them, i.e. mechanical watches, always reminds me of the inventive potential of the human race especially when I consider my serviced 40+ year old pieces give me a time accuracy to within a maximum deviation of approximately +-10 seconds/day from that of a quartz watch; serviced once every 10 years. Having a battery/quartz device on my wrist does not give me this feeling.
Those mechanical watches with an exhibition case-back, i.e. glass window on underside of the watch, provide a view of the working movement (parts in motion) and at times provides an interesting conversation piece concerning the workings of a mechanical watch movement.
I prefer rotating (or casually flicking) my wrist to look at the time on my wrist-watch rather than accessing a phone for my time, especially during a formal dinner/meeting in a public place (e.g. restaurant) where if I were to be interrupted by a phone call then it would be from someone ringing the establishment’s (e.g. restaurant’s) phone since I would have left contact details for the respective establishment to an acquaintance (like in the old days).
I do believe in having “quality time” away from a mobile phone, as I remember in the decades of the 1980’s, 1990’s (life seemed to be, at times, “simpler” back then).
A bonus with a traditional wrist watch is that it can be a fashion/clothing accessory.
Just as I predicted
No, you are not alone for the prophesy.
Many of us who are used to have a traditional Smart Watch made in Japan like Casio G-Shock would certainly look at smart watches with disdain. I for one will criticize the battery life. Watches should be used for years without charging, now come forward Smart watches from Apple and others, you have to recharge it every now and then, that alone is a garbage quality watch.
Is that an improvement? Of course, a fan will claim, you have more features, like you can install apps on it, but hey, I have a PC and smart phone for that. Enough!
Edited 2016-12-14 00:54 UTC