【Taste of Future Sister-in-law】

Remember Pebble?Taste of Future Sister-in-law The company made cool, versatile, affordable smartwatches a decade ago, before shutting down in late 2016 and selling most of its assets to Fitbit (which itself was acquired by Google in 2021).

Now, Pebble is back — sort of. Eric Migicovsky, founder of the original Pebble, is restarting the brand with two PebbleOS watches, set to launch later this year. Given that Pebble's intellectual property was sold off, these aren't exactly Pebble watches; Migicovsky's new company is called Core Devices, and these watches are called Core, even though they run the open source PebbleOS.

SEE ALSO: Apple M4 MacBook Air review: A really good deal

First, there's the Core 2 Duo, a $149 watch which is very similar to the old Pebble 2, and has a 1.26-inch, black and white e-paper display, a polycarbonate frame that comes in white or black, water resistance (Migicovsky says he's "targeting" IPX8), step, and sleep tracking. Given that the Pebble 2 is eight years old now, you'd expect some improvements, and indeed, the Core 2 Duo has a 30-day battery life (up from 7 days), a speaker, barometer, compass, and more reliable buttons.

---

You May Also Like

---

---

The $149 Core 2 Duo has a black-and-white, e-paper display. Credit: Core Devices

Then there's the Core Time 2, which has a larger, 1.5-inch e-paper touchscreen display that supports 64 colors. The frame is made out of metal, and the watch will be available in black and white, though Migicovsky says there will "likely" be a third color option as well.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Other features include water resistance (again, targeting IPX8), sleep and step tracking, microphone and speaker, and a heart rate monitor. Both watches can run existing Pebble apps and watch faces.

Pre-orders for both devices are open now over at store.rePebble.com; the Core 2 Duo ships in July, while the Core TIme 2 ships in December.

The new PebbleOS watches are platform-agnostic, but there's a bit of bad news for iPhone owners. In a blog post, Migicovsky argued that Apple "restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones," and listed a number of limitations Apple imposes on third-party smartwatch makers. These include the inability for a third-party smartwatch to send text messages or iMessages, or reply to notifications. He also says it's "very difficult to enable other iOS apps to work with Pebble," among other issues. Check the blog post for a full list of limitations according to Migicovsky.

The short version of it is that the new Pebble watches will work with iPhones, but fairly poorly. Android users should have a much-better experience. Sorry, Apple-lovers who also want a smartwatch with an e-paper display.

Topics Smartwatches

• Entertainment
• Social Good
• Life
• Shopping
• Games
• Digital Culture
• Tech
• Science

• NYT Strands hints, answers for May 2
• Repent at Leisure
• I’ve Got a Secret
• The Morning Roundup for August 18, 2014
• Best travel deal: Take 30% off Southwest flights
• Reader’s Guilt; Toadstools by Lorin Stein
• James Berry, Celebrity Executioner
• Happy Birthday, Ray Bradbury!
• WhatsApp launches 'Advanced Chat Privacy' to protect sensitive conversations
• Recognition

• NBA road teams are winning more because of dating apps. No, really.
• Why Australia won't escape its vicious fire spiral
• Trump driving a truck becomes the internet's new favorite metaphor for America
• Mark Zuckerberg gives up on doing personal 'yearly challenges'
• Once again, Ted Cruz's face is a meme
• Facebook redesign with dark mode rolls out for some users
• The World Cup of Biscuits 2017 is here and it's so British it hurts
• Twitter turns a discriminatory hashtag (on a blank page) into LOLs
• Joe Biden met a puppy named Biden and for a moment, the entire world stopped
• Honey browser extension was a security risk during the holiday season, says Amazon

• Useful or Little Known Android Features
• Poetry in Motion
• Boule de Suif
• The Morning News Roundup for July 25, 2014
• Best vacuum mop combo deal: Save $140 on the Tineco Floor One S5
• The Morning News Roundup for August 22, 2014
• Cory Arcangel’s Working on My Novel
• Subscribe to The Paris Review and LRB
• Best robot vacuum deal: Eufy Omni C20 robot vacuum and mop at record
• Subscribe to The Paris Review and LRB

• New MIT report reveals energy costs of AI tools like ChatGPT
• Sartre and Borges on Welles by Dan Piepenbring
• The Morning News Roundup for August 20, 2014
• “‘Betty’ Bacall Was the Perfect Mate for Bogey”
• This is the fattest of the extremely fat bears
• The Morning News Roundup for August 20, 2014
• The Morning News Roundup for August 21, 2014
• You Belong to the City
• Mary Shows Up
• The Morning News Roundup for August 22, 2014