Pebble Makes The Move From Crowdfunders’ Darling To Exclusive Deal With Best Buy

Email my wrist, please.

Email my wrist, please.

Pebble’s smartwatches are a classic David and Goliath story: A product that only exists online but is beloved by the masses (as evidenced in $10 million in backing funds on Kickstarter) rises to the front lines to take on the big box retailers in the physical world. Well, it would be a classic story if instead of slaying Goliath, David shook hands with him and put on a blue Best Buy shirt. 

The company initially received 85,000 pre-orders from its backers for the E-paper smartwatch, which can sync up with users’ phones to provide notifications, emails and the like. Now it’s heading to the brick-and-mortar big time with an exclusive deal to sell the watches in Best Buy stores starting July 7, reports ABC News. It will also still be available on the Pebble site.

Kickstarter backers who pre-ordered the watches back when the project was up for funding in 2012 paid $99 but the Best Buy versions will be on sale for $149.99 in stores and online.

Non-backers had the option to pay $150 to pre-order the watches after the project reached funding in May 2012. Those orders started going out in June, according to an email Pebble sent to those customers.

But demand for the watches seems to be a bit much for the company — as such, Consumerist reader Majik points out to some grumbling on the Interwebs about pre-orderers not receiving their watches yet.

Despite that, Pebble says that it’s shipped 100,000 of the watches so far, and the Best Buy deal will help it meet that high demand.

“It’s been so rewarding to see and share the great things our early backers and development partners have done with Pebble already,” CEO Eric Migicovsky said in a statement. “Their work and our evolving app ecosystem has kept demand very high. Best Buy’s partnership with us is a big step towards meeting that demand.”

In the meantime, we haven’t been able to find a contact at Pebble to find out if all backers’/non-backers’ pre-orders have been or will be met by the time the watches show up for public sale at Best Buy. If you pre-ordered it and don’t receive it by July 7, send us an email at tips@consumerist.com.

Smartwatches Hit the Mainstream, Pebble Lands at Best Buy [ABC News]

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