For those of a certain vintage, the Pebble Smart Watch was a fascinating product. Designed to act as a simple, e-ink-based reminder system, the watch predated the Apple Watch by two years and became an afterthought when Apple flooded the market with their fancier timepieces.
But the Pebble was like the BlackBerry or the Palm Pre: people loved it. Enthusiasts kept theirs running for years after the company shut down in 2018, and the so-called Rebble community kept the devices going long after that.
Fast forward to today, and I just opened up the Pebble Time 2, a $225 e-ink smartwatch that recaptures the original Pebble charm in a package that is lighter, smaller, and more readable than most smartwatches.
Inside the box
The Pebble Time 2 brings the original Pebble formula back with some serious hardware improvements. It features a 1.5-inch, 64-color e-paper touchscreen set inside a stainless steel frame, with four color options. The e-paper display helps deliver solid battery life, currently rated at up to 30 days, while remaining easy to read in daylight.
Inside, there’s a heart-rate monitor, step and sleep tracking, microphone, and speaker, and water resistance. More important for longtime Pebble fans, it runs the open-source PebbleOS and has access to more than 10,000 existing watchfaces and apps through the Pebble Appstore. It’s a modern Pebble that still sticks closely to the simple, low-maintenance smartwatch idea that made the original so appealing.
The packaging is minimalist, and I had no trouble getting the devices started. To use it, you simply download the app to your phone and pair your Pebble. The watch starts up right away, and you can send watch faces and apps over instantly. I was able to add a few fun faces and a compass app without any trouble.
If you recall the first Pebble, the real draw was the notifications. This device is no different, although I found the constant beeps from my phone to be distracting. Apple does a much better job of hiding notifications, but obviously, they have a direct line into the iPhone, whereas Pebble has to do whatever other Bluetooth smartwatch does, which is suck down the device’s activity feed. Luckily, the Time 2 lets you mute notifications for apps you don’t care about.
How do I like it so far?
The Pebble is a blast from the past. It’s a great idea that got snuffed out by a huge competitor, and the company didn’t stand a chance surviving past the onslaught of the hi-resolution smartwatch market. E-ink was a nice gimmick, and it saved on battery life, but when your competitors are Samsung and Apple, you’ll never win.
I will start wearing the Pebble, and I’d love to see how useful it is in the smartwatch context. Obviously, it does what everyone else does — heart rate, step tracking, health, Taco Bell purchase tracking — but it also does a few things that are specifically Pebble-y, including some lovely animations between screens and support for an arguably overwhelming number of apps and watch faces.
I wanted this to exist, so I backed it a long while ago. I’m impressed that they finally shipped. Time will tell if this watch could replace, say, the Kospet Pulse 2 and similar “bargain basement” smartwatches, and while it will never replace the Apple Watch in my arsenal, it’s definitely a contender for a smartwatch that eschews the bells and whistles for solid design and a great pedigree.
