Pebble Time Now Most Funded Kickstarter Ever

Turns out, there are a lot of people out there who want the new Pebble Time. The upcoming smartwatch has overtaken the Coolest Cooler to become Kickstarter's highest funded project of all time.

As of Monday morning, the Pebble Time has racked up more than $17 million from 67,107 backers, easily beating out the high-tech cooler, which earned $13.2 million in August. This is actually the second Kickstarter record the Pebble Time has broken, after topping $1 million in just 30 minutes to become the fastest project to ever hit that milestone.

Moreover, the Pebble Time still has 18 days to go in its funding campaign, meaning it could very likely earn twice as much as the original Pebble, which racked up $10.2 million in crowdfunding back in 2012.

Since launching the Time on Kickstarter, Pebble has introduced new "smartstraps" for the device, and added the option to upgrade to the Pebble Time Steel version. The new straps contain electronics and sensors that can "interface directly" with apps running on the watch, enabling features like GPS, heart rate monitoring, and longer battery life.

"Have you ever wanted to go for a run without your phone and still track your speed and distance?" the Pebble team wrote on Kickstarter. "How about a Pebble watch with a battery life of more than a week? What about a NFC chip for payments, keyless car remote, or a pollution sensor?"

Meanwhile, the new Pebble Time Steel is designed to look a little fancier than the standard Pebble Time. It comes with two straps — leather and stainless steel, and is available in gunmetal black, silver stainless, or gold.

The next-gen Time features a color e-paper display and microphone, as well as a thinner, curved design. Like its predecessors (the Pebble and Pebble Steel), the Time syncs with Apple and Android smartphones; users will need an iPhone 4s or newer running the latest iOS, while Android owners must be updated to Android 4.0 or higher.

Nab the Pebble Time for $159 on and the Time Steel for $250 on Kickstarter. Once the campaign is over, those prices will increase to $199 and $299, respectively.

For more, check out the video below as well as PCMag's roundup of The Best Smartwatches. And see 7 Kickstarter Projects That Were Too Good to Be True in the slideshow above.