Hi Pebblers,

Due to extraordinary interest from our backers, we've decided to introduce a 5th Pebble colour option: Grey! Here's the current state of the Pebble rainbow:

Here's a render of the new Grey Pebble [not pictured: the 49 shades of grey that didn't make the cut]

Pebble Account website

In order to keep track of every single backer's shipping information and color selection, we created a  Pebble Account site. An invitation has been sent to the same email address that you used on Kickstarter when you backed Pebble. You can find the email in your inbox by searching for an email 

From: kickstarter@getpebble.com 

Subject: Your Pebble Order - Enter shipping info and color selection

Inside that email there is a special link that invites you to create a new password for your Pebble Account. If you can't find that email in your inbox, check your spam filter as message may be misclassified. If you can't find it, make sure that kickstarter@getpebble.com is on your safe-email list and then request a password reset here.

Using the Pebble Account website, you can choose your Pebble's color, enter your current shipping address and pay any shipping fees that were not included in your pledge on Kickstarter. You have until Sept 30, 2012 to select which color you'd like. As for your shipping address, please enter your current address into the system. You can return to account.getpebble.com at any time before your Pebble ships and change your address if you move. 

Frequently Asked Questions

• Q: When is Pebble shipping? A: We have not announced a shipping date. As soon as we are 100% confident we can ship by a certain date, we will announce it right here on our Kickstarter Updates section.
• Q: I'm getting an error "The Invitation Token is Not Valid" A: You may have already clicked the link. If you can't access your account, you can reset your password on this page  
• Q: What if I move? A: We will email you before we ship your Pebble so you can change your address if necessary at account.getpebble.com.
• Q: Help! I can't access my old email account. A: Please email your new address and your old email address, with your Amazon payment ID from the payment confirmation you received on May 19th to kickstarter@getpebble.com
• Q: Can I add more Pebbles to my order? A: You can place new pre-orders at www.getpebble.com but they will not ship with your Kickstarter rewards.
• Q: Does upgrading to a Color option change my place in the shipping order? A: No.
• Q: Can I upgrade from Jet Black to a Color Pebble? A: Yes, you can pay $15 USD and upgrade to a Color Pebble.
• Q: What service do you use for shipping? A: We're planning on shipping via the postal service (eg. USPS). 
• Q: Will you mark the package as a gift or mis-state the value? A: The value on each package will be at least $99 USD.
• Q: Can I get a white band for my Orange Pebble? A: We are shipping the orange Pebble with a Black band. We may offer the option to purchase an extra white strap at a later date.
• Q: What does the Grey (and other colors) look like in Real Life? A: We are working hard on plastic samples. We'll post pictures as soon as we get them. 
• Q: Can I pay shipping or upgrade using Paypal? A: No, the system only accepts credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discovery, JCB, Diners Club) or US debit cards.
• Q: I pledged X and I only get the choice for Y watches! A: Please send us an email and we'll fix it. It may take us a few days to work our way through all our emails though.

If you have any questions, please email kickstarter@getpebble.com

Tidbits from around the Pebble world

• Shipping test has been working out well. We sent 120 test shipments to a few backers around the world to test our logistics provider and optimize the process to ensure that packages arrive safely, quickly and with as few fees as possible to our backers.
• Backers, you've been asking about the backlight! We'll post a video on our social media accounts (twitter/Facebook/Vimeo) showing it off fairly soon
• Andrew is in Taiwan right now working on our production test plan (among other things). Here are the latest pics  
• Here's a short video of a pug-based screen saver/graphics test on a pre-production Pebble. This is NOT the real strap, just a random sample I had on-hand. 

As usual, we'll continue posting small updates in between our Kickstarter Updates on Twitter.com/pebble, Facebook.com/getpebble, Pinterest.com/getpebble and responding to questions on the Pebble Forum.

Thanks again for backing us, Pebblers!

Eric + Pebble Team

Update

Bit of business before we get to the cool demo. I'd like to apologize for the abrupt way that I mentioned we would not be able to begin shipping Pebbles in September (in Update 17). It's clear now that this information should have been highlighted and discussed more thoroughly. 

Planning and scheduling a major manufacturing project is complex. We're working hard to complete the interconnected tasks that make up the production process. For me and the hardware engineers on the project, a large percentage of our time is spent exchanging complex spreadsheets filled with components specs by email, Skyping about the dimensions of minute hardware requirements and IMing our manufacturing team and factory. Not super exciting. That's why we've decided to share the more interesting stuff (photos, video and more!) in updates.

Our goal is to provide you with accurate information and interesting examples of our progress via these updates. We're working quickly, but we don't want to compromise on quality. While we won't be posting a shipping date until we're extremely certain that we'll be able to meet it, our feeling is that by monitoring our progress by the updates you'll have an excellent feel for how the project is going. When we do share the ship date, it won't be too surprising because you'll have seen the project come together in these updates. 

Ask-Me-Anything about Pebble today at 11am Pacific!

I can only go into so much detail during these updates. That's why I'll be hosting a thread on Reddit (www.reddit.com/r/pebble) today at 11am Pacific (2pm EST, midnight Mumbai) where you can ask me any other questions you might have about Pebble.

User Interface (UI) Preview

Martijn is Pebble's User Interface designer and iOS developer. Check out the video in high resolution (full screen for best effect) for a preview of the Pebble UI. Keep in mind this is just a preview and subject to change as we continue to develop the software. For example, the font size is customizable, eg you can select to have emails shown on screen in arger print. The next step is to implement this UI for the watch itself and test it thoroughly on a prototype Pebble.

Martijn used iOS to create a prototype Pebble for quick designing. Here is an example of an incoming email on Pebble.

Incoming call

Music control - You can skip tracks by double tapping the centre button

Other random tidbits from the Pebble world

• Starting a shipping test. Volunteer Pebblers around the world will receive an empty shipment from us to determine how long the shipping process will take. Thanks Twitter followers!
• Started working on the Manufacturing Test Plan (MTP)
• Ran into an antenna issue. Working through it with a bunch of antenna experts. We'll figure it out.
• Started tooling on a bunch of simple components like the USB charge cable and shipping box
• Tested tons of different watch strap samples to make sure we get the texture just right
• Ordered 500,000 more resistors. You can never have too many resistors!
• We're working on a Pebble Account page where backers can update their shipping information.
• In the next update, we'll post more info about the software development progress.

That's it for now. Thanks again for backing us, Pebblers!

Eric + Pebble team.

Voter's Choice

Without further ado, I'd like to present the Voter's Choice color....Orange! It won with almost 2000 out of more than 10,000 qualified votes. 

I think it looks pretty snazzy! The exact color appearance may vary from this rendering as we work with our plastics supplier. And if you don't like orange, don't worry! As a color backer, you're entitled to pick any of the (now) 4 color options for each one of your Pebbles: Black, White, Red or Orange. We will send out a survey to request your selection later on in the project.

Manufacturing Update

The Pebble team has been bouncing back and forth between Palo Alto and Taipei a lot over the last 6 weeks. The factory that we selected has an R&D facility in Taipei while their main manufacturing and assembly locations are in China. Andrew, Steve and I have all travelled separately to Taipei to oversee the transition between the design and manufacturing stages of the project. In terms of our schedule, we're sticking pretty closely to an aggressive timetable we put together at the end of May (remember our first timetable was created before we launched on Kickstarter, when we were expecting to manufacture just 1,000 Pebbles). While we won't be able to start shipping Pebbles in September, our current schedule has us on track to go from manufacturing zero to 15,000 Pebbles per week as soon as possible.

Eric checking the power consumption of Pebble's backlight module

We're currently in a phase called Engineering Verification. During this phase, the factory produced samples of the entire product. We're currently evaluating each individual component (case, lens, circuit board, charge cable, etc) and we'll tweak the design as necessary. The design needs to be nearly perfect before we move into a phase called 'tooling' during which the factory creates hardened steel tools for injection molding Pebble's plastic components.

Prototype Lens

Remember our tiny printed circuit board (PCB) design from Update #15? Here it is in real life attached to our custom PCB test fixture.

Another key component in our design is a flexible printed circuit (FPC). See that empty space in the middle? That's where the battery fits in. 

Pebble Case samples getting their buttons installed

High resolution versions of each image will be available on our Pinterest page shortly.

Thanks!

Eric + Pebble Team

Vote on the 4th Pebble Color

After the dust settled from our #ColorMyPebble campaign, we whittled the color list down to 12 options. To check them out, head on over to:

http://vote.getpebble.com

You'll notice that anyone can vote on this page. Only the votes of the Kickstarter color backers will count towards the 4th color option, but everyone is free to make their voice heard! 

If you're a color backer, in order to ensure that your vote is counted, please use the same e-mail address that you used when backing Pebble on Kickstarter. 

If you vote multiple times, only your last vote will be counted. You can vote as often as you like until the closing date on July 21, 2012. Please help us out and complete the survey after you vote, as it helps us get a better idea of our Pebble user base!

Don't worry about the strap color, this survey is focusing on the color of the watch body.

Thanks! 

Eric + Pebble Team

(Want to see what Pebble looks like in each color? Head over to the voting page http://vote.getpebble.com)

Hi everybody! 

Quick update before the Canada Day long-weekend.

Color Selection

We've started accepting color suggestions. So if you've got any ideas for cool Pebble colors, here's how you can get your voice heard! The best way to send us your color is with the hex color value. Don't forget to create a memorable name, then send your suggestion to us via

• Kickstarter comment page 
• Tweet @pebble with hashtag #colormypebble 
• Post on our timeline at Facebook.com/getpebble

After you post your suggestion, we'll create a render of Pebble using your suggestion and post it on our Pinterest page. If you like someone else's color combination, be sure to repin, tweet, like or generally talk about it!

Next week, we'll be sending out an email to all backers of a color pebble with a link to the color voting survey, taking into consideration all the suggestions that we've received.

PCB Layout Complete

A major milestone is complete...we've created the final design for our printed circuit board (PCB). This is the main electronics board that contains all the integrated circuits and passive components that make up Pebble. It's double sided...so that 3D render above is just one side! The wires coming out the bottom are from the vibrating motor.

This is close to the actual size of the board. It's roughly the size of the 'tab' key on a MacBook keyboard.

Android Developer APIs

Pebble was at Google IO this week. We used the opportunity to start the conversation with developers around our Android APIs. If you're interested, you can learn more at developer.getpebble.com. This is just the beginning of our developer outreach, we'll be releasing other sections of our SDK over the coming months.

Eric + Pebble team