When the Pebble smartwatch started shipping in January 2013, CEO Eric Migicovsky and the rest of his team began thinking about their next big project. The Pebble was a good first device, but its casual sporty design left more than a few shoppers seeking a more versatile look.
“Some wanted it to be in a slightly different aesthetic package — a little more akin to a classical watch,” explains Migicovsky on the couch of a conference room in Pebble’s Palo Alto, Calif. headquarters. When we met, he was prepping to fly out to Las Vegas for CES this past weekend, where he’ll meet with new partners like Pandora (P), ESPN, and Mercedes-Benz, all of which are developing Pebble apps that will launch at the end of January.
That’s what is bringing us the Pebble Steel. Available for sale this week on the company’s site and shipping later this month for $249.
The technology inside remains largely the same – the same waterproof 1.26-inch power-sipping screen e-ink display, the same five- to seven-day battery life — but everything on the outside is starkly different. The gorilla glass and stainless steel watch face is trimmer and smaller, with two distinct flavors — “brushed stainless” and “black matte” — each of which come with two bands: steel linked and black leather. The upgrade to better materials lends Steel a solid heft that just wasn’t present in its chunkier, plastic predecessor.
Also in development: an app store that will launch alongside Steel later this month. Over 3 million apps and watch faces have been downloaded, but until now, users have had to download those via third-party sites like MyPebbleFaces.com. The Pebble appstore will finally offer an official, central location for users to do that, with app categories like Games, Notifications, Tools & Utilities, and so on.
Over 300,000 Pebble smartwatches have been sold in the last 12 months, and with Steel, Migicovsky and crew bet its classier looks will convince some forward-thinking shoppers to buy in and goose sales further. Although 2012 was lackluster for wearable computing, with some devices like Google Glass (GOOG) and Samsung’s Gear watch proving limited and rough, it’s estimated wearables could be a booming market worth as much as $6 billion by 2016. And given its solid early sales, Pebble stands as good a chance as any company to be a dominant player.
