Pebble reboots its thinnest smartwatch with the Pebble Round 2
Shortly after bringing back the Pebble smartwatch and launching a low-cost AI smart ring, Pebble is readying yet another new product: the Pebble Round 2. As the name suggests, this latest device is another version of the Pebble smartwatch, but with a rounded screen, giving it a more upscale look. But like other Pebble devices, the new watch is still an affordable purchase at $199.
Pebble keeps its smartwatches’ cost down by limiting what they can do. In the case of the new Pebble Round 2, the device offers basic health and activity tracking, like steps and sleep, but it doesn’t include a heart rate monitor or other features that would make it a fitness or sports watch alternative.
The trade-off is longer battery life — the Pebble Round 2 should last 10 to 14 days before needing a charge.
Like the recently launched Pebble Time 2, the Pebble Round 2 is the company’s reboot of an older smartwatch. Back in 2015, Pebble launched its first rounded watch with the Pebble Time Round, which the company called the industry’s thinnest smartwatch at the time.
The newer version maintains that slim look, at just 8.1 mm in thickness, compared with the original’s 7.5 mm.
“[The Pebble Time Round] was, by far, one of my favorite Pebbles, but it wasn’t perfect,” said Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky in an interview with TechCrunch. “It had a few things we could improve, most notably being the gigantic bezel around the edge.”
To make the original rounded watch face, the team had used an octagonal piece of glass with rounded edges that were hidden by a large bezel. But the result was a device that didn’t have a very large screen. Technology has since improved, of course, so the new device’s larger screen allows you to see more text. The updated design looks better, too.
The touchscreen is now a 1.3″ color e-paper display (260 x 260 pixels at 283 DPI — or twice as many pixels as the original Pebble Time Round). The screen has a backlight, too, so you can see it at night. Under the hood, the Round 2 runs the open source Pebble OS.
The watch’s dual microphones, meanwhile, allow for speech input and replying to messages. (This is currently an Android-only feature, because of Apple’s restrictions. But iOS will be supported in the EU in the days ahead.)
The side buttons let you do things like silence incoming calls, play and pause music, navigate, go back, and scroll.
Migicovsky says one advantage of buttons is that they allow you to use the watch without having to look down. “Say, for example, someone’s calling, and you’re in a meeting, and you just don’t want to answer the call,” he said. “You don’t even want to look at your watch. You always know that the bottom button cancels the call. Or if you’re listening to music and you’ve got AirPods in and you don’t want to fiddle with the AirPods or look at your phone, you always know that the center button pauses music.”
The watch also has a stainless steel frame, accelerometer, and magnetometer, and includes a silicone watch band and a Pebble charge dongle. Leather bands will be made available separately.
There are three watch color options to choose from, but each supports different band sizes. The matte black has a 20 mm quick-release band; the silver supports either a 14 mm or 20 mm band; and the polished rose gold supports only the 14 mm band.
The Pebble Round 2 can run thousands of apps and watch faces available on the Pebble Appstore, though developers will need to update their apps to support the rounded screen using the provided SDK. Among the apps that can be accessed are AI assistants, like those that support Claude and other popular assistants.
Pebble is also working on AI features for its devices. The company recently launched an AI smart ring that can record audio and transcribe conversations. When asked, Migicovsky said functionality similar to what’s in the ring will later come to Pebble watches, too.
The new Pebble Round 2 will be available for preorder on January 2 from Pebble’s website. It should ship in May. Customers who previously ordered the Pebble Time 2 will also have the option to switch to the Pebble Round 2 if they choose.
Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.
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