Can you think of a way to get apps and software developed for your device, as well as get publicity and disguise it as a charity? Pebble has thought of a way to take care of all three. Pebble has taken to the top schools of tech including Stanford, MIT, Virginia Tech and many others, to donate around $600,000 in smart watches.
As outlined in the company blog, the “Pebble Education Project,” is an attempt to allow “educators [to engage] students more deeply with coursework related to the systems and embedded programing…”
This is however coming after earlier this year, Pebble released the SDK to the software on their smart watches. Opening the doorway for developers to work with, and increased the amount of apps available to 2,200. If that’s how much has already been developed with only 10,000 developers working with the device, imagine what will come now that they have added bright students with fresh ideas to the team.
Pebble has tagged it #MakeAwesomeHappen, and we are sure the students will do just that for Pebble. It’s quite ingenious, coming from Kick Starter, Pebble has come up with another cheaper way for long-term development for their device. The initial price seems high, but when you think of the possible long-term effects, it is actually well worth the price.
Even though the smartwatch started out with less than most smart watches at the time, it beat Kick Starter’s records. Launching it to the top earner on the site, and making it easily completed by Eric Migicovsky, the company’s founder. When launched, all the smartwatch could do was tell time, display texts, and change tunes. Though the plus side was that it was and is compatible with both Android and iOS. Now the smartwatch has so much more to offer, as well as what seems to be, plenty more on the way.
To make things even easier for the company, attached to the blog post about this program, all you have to do is use the hashtag. Then, if they notice it, you may be given access to the smartwatch for teaching purposes of course.