Arguably, Pebble and its record-breaking Kickstarter project woke the slumbering giant that is the smartwatch device category. It should follow, then, that by this time next year we’ll be seeing Android-powered smart coolers from Samsung, LG and every OEM under the sun flooding the market, given that the Coolest Cooler has now knocked the Pebble from its vaunted pedestal, with over $10.35 million raised and a little over two days remaining in its campaign.
Pebble raised $10,266,845 during its crowdfunding campaign, and then went on to become produce follow-up products like the Pebble Steel. It’s hard to compete with the power of mass media attention, however – the Coolest did both the morning news circuit and made appearances on late night talk shows, while the Pebble’s success owed a lot to its ability to appeal to early adopter and tech enthusiast audiences.
The Coolest’s popularity is unsurprising for another reason: It marks the first time my brother has told me about a Kickstarter project before I’d noticed it or seen it elsewhere. My brother enjoys tech, but he’s not a super early adopter, and the risk of Kickstarter means he’s never backed a project, yet this one merited his attention. A smart cooler with a blender, USB power, lights and a speaker rated where many others did not.
One other interesting tidbit – the Coolest almost never made it to Kickstarter in the first place, as it was submitted last year but wasn’t deemed up to snuff. Thank goodness for the revisions, or we’d never be able to take Margaritaville with us wherever we happen to wander.
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