Pebble launched the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for its newest smartwatch, the Pebble Time, last week. The campaign quickly broke crowdfunding records as it raised over $1 million in just 49 minutes.
At the time of writing, the campaign has already raised over $15 million from over 61,000 backers, with 23 days more to go before the Kickstarter campaign ends.
Apparently, the Pebble Time is not the only new device that the company had up its sleeve, as the Pebble Time Steel was recently introduced.
At first glance, however, the Pebble Time Steel looks exactly like the gold Apple Watch Edition that Apple will begin selling in April.
Most advertisements for Apple's 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition show the device with a red leather wristband. And in the marketing materials released by Pebble, the Pebble Time Steel is shown with a gold frame and red wristband that look very similar to the Apple Watch.
According to Pebble, Pebble Time Steel will include all the features that can be found in the Pebble Time smartwatch, with the only difference being in its aesthetics. The Pebble Time Steel will still display all the notifications of users from their smartphones, in addition to being able to control certain aspects of the connected smartphone such as handling calls and playing music. The smartwatch is also pegged to have a battery life that will last up to 10 days.
The Pebble Time Steel will be shipped with a casing of stainless steel and a premium stainless steel strap made of leather.
For users that have already showed their support for Pebble Time by being a backer on the device's Kickstarter campaign, they can upgrade to receive a Pebble Time Steel by clicking on the blue Manage button that can be found next to the amount pledged, and then choosing for the new reward option for Pebble Time Steel.
New backers have over three weeks to go to join the crowdfunding campaign. Backers can have the Pebble Time Steel in any color as a reward for a $250 pledge, an amount which will be cheaper by $50 compared to the retail price of the device when it launches to the market.
According to Pebble, Pebble Time Steel will commence shipping in July.
Comparisons between the Pebble Time and the Apple Watch show that, while the Apple Watch seems to be a generally better device than Pebble Time, the suspect battery life of the Apple Watch could be a huge factor in people opting to purchase the Pebble Time instead. In addition, the starting price of the Apple Watch of $349 is almost double that of the $199 price tag of the Pebble Time smartwatch once its hits the market.
