In one week, Pebble’s new Time smartwatch has become the most “funded” project in Kickstarter history, approaching $14 million in pre-orders. The watch project generated more than $9 million in pre-orders on its first day alone, and has slowly been making its way up the chart all week.
What may have boosted it: Pebble announced today that it will also be producing a more expensive “Steel” version of the watch. Within a few hours, the Pebble Time broke the record, dethroning the Coolest Cooler, a cooler that has a built-in blender and speakers.
One new Pebble Steel model—$250 on Kickstarter—also looks surprisingly similar to Apple’s luxury Apple Watch “Edition” model, which is expected to cost thousands of dollars. This could be a clever way to attract sales—or at least attention—at a fraction of the price.
But expect Apple to put Pebble’s success in perspective when it launches Apple Watch sales in April. Opening weekend sales for new Apple products are typically measured in the millions of units—versus 57,000 backers so far for the new Pebble.