Pebble may have started out as a low-profile Kickstarter project, but it remains one of the most popular smartwatches ever made. CEO Eric Migicovsky told the Verge that Pebble has sold more than one million watches as of December 31, 2014, and discussed the company’s plans for the future.
In recent years, more and more companies have jumped into the wearable world with smartwatches, creating stiff competition for Pebble. Nonetheless, Pebble’s long battery life, easy-to-use interface, and compatibility with different mobile operating systems have kept its watches relevant and close to the top of the pile. Still, with Android Wear picking up steam, fitness trackers erupting all over the tech landscape, and the Apple Watch on the horizon, Pebble knows it has to do something big and different if it wants to maintain its position.
Migicovsky stated that Pebble will introduce brand new watches in 2015, as well as a new OS for the devices. “We’ve found a new framework to use as an interaction model on the watch,” he said in the interview, adding that apps will become secondary on the new OS. “It doesn’t look like what we have today, and it doesn’t look like what’s on your smartphone.”
Although he didn’t reveal any details of what else to expect from the new OS, it’s clear that the OS will be altogether different from the current Pebble user interface. Pebble recently hired webOS designers from LG to help build the new platform. The company will likely call upon the 25,000 app developers who’ve contributed to its impressive selection of 6,000 apps and watch faces to build new apps for its upcoming OS.
