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 preparing 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 premium look. But like other Pebble devices, the new watch remains an affordable purchase at $199.

Pebble reduces the cost of its smartwatches 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 an alternative to a fitness or sports watch.

The trade-off is longer battery life: the Pebble Round 2 should last 10 to 14 days before needing to be recharged.

Like the recently launched Pebble Time 2The Pebble Round 2 is the company’s reboot of an older smartwatch. In 2015, Pebble launched its first round 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 8.1mm thick, compared to the original’s 7.5mm.

“[The Pebble Time Round] was, by far, one of my favorite Pebbles, but it wasn’t perfect,” Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky said in an interview with TechCrunch. “There were a few things we could improve on, including the gigantic bezel around the edge.”

To make the watch’s original rounded dial, the team used an octagonal piece of glass with rounded edges hidden by a large bezel. But the result was a device that didn’t have a very large screen. Of course, technology has improved since then, so the new device’s larger screen lets you see more text. The updated design is also better.

The touchscreen is now a 1.3″ color e-paper display (260 x 260 pixels at 283 DPI – twice as many pixels as the original Pebble Time Round). The screen is also backlit so you can see it at night. Under the hood, the Round 2 runs the open source Pebble operating system.

The watch’s two microphones, meanwhile, allow voice typing and replying to messages. (This is currently an Android-only feature, due to Apple’s restrictions. But iOS will be supported in the EU in the coming days.)

The side buttons let you do things like silence incoming calls, play and pause music, navigate, rewind, and scroll.

Migicovsky says one benefit of the buttons is that they allow you to operate the watch without having to look down. “Let’s say, for example, someone calls you 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 have AirPods and you don’t want to play with the AirPods or look at your phone, you always know that the middle button pauses the music.”

The watch also has a stainless steel frame, accelerometer, and magnetometer, and includes a silicone watch band and Pebble charging dongle. Leather straps will be available separately.

There are three watch color options to choose from, but each supports different strap sizes. Matte black has a 20mm quick release band; silver supports either a 14mm or 20mm band; and polished rose gold only supports 14mm bracelet.

The Pebble Round 2 can run thousands of apps and watch faces available on the Pebble App Storealthough developers will need to update their apps to support the rounded screen using the SDK provided. Among the accessible applications are AI assistants, such as those that support Claude And other popular assistants.

Pebble is also working on AI features for its devices. The company recently launched a AI smart ring which can record audio and transcribe conversations. When asked, Migicovsky said that features similar to the ring will also be available later on Pebble watches.

The new Pebble Round 2 will be available for pre-order on January 2 from The Pebble website. It is expected to ship in May. Customers who have already ordered the Pebble Time 2 will also have the possibility of changing to Pebble Round 2 if they wish.