My retro dreams come true. Pebble watch, my favorite mid-2010s wearable device, Making a comeback. Even better, though, the new pebbles have a battery life of one month at a time. Yes, pebbles plural, as there is a low-end black and white model, and a higher color with heart rate monitoring.
Two new pebble tables have been revealed Make a reservation. They are also familiar: Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2 are like remade versions of the 2025 version Pebble 2 Never released Pebble Time 2. Cobblestone founder Eric Migicovsky all experienced 10,000 older pebble faces and told me about Zoom before the news. They are also easy to invade, so anyone who has been working on clever pebble ideas for the past decade can run on these new watches. And, technically, they are not called pebbles at all. Migicovsky’s company core equipment calls them “Core 2 Duo” and “Core Time 2” without any pebble brands, although booking sites widely mention pebble and pebble OS…so guess what? I call them pebbles because they are.
What surprised me the most was the upgrade. The battery life of these new pebbles has been greatly improved, with 30 days left, and Michikovsky attributes it to improved battery and chip technology. They also have microphones and speakers on board – not answering calls, but for applications that may involve features. Migicovsky said he is working on an app that might work with Chatgpt.
The other looked at the two watches. Of course, the Core 2 Duo (left) is smaller, but they run the same surface and application.
The $149 Core 2 duo arrived in July, just like the return of the basic plastic pebble watch: simple black and white with a 1.26-inch display, which is also backlit. Just like before, there are steps and sleep tracking and dedicated buttons.
But the $225 core time 2 arrives later in December, which is interesting: It has a larger 1.5-inch display, an optical heart rate monitor, and a touch screen. There are still side buttons, but the glass touch screen will be able to take advantage of complications or use applications that can take advantage of it. Pebbles have never had a touch screen before. Core Time 2 has a metal body.
The Pebble Core Time 2 has buttons, but it’s also the first time touching the screen.
One thing these new pebbles lack is the true swimming waterproofness. They get waterproof in IPX8, which means they can survive slam dunks in the pool, but they aren’t really swimming watches. This is the only part I hope the pebbles can solve.
But these new pebbles look a lot like the pebbles I used to wear, and they work that way, too. Like old pebbles, they will pair with a dedicated phone app and access the same classic pebbles store for apps and hand surfaces.
Migicovsky said this time it was new watches being made to understand that they weren’t for everyone and that it was a personal project and he was excited to come back to life. These new pebbles are also fun time on smartwatches. The Apple Watch, though extensive, feels like a predictable boring fitness watch with a battery life of 1-2 days. Most other smartwatches feel the same way. New pebbles won’t do everything modern smartwatches do – contactless payments, wrist calls, music, deeper fitness and wellness tracking – but they’ll make notifications, run apps, have some basic fitness tracking types, and will show a lot of funky hand surface holes. I can’t wait to try again.
