I still consider the original Pebble Time Round to be the best smartwatch ever made, even 10 years on. Until now. This is everything I ever wanted in a watch. I can't wait to get mine! I may have to spend some time doing remakes of my favorite watch faces for the new screen resolution.
I just placed my pre-order. I never bought the original Pebble Round because it didn't look that good in my opinion, but this one looks great! I like that there is no huge bezel anymore, and that the battery life is now an estimated 2 weeks instead of 3 days. It looks more classy and less like a smartwatch.
I pre-ordered because I loved the Pebble Round - especially the size and look. My intended use case is for formal dress codes and special events (weddings, new years, ...) wheretny fennix 51mm does not fit in (literally and figuratively).
That said: I can't find full dimensions for the new round 2. I can guesstimate that it should be 10-20% smaller in diameter and less than 2/3 the thickness.
Would you mind sharing full dimensions or even update the post?
And congratulations! I really like this. I hope there will be enough of a market to support this project long term.
Yes, the slimness and ability to dress up are certainly huge selling points. It does look about 1/4 thinner than the PT2, which is presumably much thinner/smaller than your fennix.
Honestly, even with a PT2 on order, I would consider getting one of these for the occasions (1x/wk?) where I am wearing a dress shirt or otherwise want to look a little more dressed up. It honestly would probably also be a nice conversation starter because you can set it up with a traditional watchface, but then when you get a notification it would obviously not be a traditional watch. And it's so much thinner than Google/Samsung and other round smartwatches, it wouldn't be confused with those.
Is the Round 2 also going to have screws to potentially replace the battery, like Time 2 does?
Also, while watching the announcement video, I noticed that the pixels are quite a bit more visible on the Round 2 on the same watchface, when compared to Time 2 — on the Time 2, the image is a lot more crisp. Is that a matter of adapting the watchfaces to the bigger screen?
Dang, I really liked that there were screws on the Time 2. Does that at least mean waterproofing will be better? :p For instance, would it be a good idea to swim with the Round 2 on?
This is awesome, congrats Eric. Almost makes me wish I hadn’t switched from Android -> iOS last year before the Pebble announcements started coming out. Any idea if we might see more compatibility with iOS in the near future as Apple is forced to open up the ecosystem a little due to EU regulations? I know they had to allow reading iMessages on 3rd party smartwatches recently which sounds promising for Pebble. Apologies if you already blogged about this and I missed it!
It's not too late to switch back! I'm running GrapheneOS on a Pixel, but supposedly GrapheneOS is working with an OEM to have a GrapheneOS-native phone if you want to wait a little longer.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I don't see the vibrating motor/linear actuator mentioned. I'm assuming this is still included? I'll be switching my Pebble Time 2 order over, these look fantastic.
I had pre-ordered a Time 2, but I switched to the Round 2 because it's cheaper and I don't really care about the features it is missing (heart rate monitor and speaker) or the shape of the face. It's awesome that they let you switch without losing your place in line, very customer-focused of them.
I thought about it but didn't because the battery life difference is pretty big (10-14 vs 30), and according to his comment below, apparently the battery is not replaceable.
I assume it would actually be replaceable if one were sufficiently motivated, but the fact that it's not meant to be replaceable is not so great.
Honestly if the PT2 weren't replaceable I wouldn't mind so much, since starting of with 30 days of battery means it can degrade a lot before it hits a threshold I care about (1 week, roughly). But if the PR2 starts off around 10 days, it doesn't have far to fall before it hits that threshold.
Perhaps the biggest reason I didn't swap my order, though, is that I don't want to wait several more months to get my Pebble!
Yes, your calculus is exactly like mine - there are things to like about the Round (personally I just find round watches more aesthetically pleasing, we've had a couple hundred years of mostly round cases...), but I want longer battery and a shorter wait to get my watch.
Damn that's a nice looking watch! Really feels like they got to build what they wanted to 10 years ago but the tech wasn't there. Can't wait to build some sleek round watch faces once I get mine (unless there's an emulator already?)
I think pretty much all watches have some sort of raised dial/edge in order to protect the glass. This one is not as small as some, but compared to the original round pebble, this is much, much smaller.
I still consider the original Pebble Time Round to be the best smartwatch ever made, even 10 years on. Until now. This is everything I ever wanted in a watch. I can't wait to get mine! I may have to spend some time doing remakes of my favorite watch faces for the new screen resolution.
I just placed my pre-order. I never bought the original Pebble Round because it didn't look that good in my opinion, but this one looks great! I like that there is no huge bezel anymore, and that the battery life is now an estimated 2 weeks instead of 3 days. It looks more classy and less like a smartwatch.
Proud of this one! Feel free to ask any questions you might have.
(Pebble founder)
I pre-ordered because I loved the Pebble Round - especially the size and look. My intended use case is for formal dress codes and special events (weddings, new years, ...) wheretny fennix 51mm does not fit in (literally and figuratively).
That said: I can't find full dimensions for the new round 2. I can guesstimate that it should be 10-20% smaller in diameter and less than 2/3 the thickness.
Would you mind sharing full dimensions or even update the post?
And congratulations! I really like this. I hope there will be enough of a market to support this project long term.
Yes, the slimness and ability to dress up are certainly huge selling points. It does look about 1/4 thinner than the PT2, which is presumably much thinner/smaller than your fennix.
Honestly, even with a PT2 on order, I would consider getting one of these for the occasions (1x/wk?) where I am wearing a dress shirt or otherwise want to look a little more dressed up. It honestly would probably also be a nice conversation starter because you can set it up with a traditional watchface, but then when you get a notification it would obviously not be a traditional watch. And it's so much thinner than Google/Samsung and other round smartwatches, it wouldn't be confused with those.
Is a normal (non-rose) gold (or even a brass) color something we could look forward go in the future?
Was the decision to not sell that color based on expected demand for the color or did it not work for some other reason?
Is the situation with Rebble solved?
Is the Round 2 also going to have screws to potentially replace the battery, like Time 2 does?
Also, while watching the announcement video, I noticed that the pixels are quite a bit more visible on the Round 2 on the same watchface, when compared to Time 2 — on the Time 2, the image is a lot more crisp. Is that a matter of adapting the watchfaces to the bigger screen?
> Screws
Nope! No screws on this one.
> Is that a matter of adapting the watchfaces to the bigger screen?
Yes, exactly.
Dang, I really liked that there were screws on the Time 2. Does that at least mean waterproofing will be better? :p For instance, would it be a good idea to swim with the Round 2 on?
Still doing our water resistance testing on Round 2, but that is the target (30m water resistance)!
This is awesome, congrats Eric. Almost makes me wish I hadn’t switched from Android -> iOS last year before the Pebble announcements started coming out. Any idea if we might see more compatibility with iOS in the near future as Apple is forced to open up the ecosystem a little due to EU regulations? I know they had to allow reading iMessages on 3rd party smartwatches recently which sounds promising for Pebble. Apologies if you already blogged about this and I missed it!
It's not too late to switch back! I'm running GrapheneOS on a Pixel, but supposedly GrapheneOS is working with an OEM to have a GrapheneOS-native phone if you want to wait a little longer.
still works fine with iOS, will work even better in EU next year when Apple is forced to comply with the DMA.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I don't see the vibrating motor/linear actuator mentioned. I'm assuming this is still included? I'll be switching my Pebble Time 2 order over, these look fantastic.
The chart at https://repebble.com/watch shows it has a "Linear resonance actuator (vibrator)"
On the repebble compare chart the round is marked as having both a speaker and mic, that’s incorrect right?
I'm guessing he updated the chart? The chart at https://repebble.com/watch shows mic-only.
I had pre-ordered a Time 2, but I switched to the Round 2 because it's cheaper and I don't really care about the features it is missing (heart rate monitor and speaker) or the shape of the face. It's awesome that they let you switch without losing your place in line, very customer-focused of them.
I thought about it but didn't because the battery life difference is pretty big (10-14 vs 30), and according to his comment below, apparently the battery is not replaceable.
I assume it would actually be replaceable if one were sufficiently motivated, but the fact that it's not meant to be replaceable is not so great.
Honestly if the PT2 weren't replaceable I wouldn't mind so much, since starting of with 30 days of battery means it can degrade a lot before it hits a threshold I care about (1 week, roughly). But if the PR2 starts off around 10 days, it doesn't have far to fall before it hits that threshold.
Perhaps the biggest reason I didn't swap my order, though, is that I don't want to wait several more months to get my Pebble!
Yes, your calculus is exactly like mine - there are things to like about the Round (personally I just find round watches more aesthetically pleasing, we've had a couple hundred years of mostly round cases...), but I want longer battery and a shorter wait to get my watch.
Damn that's a nice looking watch! Really feels like they got to build what they wanted to 10 years ago but the tech wasn't there. Can't wait to build some sleek round watch faces once I get mine (unless there's an emulator already?)
> No more bezel
Maybe I'm looking at the wrong image, but I see a silver bezel going all around the watch screen.
I thought "no bezel" on a screen means the screen goes all the way to the edges of the device.
Still want one tho.
I think pretty much all watches have some sort of raised dial/edge in order to protect the glass. This one is not as small as some, but compared to the original round pebble, this is much, much smaller.
I'm also going for Time 2 because heartrate monitor. Round 2 looks so nice, gratz on design! That Mario watchface is so fun on it.
It sure looks nice but I'm keeping my Time 2 order as it's got a much better battery life.
Still, I'm sure this will appeal to many people.