This 19-Year-Old College Dropout May Have Reinvented The Smartwatch

In the emerging wearable tech space, there is no one device that clearly trumps the rest. As Sonny Vu of Misfit puts it: "We're in the first half of the first inning of a nine inning game."

But 19-year-old Simon Tian wants to change the game.

He's working on a device called the Neptune Pine, which he claims will be the "definitive all-in-one smartwatch." The idea is that it's actually much more like a smartphone than anything else on the market. It doesn't need to be tethered to your phone via Bluetooth: You insert a micro-SIM card and can use the device to text, make calls, video chat, take pictures, use a GPS, check your social media, and more. The watch runs on the same Android operating as many regular smartphones.

Tian launched his project on Kickstarter two days ago and promptly blew past his $100,000 goal, putting it on track to become one of the highest funded projects of all time, according to Quartz.

Tian, a Canadian teen who dropped out of school to work on the Pine Neptune, says in the Kickstarter video that the design and engineering are basically finalized (you can see the guts of the watch and all its specs on Kickstarter) and that all the money raised will be used to mass produce the watch.