Smart strap brings payments to your Pebble smartwatch
Right now, you have slim pickings if you want to pay for things from your wrist: there’s the Apple Watch, an upcoming Swatch model, eventual Samsung Gear S2 support and… that’s about it. However, Fit Pay might just widen the field a bit. It’s crowdfunding the Pagaré smart strap, which brings NFC-based tap-to-pay support to any Pebble Time smartwatch — yes, including the Round. It should work at most shops that accept Apple Pay or Android Pay (it uses a similar, token-based system), and it shares familiar security measures, such as disabling access when you remove your timepiece. You don’t even need to bring your phone once you’ve set things up.
If you’re interested, you’ll want to get in early. It takes a relatively modest $49 pledge to get a strap if you’re part of the first wave, but that price will go up to $69 if you’re late, or $89 if you wait until the official release. That’s a lot to shell out to add one feature to a smartwatch, especially when you won’t get the Pagaré until July at the earliest. With that said, this could be the ticket if you either have a smartphone that doesn’t do tap-to-pay (hi, OnePlus 2) or simply prefer Pebble’s lower-priced, longer-lasting smartwatches over the alternatives.
Via: The Verge
Source: Kickstarter, Fit Pay
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