Assuming $100 average profit, that's a $2M for 20k watches. Given the work opportunities that the founder and other employees have, that's not a lot of money for them to make in a year, and it comes with significant risk. Basically seems like this is a passion project, for which I am very grateful!
The DHL shipping though I remembered it was $25 and it is still $25 today
Reading through the terms on the shop page, it seems they're preparing to (maybe) raise the prices at any time, and they'll ask you to pay more before shipping, if they end up raising the prices after you buy it.
So please have some well deserved praise for your work on this. We have gotten an open source wearable OS, purpose built hardware, R&D, a community, more pressure on Apple to be less of a gatekeeper, and something we can own in a crazy short timeframe. I hope you see this despite it being buried. Thank you, you glorious nerd.
Side note - I got the first pebble through the kickstarter pre-orders in my first year out of high school. Seeing something so novel was definitely a contributor to me switch from CS to Mech E and working in the consumer electronics space now. Thanks for making cool and interesting things :)
Edit: preordered!
Any chance the particular extra color for the metal one could be an actual metal color? My pebble steel with the metal link band was a great combination of stylish and functional. I never really liked the look of any of the later models so even when I bought them I always went back to my pebble steel. I went ahead and pre-ordered the new metal one and I suppose I’ll go for black if I have to but I really hope you come out with a stainless steel or silver color.
Also what’s the watchband compatibility? Will this work with the original pebble bands or with standard watch bands or something new and proprietary?
I can't spend $225 right now, and by next month I'm guessing the pre-orders will already have blown way past your production quantity ^^
The comparison chart, under "sensors", doesn't mention the compass under the Core Time 2; does the Core Time 2 drop the compass? A 3D magnetometer seems like a useful sensor for orientation purposes.
Is there a light sensor, to allow automatically disabling the backlight when there's enough ambient light and enabling it when there isn't?
You mention "Standard Pebble charger" for both; I'm guessing that that isn't USB-C?
Any chance to open up support and reparability for old pebbles? For example, run the newly open OS on old hardware or source parts for old pebbles, like batteries for pebble time ;)
Any plans for a more sporty model (i.e., HR, GPS?)?
* The originals used Sharp MiP but advertised them as "e-paper" do your new models use MiP LCD (or similar) or actual "e-paper" ie "e-ink" (electrostatic capsules).
* Pebble time round 2?!?!
* The touchscreen - this is an issue I had on my Galaxy watch including the bezel rotating as well. Are there efforts to pevent the touchscreen from inadvertently doing things when I'm resting one arm against the other? For Galaxy watch I had to switch off bezel rotation/touch screen waking the watch & only allow buttons, because it would constantly wake up when I had my arms crossed/resting position.
* The backlight, is it backlit or front-lit? I suppose this more relates to if it's genuine capsule e-paper, then it would be nice to be front-lit.
* No compass or barometer on CT2?
Thank you! <3
In short, I really want to stop giving my money to Garmin. But I don't want to compromise on quality of the data being recorded. What are your thoughts on that market?
One very frustrating concern - the warranty. This is $255+ for a device that is only good for 3 million seconds. Would it be possible to arrange replacement at cost after 2 years?
I know I’m not the only one and whatever gaps in applications you have aren’t as large as you think and can be filled in by the large passionate community you have fostered.
(and I wouldn’t worry about other attempts that have come before you. Before Breaking Bad, studios told Vince Gilligan that Weeds already existed.)
Is there an emulator available somewhere where one can start prototyping an app with tap support?
Question: does either of the model have NFC capabilities, or is there any plans to add this feature in the future? I am looking specifically for a way to pay contactless with Graphene OS (which does not support NFC payments because Google does not want to).
My only hope is that you can bring the Time Round back in some form: Mine is unfortunately dead, and they're very difficult to purchase even second hand these days! It was the single best smartwatch I've ever owned and used
Will the watch ship with a JTAG clip? Or is that coming later. Not sure if I missed the option in the store
What affect are tariffs having?
(I know e-ink displays can have fast refresh rates, like the 60Hz / fps Daylight computer - but that may not be cost effective / battery efficient here?)
I would pay an irrational amount of money for a watch that can make calls that has a very long battery life.
I've done the math and according to my calculations that's approximately 30X more battery life than an Apple Watch. Impressive!
I got 8 days out of the PineTime, which was LED (I assume). You couldn't see anything if the display wasn't turned on.
I just bought a BangleJS (quite a bit cheaper than the Core 2 Duo, but no speaker and only one button) and the estimated battery life is a month. It uses a colour LCD, making the display visible whenever there is light. For example, daylight makes the display bright. It has a light source that gets turned on by the button.
The Core 2 Duo has an e-paper display that only draws power when the display changes.
1: https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watch...
This thread is full of people complaining how these aren't like their preferred watches, in terms of design, face shape, no GPS, etc.
I think this is a much more valid criticism in that their expensive flagship watch is not like their cheaper watch.
But then I've read in the Q&A about the tariffs and how that would affect the price at time of shipment.
This is too much uncertainty for me.
I've got no incentive to buy from the US right now, as a European.
I wish you the best of luck, as you definitely put a lot of love into it
- Simple and beautiful design
It's ugly, and the gap with the industrial design of today's watches is wider. I suggest contracting with a good industrial design firm to redesign the case: the case material, screen and internal electronics can remain the same.
I want to be able to track my runs.
I love the banglejs because it is hackable but the GPS was very difficult to use. But it is such a fun device to hack on.
Given that they're specifically saying you shouldn't use it as a sports watch, what use is an HRM, especially when compared to the utility of a compass and barometer/altimeter?
If I recall correctly, the original Pebble had a Compass (which may not have even been used until a OS overhaul later on) but the Pebble 2 SE didn't. (https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/4kz7ch/why_pebble_i...)
The https://www.whoop.com/, for example, doesn't even have GPS. All of its value comes from its HRM.
Barometer is especially niche and not something very trustworthy outside of devices made for it. To the average person, compass is only useful for showing orientation on a map.
It muddies what would otherwise an easy upsell/upgrade.
Are you going to sell replacement parts this time? I was immensely disappointed to see the initial watches being pretty repairable in theory, but no parts being sold. It was marketed as a tinkerer‘s device after all.
I’m wearing my Pebble Time Steel right now - and quite like it. Haven’t found anything better. It could use some better activity tracking, but the worst thing about it right now is that it doesn’t really have an iOS app (AltStore is pretty flaky). Any news on that front?
For some reason there just hasn’t been a real spiritual successor, so the revival is greatly appreciated.
I remember there was also an Intel processor with the same name.
I thought the Pebble app still worked, using Rebble. My understanding is that they are building a new app for the new watches, if that's what you were asking about.
Reading this press release I thought -- they perfectly read the minds of the target customer. Retaining the spirit of the product and exceeding expectations with polished improvements.
Great job guys! I'm in
I’m especially interested in the “revival” nature of this project. How did staying mostly true to the original vision guide you practically?
You mentioned briefly that some apps may have stopped working as they attempt to hit now no existent url endpoints. Least of which is likely the old official pebble endpoints.
Have you done any design work as a revival project such that the project will be more robust in future. Eg 50 years from now, if things didn’t pan out and your company is still here, such that the watches and their apps are all that bit more resilient?
Curious as to your thoughts on designing in longevity of serviceability into this reboot given you can feel that yourself.
Though I will be keeping an eye on them incase my needs change. I hope they do well and stay true to their ethos, and avoid trying to chase or become the Apple Watch.
Two features which I think it would be useful to give more prominence to especially as you move from pre-order stage to general sale stage:
Strap is replaceable in both models Both models count steps
Would be high priority things for me! Look forward to seeing how this develops and best of luck.
I'm currently wearing the BangleJS v2 [0] which has the following going for it, all for $90USD:
* 1.3 inch 176x176 always-on 3 bit colour LCD display (LPM013M126) with backlight
* Full touchscreen (6H hardness glass)
* GPS/Glonass receiver
* Heart rate monitor
* 3 Axis Accelerometer
* 3 Axis Magnetometer
* Air Pressure/Temperature sensor
* 175mAh battery, 4 week standby time
* Full SWD debug port on rear of watch
* The OS and every app are open source, all written in Javascript
In my experience it lasts over 2 weeks with multiple daily notifications and wearing it 24/7 for HR and sleep tracking.
The Pebble was a compelling offer when it came out, but I'll have to pass on this one.
I have a Bangle2 and while it's super fun, I think it perfectly illustrates the point that simply having features isn't enough. I would not say my Bangle2 is the same as my OG Pebble.
I will also note that backlit LCD is vastly inferior to e-paper in smartwatches. Size of the watch also matters, there are some tradeoffs you have to make.
I consider myself a happy customer, and will definitely recommend it with caveats, there's a lot to like about the banglejs 2. But it's targeting a FAR more hacker-oriented crowd than Pebbles did - I would absolutely not suggest one to people who are not willing to debug their watch. It's quite simple to do so (really, I like it!), but it's not something I can recommend to the normies in my life.
Here's someone showing what it's like to use the GPS system and lack of mapping: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtEdM2w1VDM
Pebble only has to be a little better to be 2x more usable. Looking at old videos from 8 years ago, the software was much, much better than anything I'm seeing on Banglejs today.
Worst aspect of these watches are the custom charging cradles you have to lug around when travelling.
Hell, even usb-c with some cap/sliding door mechanism would be better.
Is that not one of Intel's trademarks from the past 20 years?
The closest mark I could find is a wordmark for INTEL CORE INSIDE DUO cancelled in 2014 due to disuse.
https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=78775512&caseSearchType=U...
I understand this is a semi experiment and will not expect the warranty or certainty that an Apple will give. This is to support the possibility of making an alternative become viable.
Question for Eric, is there a way to ensure charging works with USB? Please don't make us carry yet another cable.
Thanks.
From the 360° shot on the product page, these appeare to use a proprietary cable, like almost all other smartwatches.
https://developer.rebble.io/developer.pebble.com/guides/even...
I also tinker with health data from wearables. I've built some Whoop-like UIs for a couple cheapo wrist straps from Aliexpress, but their HR monitors are always so bad that they're useless outside of when you're sleeping.
PS: Pebble owner and daily user since more than 5 years here
And I have the perfect name for it: the Second Time ‘Round.
Please, Core, resist the temptation to enshittify yourself with another useless round screen.
I liked my Pebbles, but I won't spend $300 on one because the chance of failure (again) is so great.
As you should, because if they raise the price because of tariffs they won't see a dime of it. It's less raising the price and more that they don't yet know how much tax they'll be expected to collect and remit.
I have some sincere questions on the design choices. For context, I own a pebble time (everyday wear for triaging notifications) and a polar watch (for exercise tracking). Also part of a cycling community where we swap exercise watches to try out what else is out there. I have found I always sleep in my polycarb pebble time because I forget I am wearing it - it is that unnoticeable.
1) Why limit Core 2 Duo screen to BW? Feels like a step back when the Core Time 2 will have it. Sourcing parts?
2) According to the blog, I understand the Core Time 2 is your (Eric's) dream watch, so not trying to rain on your parade but trying to reason about the audience you're catering to here. The heart rate monitor suggests that it can be used to track physical activity. But... no GPS, metal (heavy) case, and protruding sensor diminish the utility of the sensor. If you've ever run with a light watch, you'll start noticing how quickly metal watches fatigue the skin. I've slept with watches on that track my sleep (optically) and the protruding sensors always causes pressure points - similar to a pebble (heh) in the shoe. Having 30 days battery life, speaker, and better vibration make for a great gadget that doesn't need to be taken off... unless it is not comfortable.
[0]: https://www.polar.com/en/science/whitepapers Purpose built devices are optimized and companies that build they have domain knowledge. You've probably never heard of polar but they publish the science behind their features where as garmin has nice looking gear but has gimmicky features, like "body battery"
2) It's not a running watch. I'd recommend getting garmin if you're looking for that.
There's one with a color screen.
On my Samsung Galaxy watch, if I get a notification from my Unifi security cameras, for example, I get a little thumbnail image appear on my watch. There's no special app on my watch, just the app on my paired Galaxy phone.
Will it do this? Or would I just get a text notification? I don't understand smart watches well enough to know how much they are doing themselves vs how much of what they do is to be a mindless projection of whatever the paired phone tells them to do.
This is really like a cool gadget purchase impulse.
it's trying to make a cheap product into a niche product with kind of premium price, 150$ and 225$ for a watch is already pretty high.
The people who can afford it, they already got apple watch.
1. IIRC the first Pebble was $99, and the one after it was $149. We're a decade on, inflation is rampant, and the new devices are evidently intended as lower volume products. $149 seems OK to me in 2025. $225 seems OK as well for the color unit, but I don't feel like waiting until December, and can't justify buying two watches. I put my money down for the $149 unit. We'll see how much it ends up being by the time it's on my wrist in Ireland. My current "smart" watch is a Mi Band 6. I'm on screen no.2, strap no.3, and shortly battery no.2: all told, I certainly have $100 invested in it by now, even though it cost me 42 Swiss Francs ($45?) to buy initially.
2. There are other hacking-friendly watches out there, but they do not have the depth of app ecosystem that Pebble did/does. I think those thousands of watchfaces and applications ready to fire on day1 are worth something. This is not a net-new smartwatch environment, it is an established if a bit aged standard that is being polished back up for the modern world.
3. I'm the target market, but I definitely don't have an Apple watch because it doesn't work with Android devices, and I absolutely detest iOS (and am increasingly frustrated with Apple's blatant cash grab-ism vis-a-vis RAM and flash prices on their computers to the point that I've pivoted back to Linux devices).
That was also 10 years of inflation ago.
I guess $100 average profit is "normal" in terms of production, marketing, r&d and all of that.. but this is just an old watch that someone is selling again since the OS was open sourced. The profit is just all profit.. I can't imagine a non-US manufacturer won't just start cranking out devices people can flash with a better OS.
As it is I find the pricing to be a hard sell given how many features you are losing compared even to cheap fitness bands e.g. lots of advanced health tracking, NFC payments. I applaud Eric on self-funding the project and I'm sure the risk and volume questions there are contributors to the cost.
All that said, I may still pick up a duo because there really isn't anything like a Pebble and I would really like this to be a success so that we can see lower prices, more styles, and an even more awesome community at some point in the future.
I don't think that this should be trying to compete head-on with existing smartwatches on styling. And for the purposes of a hackable device, a larger screen seems like a selling point. Also, the larger screen makes touchscreen features more usable.
Got a Pebble Time in highschool and it was so much fun to use and so polished. It was one of the first electronic devices to truely enamor me. I have worked with embedded syatems for the last ~3 years and I have been wondering lately just how no-one else has been able to since make a smartwatch with such good "taste" as the Pebbles...
Happy to have a fresh device to live with! Thank you Eric!
For those of us interested in health metrics - can we expect the precision of the heart rate sensor to be sufficient for calculating HRV (heart rate variability)? It doesn't have to be natively supported, but I'd love to see a third party app offer this some day... In fact I may work on it myself, provided the data from HR sensor is good enough.
I have a tendency to stay up late and get up at random times, so I need to track if I get enough sleep.
> 1. Can I choose a color for Core Time 2? Yes you can! Just not yet. We are finalizing all the color options and will contact everyone prior to shipping so you can choose which color best suits you! Just make sure your contact information is correct for your pre-order
But I am worried about compatibility. I assume it will be possible to connect into Home Assistant eventually, but would be nice to get confirmation on how open the platform plans to be in allowing me to get my own data.
I also wonder if they will pursue partnerships. I feel safe sharing my walking data with my insurance company and can usually max out the rewards simply by getting my steps in on most days and doing normal annual things. Will Pebble work with them?
I had and loved Pebble in the past. You sold us and ditched us first chance you got.
Why would we trust you now?
Lovingly, Zeljko
If it’s sensitive enough, a compelling skydiving altimeter app could be developed. Considering most purpose built altis used worse screens and cost 350+, could be a quite compelling use case.
There's something genuinely heartwarming about seeing Eric Migicovsky remain true to his vision, finally delivering the product I dreamed of but couldn't afford a decade ago, after all.
I preordered.
I'd like to hack around with the HR sensor, so I pre-ordered the Time 2.
What are good resources for looking into building an app for it? I see the OS is hosted here https://github.com/pebble-dev/pebble-firmware But most pebble-related google searches bring up ancient material and I'm not sure what's still relevant.
I am mainly considering buying one to track my heart rate, but I don't want my data to leave my watch unless I copy it myself. Any budget friendly recommendations?
By default it uses the Pebble App for sync. You can decide whether that meets your privacy needs or you want a custom app. Someone has probably shared how to do what you want.
See the other trending HN post for Apple compatibility (TL;DR it sucks because Apple makes it suck).
For people who have developed apps for them in the past, does everyone just use the embedded JavaScript engine? For maintaining apps that modify the firmware or talk to new peripherals does that require maintaining a fork or is there some module system?
AFAIK, if you're doing firmware replacements you're likely going to be maintaining an "out of tree fork" unless it's already well-modularized in the way you're imagining.
I agree that a true electrophoretic display is a lot nicer to look at; unfortunately the refresh rate leaves a lot to be desired in a highly interactive watch. Hopefully someday we get a technology with the best of both worlds.
I am curious what people here use their smart watches for on a daily basis and couldn't live without, other than to check the day/time. for me it's just message alerts, timer, and media controls. just those 3 features on a e-ink screen would make me super happy.
But putting that aside, I’d say the essential features for me are notifications, timer, calendar, media controls.
My dream is that pebble eventually becomes a beautiful time piece. Maybe teenage engineering could be convinced to give the pebble a design refresh.
Specifically I refer to the debacle around the pebble 2 variants and the 1st round pebble core that totally got the ball dropped on it.
Love the Pebble -- still have my first OG one in my drawer!
I can’t stand wearing watches and adding another fucking screen to keep track of is bonkers in 2025.
It’s kinda crazy apple haven’t added tracking in airpods yet - there are at least 2x more airpods sold.
The CEO did a Reddit AMA:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1jea5cc/ama_with_er...
I am surprised by his comment there:
« Honestly 5 years seems pretty good for a $150 consumer gadget. »
So, its creator feels that a $150 watch is cheap. Huh. That is interesting.
I never owned a Pebble, but I’ve had 3 smartwatches in the last 8 years: an original Amazfit Bip which I liked a lot. It lasted 5 years, its battery life was 6 weeks when new and 4 weeks when old, it was always-on and daylight-readable, and it was about $70.
https://www.cnet.com/reviews/amazfit-bip-review/
When it finally died, I replaced it with a Bip 5 last year. I didn’t like it – screen is wake-on-demand, it wasn’t sensitive enough to a wrist-flip to wake it so I had to press a button, and the battery life was down to 10 days. Higher-res screen, more colours, but no additional useful functionality to me. It cost about $80.
https://www.amazfit.com/products/amazfit-bip-5
So I sold it on for about $45, over half what I paid, and bought a used Amazfit Neo. It looks like a real watch, it was £15 used – about $20 – and it’s always-on, battery life in weeks, very visible, has a backlight, and does the essentials.
https://www.gsmarena.com/amazfit_neo_review-news-45962.php
So I’ve had three watches now and the total price of all 3 put together is about what Eric here dismisses as a consumer gadget.
Huh.
That is a potential Ratner’s moment right there.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/ratner-losses-me...
Also, it seems like you might be a bit anchored to the low end of the smartwatch price spectrum from your own preferences, but I don't think it's particularly expensive among major smartwatch brands. Apple has by far the biggest market share, but I also tried to piece together how it compared to other companies with leading market share according to this chart[0]. It's a couple years out of date, but from looking at more recent data I don't think the market leaders have changed all that much. I might have made some mistakes navigating the websites of the various brands to piece together the comparison.
1) Apple - $150 is cheaper than all their models 2) Samsung - cheaper than all but one model 3) Huawei - similar to their second cheapest 4) imoo - $20 more than their cheapest model 5) amazfit - the cheaper brand you already mentioned 6) Garmin - cheaper than all their models
You're already using the cheapest smartwatch brand in those top 6 brands, so while $150 might feel expensive to you it's actually on the cheaper end of major smartwatch brands.
As a side note, this was all a bit interesting to learn about as someone dedicated to my $15 casio dumb watch.
[0]https://www.statista.com/chart/15035/worldwide-smartwatch-sh...
As someone who just wanted a low-frills smartwatch and was following repebble for that, I'm disappointed and have unsubscribed from their update emails. This thread at least pointed me towards a bunch of other good options though, so it got me there in the end.
These watches are for people who were fans of the original Pebble and miss it, therefore they're willing to pay a bit more to get back something that they thought they'd lost.
> Core Time 2 has a larger 64-colour display, metal frame, costs $225 and starts shipping in December
Pretty affordable!
But whenever July (and December) comes, I'm very much going to dread the import duty on these things.
Well that's a name I've not heard in a long, long time...
How difficult is it to add a blood pressure sensor?
I own and use a Pebble Time Steel and a Pebble Time as my only watches. I'm not really missing anything and I'm very happy with my old Pebbles - yet, I'm still quite tempted to pre-order a Core Time 2 to support development and out of curiosity. I'm looking forward to seeing how the touchscreen is implemented. Intuitively, I'd consider a touch-based interface almost an anti-feature on a Pebble, but given their software/UX quality, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
It’s too bad third party watches are second class citizens in iOS.
Poor notification integration because of the restrictions on iOS explained in their blog post.
If you want long battery life, I’d go for a Garmin. But the Apple Watch is really the best option for 90% of people.
Loved it! Got an Apple Watch and hated it. Got a few more Apple Watches and now the activity rings alone have me hooked. 800+ days in a row of closing my rings means I cannot switch away from apples tightly closed ecosystem :(
I wish this came out years ago and I never got to experience the Apple Watch
Good luck
Hoping once they actually release and we find out if the targets are hit or not with battery life and water resistance.
I just hope they don't release limited color cases again and not have any left for warranty support as happened with my Blue Pebble and all they could offer was a Black one.
Cringe...
Why do people _do_ this? You should make it _easier_ to search for you product.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/33910/i...
