LevelUp Powers Payments App for Smartwatch (March 18, 2014)
Mobile payments with a flick of the wrist are here. Web design agency BeautifulLab has developed a payment app for the Pebble smartwatch that enables users to pay for in-store purchases using a QR code on the watch scanned at the POS. The app is powered by LevelUp’s developer platform and is available from the Pebble appstore.
“[The payment app] for Pebble is the next step forward in payment innovation,” said Tung Pham, co-founder of BeautifulLab. “By enabling people to pay with their watch, we’ve reduced unnecessary steps in the transaction process and created, perhaps, the easiest way for people to pay for things.” To promote the app’s launch, LevelUp is giving away a Pebble watch plus $250 in LevelUp credit to the customer making the 7 millionth LevelUp payment, projected to occur sometime this month.
The Pebble watch is the result of a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign launched in 2012. The watch was released in 2013, and the Pebble appstore debuted in February of this year. Some industry observers see smartwatches and mobile payments as a natural partnership, possibly making mobile payments more mainstream, while bringing more everyday functionality to smartwatches.
