Pebble’s round smartwatch returns in an unexpected reboot
“The original Pebble Time Round's sizeable bezels are gone and replaced with a sleek-looking, edge-to-edge 1.3-inch colour e-paper display that's both bigger and higher resolution than the original's. Battery life has been increased to roughly two weeks, and the display is now a touchscreen. The Pebble Round 2's colours include silver, black, and rose goal, alongside a 20 mm matching band in silver or black, and a 14 mm rose gold option.”
I have to say I do really like the look of this Pebble watch. Pebble's shakeup of the smartwatch market has really been needed. Apart from going open source, they have brought way longer battery life, and also better e-Ink screens. I moved away from smartwatch's at the end of 2025 as I had tired from super expensive watches that have to be charged daily.
That does bring me though to the one and only downside I have with this round version. I understand why the screen had to be made the way it was to retain the thing design and the angled viewing, BUT I have a real aversion as well to an expensive device just becoming a paperweight in a few years time when the battery runs out of charge cycles. It does not look like changing the battery in this device is going to be an easy option at all.
From what I understand of the square versions, the battery change should still be possible, but sadly not as easy as a Casio watch. I suppose we'll know for sure when some teardowns have been done after release.
The software applications and watch faces are already starting to take off. An end user can even design faces for themselves using some browser based design software. Pebble makes it really easy to design and distribute software, so I'm looking forward to seeing lots of innovation on this front (unlike you see for WearOS and Apple Watches).
Something not quite correct in the linked article though, is that anyone who has pre-ordered the square designs, can switch their order to the round design. So you are not locked into that first order.
See
Pebble’s round smartwatch returns in an unexpected reboot
The Pebble Round 2 aims to fix all of its predecessor's mistakes
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smartwatches #
opensource
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