Pebble was among the first Kickstarter darlings, raising funding for a simple smartwatch product that delivered smartphone notifications on an e-ink display. The device’s tight integration with iOS and Android helped make this first generation a success, and Pebble followed up with the Steel and an app marketplace for its next generation. With its new release, the Pebble Time, the company is doubling down on smartwatches and reinventing its core product—and it’s giving both Apple Watch and Android Wear runs for their money.

Pebble didn’t want to leave the smartwatch industry up to the same two companies dominating the smartphone industry. So it introduced a third option.

This morning, Pebble launched the Time on Kickstarter with a target funding amount of $500,000. By noon, the company had raised more than $4.5 million dollars, and the number continues to climb. Thousands of people were captivated by the Pebble Time, and the explosive growth of its fledgling smartwatch development platform promises to give developers all-new access to users’ wrists, beyond the App Store and Google Play Store.

Pebble Time features an all-new e-color display capable of displaying 64 colors—more reminiscent of a Game Boy Color than a Retina display. The screen allows for whimsical animations included in the Pebble OS, and its simple design yields a whopping seven-day battery life, despite being always on.

Pebble Time features an always-on color display and a battery that lasts a full week. That’s seven full days.

The company’s proprietary operating system has been reorganized into a chronological arrangement of notifications and tasks, with distinct buttons for past, present, and future. New animations take advantage of e-ink’s characteristic latency, exaggerating the delays to make a new experience that is elegant and delightful.

Pebble Time will retail for $199 and comes in three colors, but its app marketplace is the real story. Thousands of developers have already jumped on board with Pebble’s existing products, and thousands more are sure to adopt its operating system’s new and colorful interface paradigms before Pebble Time ships. Everything from unique watch faces and remote controls to full-fledged watch apps are possible on the platform, giving brands and developers opportunities to build wearable experiences that reach customers across iOS and Android platforms.

With Pebble, brands can build wearable experiences that reach audiences across iOS and Android.

The smartwatch industry remains in its infancy, but major players like Apple and Google have already made strides to leave their mark. As Watch OS and Android Wear mature, Pebble believes its solution offers the most complete and realized vision for what a smartwatch can be—and tens of thousands of Kickstarter customers seem to agree.