Two new PebbleOS watches
246 comments
·March 18, 2025Zetaphor
Avamander
Unfortunately it's the software that determines how good such a device is to use. What's currently considered the best firmware for the Bangle?
I will also note that backlit LCD is vastly inferior to e-paper in smartwatches. Size of the watch also matters, there are some tradeoffs you have to make.
Zetaphor
The official one, which runs great. And since it's all open there's even alternative app menus and launchers if you're not happy with the stock option
Zetaphor
I forgot to add that this LCD screen is perfectly readable in direct sunlight, I wouldn't know it was not e-ink at a casual glance. Even at extreme angles the only thing that makes it difficult is the reflectivity of the front glass, but I have a large font watchface so even that is a minimal issue.
NAHWheatCracker
> all written in Javascript
Pass.
Zetaphor
All I care about is battery life and level of friction to creating an app.
2+ weeks and extremely low, so language purism is irrelevant imo
wizzzzzy
Why?
solarkraft
Core 2 Duo is a pretty funny name.
Are you going to sell replacement parts this time? I was immensely disappointed to see the initial watches being pretty repairable in theory, but no parts being sold. It was marketed as a tinkerer‘s device after all.
I’m wearing my Pebble Time Steel right now - and quite like it. Haven’t found anything better. It could use some better activity tracking, but the worst thing about it right now is that it doesn’t really have an iOS app (AltStore is pretty flaky). Any news on that front?
For some reason there just hasn’t been a real spiritual successor, so the revival is greatly appreciated.
lolinder
There's a whole second blog post about Apple support being discussed here:
kwanbix
I came to say Core 2 Duo is a terrible name :/
thekoma
> Core 2 Duo is a pretty funny name.
I remember there was also an Intel processor with the same name.
starttoaster
I'm guessing that is why they said it was a funny name.
ghilston
I have an original backer watch and bought one when they launched. Both stopped working within maybe 6 months and support at the time suggested I just buy another...
apparent
> it doesn’t really have an iOS app (AltStore is pretty flaky). Any news on that front?
I thought the Pebble app still worked, using Rebble. My understanding is that they are building a new app for the new watches, if that's what you were asking about.
zevon
The only way to install the old iOS Pebble app is by sideloading via something like AltStore (or doing it manually every week). Maybe you can also still re-install it if you had it installed when it was available in the App Store but I'm not sure if that still works.
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KeplerBoy
There's no way it's actually shipping with that name, right?
mrpippy
I'm sure Intel's law firms are drafting a cease & desist as we speak. I'd bet $10 the name changes.
mattlondon
No such thing as bad publicity as they say.
They'll be cheeky, the big dinosaur corporate will come out swinging and look bad like they always do, and they'll get a load of press in the tech websites which is their target market.
apparent
When you apply for a trademark you have to say what type of products/services it involves.
Intel did make a smartwatch for a while, but I don't think it had a Core Due chipset!
johnmaguire
Yeah, maybe... but what harm would it really do? The Core 2 line was killed off over 10 years ago in 2012.
skvmb
I'm gonna name everything I make "Metallica"
its-kostya
Eric, thank you. Lurking in the forum answering questions evokes people to share their opinion for satisfaction and dissatisfaction and often neglectes to evoke praise (proportionally). I am guilty of this too.
So thank you for your work on this. We have gotten an open source wearable OS, purpose built hardware, R&D, a community, more pressure on Apple to be less of a gatekeeper, and something we can own in a crazy short timeframe. I hope you see this despite it being buried. Thank you, you glorious nerd.
apparent
I'm pleased the pricing is so low. I did some math and if they're making 10k of these (not clear if that's each or all together), there's not a ton of money to be made.
Assuming $100 average profit, that's a $2M for 20k watches. Given the work opportunities that the founder and other employees have, that's not a lot of money for them to make in a year, and it comes with significant risk. Basically seems like this is a passion project, for which I am very grateful!
nebulous1
$100 profit on a $150 watch would be crazy. Rest of the post seems made up too. I don't know where these numbers are coming from. I'm genuinely confused.
beambot
MSRP of 3x COGS is a pretty common rule of thumb for hardware. Have to leave room for distribution, software, R&D, returns, SG&A, etc. End of the day, it's probably still only 30-40% gross margin -- less than half of a good SaaS company. Hardware is (indeed!) hard.
cenamus
But then how could you call that 100 profit in any way? If you made at most like 30-50?
roboror
Not crazy at all in consumer electronics, that's margin on the parts only. R&D, admin, software, etc. costs need to be recovered from that money.
apparent
I was using a blended average of the $150 and $225 watches. Also, it sounds like some of the components for the $150 watch were literally left over from Pebble days, which means they could have gotten an amazing deal on them.
diggan
> Assuming $100 average profit, that's a $2M for 20k watches. Given the work opportunities that the founder and other employees have, that's not a lot of money for them to make in a year, and it comes with significant risk. Basically
Reading through the terms on the shop page, it seems they're preparing to (maybe) raise the prices at any time, and they'll ask you to pay more before shipping, if they end up raising the prices after you buy it.
apparent
Whoa didn't see this! What's the language you're referring to? I only saw the part about how either side can cancel without penalty and didn't read a threat of higher pricing into that bit.
diggan
> If tariffs change dramatically, we will pass these costs along to you and require further payment, even for US orders.
Under the "What if the tariff situation changes?" section on https://store.repebble.com/
I was excited and about to purchase one until I saw this "We might not ship the device unless you pay us more" thing. I get that the economy is very up in the air right now in the US, but sucks that seemingly ordinary businesses are losing international business because of it.
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starkparker
The "having a baby"/"having a baby bok choi party" attempt to sell me on the larger screen did not work, but it did make me laugh.
apparent
This blog post [1] makes it seem like the cheaper model has a barometer and compass, but the more expensive one does not. Anyone know if that is true?
1: https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watch...
margalabargala
Everything appears to point that way, yes.
This thread is full of people complaining how these aren't like their preferred watches, in terms of design, face shape, no GPS, etc.
I think this is a much more valid criticism in that their expensive flagship watch is not like their cheaper watch.
delecti
> This thread is full of people complaining how these aren't like their preferred watches
Which is funny to me because that's explicitly the point.
> These watches are not made for everyone. We want to be upfront with you about what to expect.
It's probably the most frustrating part of smartwatches. Everyone has a different list of mandatory features, and few seem to accept that their list isn't universal. Unlike phones where just about all of them have just about all the features, the smartwatch market is a wild west. It makes finding the right one for you a lot of work, and it's understandably disappointing when a watch checks all but one or two of your "must have"s.
margalabargala
The thing that really frustrates me right now about this is that between the two watches, basically all of my boxes are ticked, but some of those boxes are mutually exclusive between the watches.
When a product has two price points, like this, it's usually expected that the more expensive one is strictly "better" than the cheaper one in some ways. That isn't the case here, and it makes everything more difficult. Most of us are conditioned to look at the more expensive version, and say "are these extra features worth $X extra" and decide that way. With these watches, I have to try to think about whether I would use a compass or heart rate monitor more.
apparent
Is there anything else lacking? I ordered the color one without much thought and only saw the barometer/compass bit afterward.
macNchz
It's kind of weird segmentation, but, given neither has GPS, I wonder how many people who'd seriously consider buying one of these really care about having a compass & barometer. Are those often important features to someone who doesn't care about GPS?
tecleandor
Having a compass and a barometer could be a "happy accident" of already having an all in one sensor that does all that things.
The compass could be easily related to an accelerometer used for detecting watch position (a function commonly used in smartwatches to power on the screen on certain positions that suggest you're looking at it) or detecting "steps".
Not so sure about where could you also get the barometric pressure sensor...
hn8726
You can track elevation with barometer which is nice for casual hiking in the mountains
apparent
It would be nice to track elevation change/stairs climbed during hiking, even if you don't care about GPS. I'll probably hang onto my old Garmin for exercise though, so this is sorta moot for me. Mostly it was just surprising to see that the pricier one was not a superset of the cheaper one.
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erohead
I'll be hanging out here - happy to answer any questions you have!
lonjil
You mention only producing a limited quantity, but do you have any plans to do a second batch next year? I know that knowing the future is impossible and that you thus can't make any promises, but are you at least hoping to be able to make more batches in the future?
I can't spend $225 right now, and by next month I'm guessing the pre-orders will already have blown way past your production quantity ^^
zevon
No questions but a comment: I rarely get emotionally attached to devices, especially since I have to handle a lot of fancy hardware for work and it gets old quickly. However, there are a few pieces of technology like my Walkman or my Thinkpad X61t that I really liked and was sad to have to let go when their time had come. The Pebble is another one of those devices for me and I'm quite happy that I won't have to it let go for a lot longer that I thought thanks to your new project. Thanks. :-)
Robelius
6 months from announcing rePebble (Jan '25) to shipping your first units (July '25) seems like a quick turnaround for a compact consumer electronics device. Curious to know if these first units are closer to a white label of existing hardware or more of a JDM model.
Side note - I got the first pebble through the kickstarter pre-orders in my first year out of high school. Seeing something so novel was definitely a contributor to me switch from CS to Mech E and working in the consumer electronics space now. Thanks for making cool and interesting things :)
erohead
Aww really glad to hear it!
It is fast - but we've done this before (many times) and know what we're doing. I've been blogging about the experience too https://ericmigi.com/blog/february-shenzhen-trip-update
kubatyszko
I remember that my Pebble 2 (HR) over time (pun intended) would develop play around the rubber button area especially on the right side. Eventually the rubber covering the buttons would break off. This was common to the point people were making 3d-printed replacement parts. See https://help.rebble.io/pebble-2-buttons/ What's the expected longevity of the buttons this time around, and will you have replacement parts available ?
jerlam
The post says:
More reliable buttons (up to 30% longer lifetime in testing)
voxadam
The Nordic nRF52840[1] SoC on which these are based support not only Bluetooth 5.4 but also Thread, Zigbee, and 802.15.4. These three standards are becoming commonplace in the home automation space. Has any thought been given to how the new Pebble devices could utilize these protocols?
Avamander
Pretty sure those different radio stacks do not run very well in parallel or if they do, they'd likely start to starve the rest in terms of resources needed.
The nRF52840 is not the most performant, I would've really liked if they had chosen a SoC, like the nRF5340, with more RAM or cores for this reason amongst others.
TickleSteve
There are similar devices (i.e. SiLabs) that allow multi-protocol use with the radio (I would expect Nordic to have a similar feature set), tho yes, you're right the resource issue would be a major limitation.
erohead
Nope, but the OS is open source so you could try getting it to work yourself: https://github.com/pebble-dev/pebble-firmware
sevg
Is it actually open source though? The repository description may be outdated then, but it currently says this:
> This is the latest version of the internal repository from Pebble Technology providing the software to run on Pebble watches. Proprietary source code has been removed from this repository and it will not compile as-is. This is for information only.
its-kostya
Hey Eric!
Any chance to open up support and reparability for old pebbles? For example, run the newly open OS on old hardware or source parts for old pebbles, like batteries for pebble time ;)
bigstrat2003
What are the dimensions (length and width) of both models? I'm trying to decide if the Time would be too big for my taste, and I'm having a hard time trying to picture what the increased screen diagonal size translates to.
horseless
I want to get a smartwatch that has enough functionalities to run a time tracker app with the purpose of not having to carry a phone most of the time. The existing ones are all WearOS or Apple watch, neither of which can be used in a freedom-preserving way. Would it be possible to write time tracking apps for these watches?
xrd
I know battery life is impacted but I really want exactly this with GPS.
I want to be able to track my runs.
I love the banglejs because it is hackable but the GPS was very difficult to use. But it is such a fun device to hack on.
lrvick
The firmware is open. You could add a GPS backpack and firmware support if you wanted.
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lostphilosopher
I was surprised at the time how cheap the original Pebbles were, they were nearly exactly what I wanted and I would have been willing to pay more for mine. In fact I ultimately paid more to replace mine with a watch I like less. When Pebble folded I wondered if having too low of price ultimately hurt them - if they didn't pick up enough customers to make up on volume what they left off the table on per-unit revenue? I hope the relaunch is successful, and I assume they have all manner of internal data that says I'm wrong, but my initial reaction to the listed prices is the same as it was to the originals - they seem too low. (I'm setting aside the caveat about a potential price change due to tariffs and assuming they launch at current list price.)
jerlam
There's a big difference: it's 2025 and there are no shortage of competitors that look better and have more features than a $150 Pebble 2 or $225 Time 2. Unlike 2015 the market already has a $200 Apple Watch, $60 Amazfit Bip, $55 CMF Watch Pro, and a $220 Coros Pace which will track an ultramarathon. All these devices are made by mature companies and have multiple revisions.
I liked my Pebbles, but I won't spend $300 on one because the chance of failure (again) is so great.
lolinder
> I'm setting aside the caveat about a potential price change due to tariffs and assuming they launch at current list price
As you should, because if they raise the price because of tariffs they won't see a dime of it. It's less raising the price and more that they don't yet know how much tax they'll be expected to collect and remit.
marsknight
I almost bought one and I'd love to.
But then I've read in the Q&A about the tariffs and how that would affect the price at time of shipment.
This is too much uncertainty for me.
I've got no incentive to buy from the US right now, as a European.
I wish you the best of luck, as you definitely put a lot of love into it
mrzool
Same here. Based in the EU, I was ready to buy one on day one, but when I saw the prices listed only in USD I had to stop right there. Just the shipping alone would be $25, plus the uncertainty of duty fees. I hope to see an EU store soon — with prices in EUR, low-cost shipping, and all fees already factored in.
erohead
International shipments will not be sent from the USA; they'll be shipped directly from Asia. The comment is in reference to your own countries - they may charge tariffs.
timvdalen
I realized a long time ago that I don't actually want a smartwatch, but this _is_ making me very nostalgic
pizzaman500
I'm super excited to hear this announcement!
For those of us interested in health metrics - can we expect the precision of the heart rate sensor to be sufficient for calculating HRV (heart rate variability)? It doesn't have to be natively supported, but I'd love to see a third party app offer this some day... In fact I may work on it myself, provided the data from HR sensor is good enough.
As someone who was a huge fan of the original Pebble series, it's hard to get excited about this offering when compared to the alternatives available today with more features and a cheaper price.
I'm currently wearing the BangleJS v2 [0] which has the following going for it, all for $90USD:
* 1.3 inch 176x176 always-on 3 bit colour LCD display (LPM013M126) with backlight
* Full touchscreen (6H hardness glass)
* GPS/Glonass receiver
* Heart rate monitor
* 3 Axis Accelerometer
* 3 Axis Magnetometer
* Air Pressure/Temperature sensor
* 175mAh battery, 4 week standby time
* Full SWD debug port on rear of watch
* The OS and every app are open source, all written in Javascript
In my experience it lasts over 2 weeks with multiple daily notifications and wearing it 24/7 for HR and sleep tracking.
The Pebble was a compelling offer when it came out, but I'll have to pass on this one.
[0] https://shop.espruino.com/banglejs2