Pebble is rebooting its thinnest smartwatches with the Pebble Round 2

Shortly after bringing back the Pebble smartwatch and launching a low-cost AI smart ring, Pebble is gearing up with another new product: the Pebble Round 2. As the name suggests, this latest device is another version of the Pebble smartwatch, but with a round display, giving it a more upscale look. But like other Pebble devices, the new watch is still available for purchase at $199.

Pebble keeps the cost of its smartwatches low by limiting what they can do. In the case of the new Pebble Round 2, the device offers basic health and activity tracking, such as steps and sleep, but does not 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 a charge.

Like the recently launched Pebble Time 2, the Pebble Round 2 is the company’s reboot of an old smartwatch. Back in 2015, Pebble launched its first round watch with the Pebble Time Round, which the company called the thinnest smartwatch in the industry at the time.

The latest version maintains that slim profile, at just 8.1mm thick, compared to the original’s 7.5mm thickness.

“[The Pebble Time Round] “It was by far one of my favorite Pebbles, but it wasn’t perfect,” Pebble founder Eric Migicowski said in an interview with TechCrunch. “It had some things we could improve on, most notably the massive bezel around the bezel.”

To make the original round clock face, the team used an octagonal piece of glass with rounded edges that was hidden by a large bezel. But the result was a device that didn’t have a very large screen. Technology has improved since then, 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-inch color e-paper display (260 x 260 pixels at 283 ppi – or twice the number of pixels of the original Pebble Time Round display). 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.

Meanwhile, the watch’s dual microphones allow for speech input and replying to messages. (This is a feature currently only available for Android, due to restrictions imposed by Apple. However, 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, go back, and scroll.

One advantage of buttons, Migicowski says, is that they allow you to use the watch without having to look down. “Let’s say, for example, someone calls you, and you’re in a meeting, and you don’t want to take the call,” he said. “You don’t even want to look at your watch. You always know the bottom button cancels the call. Or if you’re listening to music and you have AirPods and you don’t want to fiddle with your AirPods or look at your phone, you always know the middle button pauses the music.”

The watch also has a stainless steel bezel, accelerometer and magnetometer, and includes a silicone watch strap and a Pebble charging dongle. Leather bands will be supplied separately.

There are three watch color options to choose from, but each supports different band sizes. The matte black finish has a 20mm quick release bar; Silver supports a 14mm or 20mm range; The polished rose gold only supports the 14mm bracelet.

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 round display using the available SDK. Among the applications accessible there are artificial intelligence 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 an AI-powered smart ring that can record and transcribe voice conversations. When asked, Migicovsky said that functions similar to what is in the Loop will later come to Pebble watches as well.

The new Pebble Round 2 will be available for pre-order on January 2 from the Pebble website. Should ship in May. Customers who previously ordered the Pebble Time 2 will have the option to switch to the Pebble Round 2 if they so choose.