Pebble smartwatch launches at Best Buy, online store already sold out

By Trevor Mogg July 9, 2013

Best Buy started selling the Pebble smartwatch at its brick-and-mortar stores and online this week as the company behind the device makes moves to take it mainstream.

Reports late last week suggested Best Buy was about to become the first retail chain to stock the app-enabled, programmable gadget, and on Sunday the Pebble team confirmed the move in a statement.

Recommended Videos

Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky said demand for the high-tech watch is high, and that “Best Buy’s partnership with us is a big step towards meeting that demand.”

But if you thought picking up a Pebble from the retail giant would be an easy way to avoid having to wait till the summer (the current shipping date if ordered from Pebble’s website), you might want to call ahead to check it’s in stock. The $150 smartwatch is, at the time of writing, showing up at bestbuy.com/pebble with sold out notices for those wishing to order online.

Some of those who’ve managed to get their hands on a Pebble from the retail giant have been quick to post reviews on the store’s website, ranging from a five-star “awesome companion to my S4” to a one-star “DOA out of the box”. Blank or fading screens appear to be the cause of several of the negative reviews.

Best Buy is only stocking the black Pebble for the time being. The cherry red Pebbles should arrive in August, while the three other colors – orange, gray, and Arctic white – are available for pre-order at getpebble.com.

The customizable Bluetooth watch caught the imagination of the Kickstarter community last year, earning over $10.2 million from more than 68,000 backers.

Wearable tech is predicted to be the next big thing for the tech world, with – if reports are to be believed – wrist-based gadgetry currently the focus of many of the big companies.

Samsung, Apple and Google, for example, are all thought to be in the midst of building smartwatches, while Sony already has one on the market, the second iteration of which is set to launch in September. If Pebble can get its factory to pump out more of its watches to keep up with demand, the tie-up with Best Buy could prove to have been an astute move by Migicovsky as he attempts to gain a foothold in the market before the big hitters arrive on the scene with their huge marketing budgets.

Topics

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Deals

The Apollo wearable is proven to help you sleep better (and it’s on sale)

Apollo wearable worn during sleep in bed.

This content was produced in partnership with Apollo Neuro.
Stress, anxiety, and insomnia are all concerning things that just about everyone struggles with at one time or another. Maybe you can sleep, fending off insomnia, but you lack quality sleep and don’t feel rested in the morning. Or, maybe when it’s time to kick back and relax, you just can’t find a way to do so. There are many solutions for these issues, some work, and others don’t, but one unlikely area of support can be found in a modern, smart wearable.

Medicine is the obvious choice, but not everyone prefers to go that route. There is an answer in modern technology or rather a modern wearable device. One such device is the Apollo wearable, which improves sleep and stress relief via touch therapy. According to Apollo Neuro, the company behind the device, which is worn on your ankle, wrist or clipped to your clothing, it sends out waves of vibrations to help your body relax and reduce feelings of stress. It's an interesting new approach to a common problem that has typically been resolved via medicine, therapy, or other more invasive and time-consuming techniques. The way it utilizes those vibrations, uniquely placed and administered, to create a sense of peace, makes us ask, can it really cure what ails us? We’ll dig a little deeper into how it achieves what it does and what methods it’s using to make you feel better.

Space

What comes after Webb? NASA’s next-generation planet-hunting telescope

An illustration shows how NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory would measure the atmosphere of distant planets.

When it comes to building enormous, complex space telescopes, agencies like NASA have to plan far in advance. Even though the James Webb Space Telescope only launched recently, astronomers are already busy thinking about what will come after Webb — and they've got ambitious plans.

The big plan for the next decades of astronomy research is to find habitable planets, and maybe even to search for signs of life beyond Earth. That's the lofty goal of the Habitable Worlds Observatory, a space telescope currently in the planning phase that is aimed at discovering 25 Earth-like planets around sun-like stars.

Deals

3DMakerpro’s Seal is a pocket-sized scanner to make next-gen precision 3D prints

3DMakerpro Seal in hand lifestyle image.

This content was produced in partnership with 3DMakerpro.
3D printing truly is amazing, because you can create virtually anything, as long as you have the blueprints or digital 3D models. But while there is an excellent community behind the creation of these 3D models, and always new items, gadgets, and tools to print, you can be somewhat limited in the sense that you can't just take an item and print it without a little bit of extra work. If you don't have the skills to create a digital design -- or digital copy of an object -- you'll have to wait for the community to put something together, and it may not always match what you're wanting to create. What if there was something so much easier than that, however? What if there was a tool or device that could create remarkably accurate scans of an object and then translate that into a digital format -- one you can reprint in a 3D printer? There is, from 3DMakerpro, and it's called the Seal -- or Seal Lite in the alternative model.

Promising the "ease of scan" and combined with the "art of detail," the 3DMakerpro Seal and Seal Lite will effectively scan an item or object with supreme detail and accuracy -- a superior accuracy of 0.01mm, which is a first in the consumer-grade 3D scanner industry. It supports full color and whole texture capture in high-definition, thanks to a 24-bit high-quality color CMOS image sensor and texture camera. For you, it means that your model scans will truly come to life, including all nuanced details from material textures to fine elements. A scan of a toy dragon, for example, will feature all scales, colors, and fine details.