Pebble Watches Are Coming Back (Kind Of)
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You can now pre-order a brand-new Pebble Watch, which is a sentence that will confuse a lot of people and excite others. Pebble was one of the first smartwatches, launching even before the first Apple Watch. We wrote about it here on Lifehacker in 2013. Now it’s back in two versions, running $149 and $225, both expected to ship later this year.
Some quick background on Pebble
Pebble was an early smartwatch brand whose devices featured an e-ink display (like the kind you might see on an e-book reader). Its Kickstarter launches broke records for the platform. I had heard that the Pebble Time was the most successful Kickstarter project ever at the time of its launch, so I checked Kickstarter’s list of its 12 most funded projects to see if it still holds that title. Pebble’s three generations hold the #2, #6, and #12 spots. People loved this watch.
And they continued to love it, even after the company was bought by Fitbit in 2016. A project called Rebble did its best to maintain the old watches’ functionality over the years, providing app store updates and replacing some of the old cloud services. As the years went by, it got harder and harder to keep using Pebble watches. Both the Android and iPhone apps disappeared from phones’ official app stores, and “how to set up a new Pebble” guides got more complicated, but some users persisted.
Google now owns Fitbit and Pebble users managed to successfully lobby Google to open-source the Pebble OS, opening the doors to new Pebble watches.
Who is making the new Pebble watches, and why?
Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky is leading this project. He wrote: “I've tried pretty much every other smartwatch on Earth, yet I still wear my Pebble every day—nothing else matches its features and long battery life. I really, really, really hoped someone else would create a proper replacement, but no one has stepped up, and my stash of old Pebbles is dwindling!”
In an AMA on the Pebble subreddit, Migicovsky mentioned several times that the team is small and that they’re trying not to bite off more than they can chew. Since the OS is now open source, several questions about features were met with answers like “No, but that sounds like a nice feature for someone to add to the open source PebbleOS!”
The new watches aren’t going to be sold under the Pebble name, though, since Google still owns that trademark. They are called the Core Time 2 and the Core 2 Duo. A redditor asked what is “duo” about it, and Migicovsky replied: “Du-over 😉”
The Core 2 Duo ($149) is “like Pebble 2, but better”
The Core 2 Duo will have a black-and-white screen and a plastic (polycarbonate) frame in either black or white, and is expected to start shipping in July. Its look and feel are intended to be just like the old Pebble 2, although some of the internals are upgraded and it has more durable buttons.
Other specs include the following (I’ve bolded differences from the Core Time 2):
1.2-inch, always-on e-paper screen
30-day battery life
A microphone and speaker, although voice calls won’t be natively supported
IPX8 water resistance (the 8 typically means the device can go at least 3 meters underwater, but the X indicates that it isn’t tested for dust resistance)
Step tracking and sleep tracking
Physical buttons
22-millimeter standard watch strap
Bluetooth connectivity
No wifi or cellular connectivity
No GPS
No NFC payments (“Too hard to do as a small company, sorry.”)
No heart rate monitor
This model has a barometer and compass, where the Core Time 2 does not.
The Core Time 2 ($225) is “like Pebble Time 2, but better”
The Core Time 2 is larger than the Core 2 Duo and will have a color touchscreen and a metal frame. Not only is the screen bigger than its sibling, it’s also “53% bigger and [has] 88% more pixels” than its predecessor the Pebble Time 2. It’s expected to ship in December 2025.
The Core Time 2 has almost all the features of the Core 2 Duo listed above, except that it will not have the compass and barometer (those were included in the Core 2 Duo as a favor to a friend, Migicovsky said in the AMA). On the bright side, it will have a heart rate monitor.
1.6-inch, always-on e-paper screen
64-color display
Touchscreen
30-day battery life
A microphone and speaker, although voice calls won’t be natively supported
IPX8 water resistance (same as Core 2 Duo)
Step tracking and sleep tracking
Physical buttons
22-millimeter standard watch strap
Bluetooth connectivity
No wifi or cellular connectivity
No GPS
No NFC payments
No barometer and compass
This model has a heart rate monitor, where the Core 2 Duo does not.
You can find full specs for both watches here. Note that while the watches will not have GPS, Migicovsky noted that developers could choose to use phone GPS for mapping or fitness purposes. This is a common approach for minimalist wearables, including Whoop and some Fitbits.
Your old Pebble charger will work, but so will a modern USB-C cable
Migicovsky noted in the AMA that the new watches will use the same charger as previous Pebble watches. (“Take that, everyone who said I should throw out my box of 10-year-old chargers,” said one redditor.)
The charger that ships with the new watches will be a connector that plugs into a USB-C cable, so you’ll still need to bring that connector with you when you travel, but you won’t need to carry a whole special charging cable. This is the same approach that Coros took for its Pace Pro, and I even bought a similar style of charging adapter for my Garmin watch—it’s a convenient format.
The company intends to stick around, but isn’t making any promises about future products
In response to questions about other colors, features, or future products, Migicovsky repeatedly said they were going to focus on what they were able to do for now. He isn’t making any promises about when more units will be available to order, so if you want to be sure of getting one of the new watches, it makes sense to pre-order now.
The new watches’ operating systems will be open source, and developers are invited to add the features they’d like to see. There is a Discord to organize efforts, and Migicovsky linked to it, saying: “All development is happening on the discord (https://discordapp.com/invite/aRUAYFN) and github (https://github.com/pebble-dev/pebble-firmware).”
“We're a gadget company," Migicovsky said. "We make cool gadgets that we ourselves want and then sell them. No plans to make them for a wider audience.” But he also added: “The goal is sustainability—the company is designed to potentially last forever.”