- Core Devices announces Pebble Round 2
- The new smartwatch has a large e-paper screen
- It also promises a week of battery life per charging
After a phoenix-like rise from the ashes in 2024, Pebble continues to soar back into the smartwatch space with an all-new Pebble Round 2.
If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the new wearable comes a decade after the original underwhelming Pebble Time Round. Rather than a lackluster rehash, the Pebble Round 2, from Pebble platform savior Core Devices, seems to address pretty much all of its predecessor’s shortcomings.
The Pebble Round 2, which will be shown at CES 2026 but won’t ship until May, has a color e-paper display and an edge-to-edge 1.3-inch screen. Put another way, the face of the screen is significantly larger than the original round, which had a massive, inert edge.
The other big update is battery life. Pebble rates the new round at up to seven days of battery life. The Pebble Time Round was rated at just a few days. Core Devices achieved this without significantly increasing the thickness of the watch. The Pebble Round 2 is 8.1mm thick, which is just slightly thicker than the Pebble Time Round.
It’s even cheaper than the Pebble Time Round, priced at $199 compared to the Pebble Time Round’s $249.
Pebble Round 2 is also a very wearable of its time, tracking steps and sleep, and includes both an accelerometer and a magnetometer. It even has a touchscreen, though Pebble says you’re free to ignore it. There’s even water resistance (although the level of protection, listed as “30m target,” is currently unclear).
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The new Pebble Round 2 joins the Pebble Time 2 (square and with another large e-paper display) and the still-fresh Pebble Index 01, a smart ring that doesn’t care about your health but could be the little short-term memory holder on your finger you’ve been missing (it can record short voice notes).
The growing stable of wearables lends credence to the impression that the open source Pebble platform is shifting from survival to growth mode. For more than a decade, it’s been held in high esteem by longtime adoration among a small contingent of Pebble fans (I’m one of them). For a while, the focus was on software updates to support the original Pebble watches.
Open source remains at the heart of Core Devices’ efforts, but the reported 15,000 apps and “thousands of watch faces” now have new homes, including this latest watch, which is now on pre-order and should arrive in May.
Color options on the stainless steel bezel will include matte black, brushed silver, and polished rose gold. Unlike many of today’s best smartwatches, the Pebble Round 2 will support both iOS and Android.
Will the second round be a knockout for Pebble? It’s too early to tell, but Core Devices promises that all the images are of real, working Pebble Round 2 models, and we’ll see them in person at CES 2026.
It will be our first chance to determine if Core Devices has really solved all the problems of the original round and created a smartwatch alternative that is at least as compelling as an Apple Watch or a Samsung Galaxy Watch.
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