Closing in on US$20 million (£13.5 million) with more than a week left to go, the Kickstarter campaign for the Pebble Time is still going strong. And Pebble hopes to push a little more interest by spending some of its funds on innovative accessories.

Rather than overload the Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel with a ton of sensors and extended functionality, which would drive up the price (and probably bulk), the company decided to implement smartstraps: easily swappable straps with built-in modules that add useful features.

It’s an open platform, and it doesn’t sound like Pebble plans to make the straps itself - but the company doesn’t mind funding others that want to help make the Pebble Time even cooler. To that end, Pebble has announced a US$1 million (about £675,000) fund to help bring those proposed projects to life.

Keeping with its crowdfunded tradition, Pebble encourages creators to get together teams and prototypes and put their projects up on Kickstarter or other services. Pebble will keep an eye on the latest and greatest launches and spend its money as it sees fit, with an eye to bring the most useful and innovative straps to market.