Pebble released its latest smartwatch, the Pebble Time, through a brand new Kickstarter campaign this morning. It's a return to the roots for the company, which famously got started on the back of one of the largest Kickstarter campaigns ever back in 2012.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it took less than a half hour for Pebble to cross its goal on its new Kickstarter and reach the "funded" status. But when you look at the goal Pebble actually set (a mere $500,000) and how much it costs to actually get a new Pebble Time through the campaign, the numbers are far less impressive.
Early backers are able to get a Pebble Time for $159, a discount of $40 off of what the Time will cost at retail later this year. That means if each backer purchases one watch, Pebble only needs 3,145 backers to hit its goal. In terms of consumer electronics, that's an incredibly small number, especially for a company that's already sold a million units of its older watches and employs over 130 people. Pebble is likely to sell more than a few thousand watches through this campaign, which runs for 31 days, but its Kickstarter sales are not going to be what keeps the company competing in the smartwatch and wearables market.
So while it seems impressive that Pebble hit its funding goal so quickly (it may even be a new record for Kickstarter), in the long run it's a rather meaningless acheivement. It does make for good headlines, however.