Pebble Round 2 Brings Back Classic Smartwatch, Pre-Orders Now Open

A lot of people in the comments that don't understand why people liked the Pebble watch so much.

1. $200 in this economy is pretty fair for a company that doesn't have the economies of scale to play with that big Chinese brands or Apple has, especially since it's color e-ink (check color Kindles for wild prices)

2. Speaking of e-ink, the two weeks of battery is the winner (even more on the square models). Many people might be in that habit of just packing their watch charger with them on every trip or having two chargers, but I am very glad to have the ability to charge once to twice a month and not have my watch die due to a long weekend away from home.

3. The customization and ability for user-created watch faces and people being very creative with the sensors inside (albeit this one is somewhat limited compared to the non-round models) is just fun.

4. Lastly, it was kind of the OG. The original model came out more than two years before the Apple Watch. It had rough edges but was a cool piece of tech. Apple did its usual thing and released something prettier and more polished that changed the game for the masses, but thinking of "Pebble" as random e-waste is historically a bit ignorant. It's nice to see Pebble back after their mismanagement and other things that killed it years ago.

Alas, I can't forgive Pebble for screwing over Kickstarter backers way back in the OG days. I was a Kickstarter backer for the original watch and yet, as with many other backers (maybe even most), Pebble started selling their watches in Walmart before they'd fulfilled all their backer orders. It really took the shine off and made me feel used as a backer so much so that wearing the watch just made me feel uncomfortable. By the time I finally got mine, other companies were already springing up with competition and a year later, the Apple Watch was announced so the writing was on the wall.

This article mostly overlooks what is happening here: Pebble is back because the enthusiast community kept the software going for 10 years after the company went bankrupt. This new hardware is being manufactured by a super small team to serve that enthusiast community, and Eric is being very upfront that they aren’t trying to grow it or market outside of that small bubble. This is a hobby/passion project, almost like an Etsy shop for smartwatches. It’s not comparable to what Pebble was trying to be ten years ago.

The other reason this is happening is because no one else has made an equivalent device in the interim. E-ink display watch with long battery life and open-source software that allows anyone to make watch faces. If that’s not your thing, cool, plenty of other mass market watches for you to choose from. But for the small Pebble community that thinks that is the type of smart watch they want, there has been a market hole left unfilled.

All to say, I’m glad this project is happening and that Eric is being upfront about what is and isn’t possible. I’d like to see more market competition and variety against Apple than there currently is.

Yes, we warrant against manufacturing defects for 30 days after you receive your order. Ship us the defective watch, and after we receive it back, we will ship (no charge) you a replacement. See our full warranty ('https://repebble.com/warranty').

Otherwise, you generally should already know what you're getting into. You're getting an awesome smartwatch running PebbleOS. There are many videos ('https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebbleos-is-awesome') and reviews ('https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQh1b_srGM4') of PebbleOS you can check out before pre-ordering.

This alone is enough to consider going elsewhere.

$200 for a watch that doesn’t do heart rate monitoring?!?

Amazfit Active 2 look similar, has gps/hr monitoring, and is half the cost. Cmf watch pro 3 would be a good option as well.

After trying out the various 3rd party watches, I came crawling back to Apple. Just can’t beat the integration.

As someone who has multiple Apple Watch versions, this is a pre-order for me. The Pebble has that sweet spot of looks like a regular watch, fun, and battery life, that has been lacking a bit with the Apple Watches.