Mobile circuit and guide

Nine months after the Pebble Smartwatch hit its £10million funding target on Kickstarter, the first units are ready to ship to backers this month with pre-order customers in line for their own models shortly.

The watch, described by manufacturers as “The first watch built for the 21st century”, features an e-ink screen similar to Amazon’s popular Kindle e-readers, making it easy to view in the sunlight. It connects via Bluetooth to both Android and Apple iPhones, alerting users with a silent vibration to any incoming calls, emails and text messaging.

One of many wearable tech pieces on display at this year’s CES, the Pebble Smartwatch combines a number of different features through customisable apps making it a multi-purpose device.

Cyclists can attach the watch to their bike handles, where the watch uses GPS technology to display speed, distance and pace data, whilst runners can get similar information on their wrists. The watch can be used to play, pause and skip music tracks on your phone, whilst golfers can use the watch to measure the distance to the green as Pebble has worked alongside Freecaddie to create a golfing app which works on over 25,000 golf courses.

If users aren’t satisfied with the apps already on offer, Pebble has also released their developer kit, allowing tech-savvy users to create their own apps for the Bluetooth Smartwatch, which has a battery life of over seven days and comes in a variety of colours.

Originally intended to ship in Autumn 2012, the creators of the Pebble Smartwatch have overcome problems with development to deliver the Q1 2013 shipping date.

Project Founder, Eric Migicovsky addressed the crowd at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, saying that the company expects to mass produce around 15,000 units per week making the watch available to the general public in about 6-8 weeks.

You can pre-order the Pebble Smartwatch online for a not-unreasonable £110.

via:T3