Here's my answer (as the founder of Pebble - both eras!) on this. We're a small company this time (standing on the shoulders of giants by using open source PebbleOS - thank you google!).
We are excited to make new devices, but wary about over-promising. We'd rather under-promise and over-deliver. So far, we have only received a few requests for warranty support for our first new watch (Pebble 2 Duo) and we have provided support for everyone who has asked.
Thanks for the reply. Are you therefore not planning to sell within the EU for now?
Just for my understanding: so full notification support would essentially only apply to anyone in the EU willing to import from the US (or directly from the country you're manufacturing these devices in).
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.
Oh great, I missed that end of the page. The "Round 2 details" links back to the blog and it is hard to see the FAQ on mobile (needs manual scrolling to the end).
Google search and Perplexity failed when I tried, too. Google search has caught up now (haven't retried Perplexity)
A 41.5mm diameter sounds good. That's a whopping 10mm/20% smaller than my current watch. Should be really neat given the thickness.
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?
Why no screws when you specifically called out that there ARE screws on the Time and Duo 2s for the sake of longevity of hardware even if the company goes away?
Are you saying there's no access into the watch or that it's more like a traditional circular watch where you can twist off the back?
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?
30m (3 bar) basically means splash-proof, not even your stated 1m (activity while submerged, I suppose). Like, 30m is IPX4-5, 50m is IPX6 (very rough equivalence), so 30m is the barest minimum expected from a watch.
I wouldn't care so much about WR for a round Pebble, which I'd wear on nicer occasions. I would care more about WR for a watch that I'd wear at the beach or pool, as a way of getting notifications when not carrying my phone.
But screws might add thickness/weight to the watch, compared to glue.
The specs link directly to the Pebble Appstore, which showcases a bunch of really cool watchfaces that are... all for the square screen. I think it would be wonderful to land the user on a showcase of faces specifically adapted for the round screen.
How did you decide which colors/sizes to offer this time around? Seems like a reasonable mix, but I also wondered if regular gold could have broader appeal. Perhaps it wouldn't help though, since you'd have to make different SKUs based on band width, assuming women would get the narrower one and men would get the wider one?
I like everything about Pebble Round 2, except that it's round. I _HATE_ round watches with a passion, it's just form over function for electronic watches. Coincidentally, that's also why I still have an iWatch even though my phone is Android. There are _no_ good rectangular Android watches.
Are you planning something like this but with a rectangular screen? I have Time 2 on pre-order, but I'd love to buy a water-resistant watch.
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.
@erohead: do the new Pebbles still support the strap interface? With the screen now being 1.5" and the resolution being much higher than the original ones, they would make great little retro gaming consoles with the control buttons on the strap. Similar to a funkey-s console.
As someone who had the original Pebble Steel, and then moved to the Pebble Round (20mm) until it literally stopped working, I'm super happy you've done this, and incredibly happy that you let me change my pre-order from my Time 2 to the Round 2. Can't wait!
Generally most sleep tracking products use actigraphy (measurements of your movement) to track sleep. Pebble partnered with researchers at Stanford back in the day to produce an algorithm for our operating system, which worked quite well and is now open source!
I own the Pebble 2 Duo and the answer is "almost none". It basically just tells you how long you were still/not moving much in the evening, as you'd expect. It's a pretty good proxy for what time you went to bed and got up, and that's about it. It can't actually tell if you're asleep.
There are also (currently) no sleep metrics on app itself; you can only see them on the watch, which doesn't show much besides the sleep duration and an abstract representation showing where you might have woken up in the night.
It's been a long time since I used my Pebble Time Steel, but I remember the alarm feature to wake you up when you were in a light phase of sleep worked very well. I didn't do any sleep tracking personally, but the watch seemed to be able to tell.
From an old Kickstarter:
"Pebble Health tracks when you fall asleep, wake up, and how much deep sleep you’re getting (that’s the really good stuff). Smart Alarms determine your optimal wake-up time based on your sleep cycle, so you’re less groggy and more energized to tackle the day."
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.
How does the sleep tracking works on the Round? Is it reliable? I'm currently using a Mi Band 7 and it works great with gadgetbridge and it has a heart-rate monitor.
this is supposed to be the part where i say something about the smart watch. i own a $20 Casio F91 that should cost $3 at retail, which is to say, i'm not really your intended audience. is performative positivity an obligation for interesting questions? is it the only framework to figure out products? do you see?
is positivity the only valid emotion for a product launch?
how do you balance your experience with the rewards of taking risks?
amazing! does it provide any other protections against other battery drain risks? glad you guys though of that haha, definitely will be ordering one :)
You can use it just as a button - that's one of the ways you can hack it. Just hook the button up to whichever action (webhook, Tasker, etc) you'd like.
Any chance of diy, at-home battery replacements? That would definitely let me consider it. I don't mind if it's a 10 hour process to replace the battery. Just the option to have a device that lasts is great.
Waterproofing, tiny batteries, yadda yadda... it's either "charge it weekly", or "recycle" every year or two (eg: $9.99/mo)
Thinking through: many people in the pebble-verse (back in the day) were super-hot about wanting the voice-control stuff/microphone responses to text messages. Instead of thinking about this as a standalone "ring", think of this as a "remote button + mic" for the pebble watch.
As a (former) avid biker, being able to spam: "How much longer until sunset (and how far away am I from home [and will I get home before sunset])?" and having a rough answer "on the wrist" is super useful.
On the Home Assistant front, the Apple ecosystem is waaaay too universal for Siri-isms. We have 3-4 home pod's (upstairs, downstairs, kids bedroom, guest room), along with phones (car-play), and airpods. All of them can be used as "Hey Siri, set a timer, turn on/off the lights, what's the weather, etc".
Looking at the HA voice controls, it's utter garbage trash (unfortunately) until The Hackers(tm) get around to fixing things up, BUUUT we're still screwed b/c HA speakers/mic's will be worse than Apple's, and HA will never come out with AirPods or CarPlay integration (and likely: Apple will never support a "non-Siri" voice connection via their microphone relationships).
This ring is an incredibly interesting way to sidestep all of that!
You have the ring (mic input, 2yr battery), you have the watch (text display, 1 month battery), and your phone (cellular + storage + compute, 1 day battery), all of which are nominally "every day carry" items.
In the home automation world, having your star-trek communicator pin (quite literally!) on your finger at all times w/ a 2yr battery life is VERY VERY intriguing!
I feel like this should be promoted or made clearer on the product page - this is how I think many people would prefer to use it, provided it could trigger voice input on the pebble/device/other watch - for example, as a Siri trigger.
Given that the user will typically have their watch on them as well, why not make the ring a battery-less BLE transmitter that triggers voice input on the watch? It’s still one-handed operation, but now the battery life is infinite since there’s no battery? The disposable ring seems like a solution in search of a problem to me, unfortunately.
Piezo switches like the one you linked have a minimum size to generate the power necessary, and that minimum size is larger than the entire current ring.
The power generation portion of that switch is around 1.4x1.4cm and can power the transmitter to send a signal over 40m. I think it’s likely that it could be adapted into a ring form.
Are you still considering implementing the feature as a Pebble app as well? As someone who is very forgetful I like the low-friction external memory concept, but it would be nice if I could try it out (admittedly sub-optimally) before jumping in with a second device. It could also be a nice option for Index owners to keep a similar flow even when they don't want to wear the Index for whatever reason.
In general I really like the idea of a local-first, privacy-first, one-way/low-interaction digital assistant regardless of the form factor. A big frustration I have with Gemini as a voice assistant is that I have to wait out the other half of super simple interactions like setting a timer or making a note.
Love the idea as a very easily distracted individual, but the battery is keeping me on the fence. I understand how charging circuitry makes this product a non-starter, but is there any hope of the battery being replaceable?
If you look at other rechargeable smart rings they're in the $250 to $300 range, plus a $10/month subscription. We didn't want to do that for a new product like this.
I like the price here, but my question was not about adding charging circuitry, but some way to open the ring and replace the battery once it's depleted.
Why didn’t you make it just a button which activates the watch? It’d be an addon to pebble watch. It couldn’t be used standalone, but you could make it rechargeable and it would solve your issue (actions with only one hand)
Do you mean that this is technically possible, or that this is a feature that will be supported? I've preordered the Time 2, so having the ability to configure it that way to significantly extend the battery life of the ring could be interesting. On the other hand, using it standalone might be fine for me. I wouldn't really know how fast I might go through the battery without using it for a while.
2: the transcription happens on your phone for free (or via subscription to a slightly better transcription model, not sure about privacy for the paid model)
3: ok to wash hands or shower, but just 1 foot of depth (so no swimming)
I really like the thought and the format, but I do not like that I can't change the battery. Even if it is not easy, I still think there should be a way to change the battery.
Can I use something like syncthing to easily backup the recordings and transcripts off my phone?
Google's Recorder app makes this a big PITA if I don't want to enable upload to cloud storage, there is a very tedious manual way to export recordings.
I really just want plain old data and to be able to copy or delete files via the filesystem. And not be required to use some cloud service.
As you framed the device as an extension of memory, I'm wondering whether you can query your notes/memory with voice. I'd like to ask questions to the ring, e.g.: "What was that book that Jerry recommended?"
Is that an existing feature, or is that something possibly planned for future?
I actually like the device and can see the purpose of it - I’ve tried to kick together similar solutions in the past, but I like the very “one thing only” nature of this.
That said, I absolutely cannot buy a device like this without a replaceable battery. I don’t actually care about the recharge, I get what you’re trying to do with it, but given the state of the e-waste world and, bluntly, the history of hardware brands - a big, big part of the sales pitch for the pebble is the OSS nature of the device because we need to hedge against any one company for longevity. I’d seriously consider this if I knew the battery was replaceable, but I can’t bet on you being around in 4, 6, or 8 years, and I’m not willing to buy intentionally disposable tech anymore.
This isn't a question I understand, but I appreciate you writing it. At the end of the day it's up to you - if you think this is useful, please use it. If you don't want to use it because of the 4.7 grams of e-waste, I do get it.
All consumer tech is intentionally disposable. That's life. Especially for tiny smart rings that are water resistant. It's a ring, it's going to get banged up, you'll lose it or smash it. It's new tech - there will always be a new version, etc.
Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
could this be a used a bluetooth microphone, so I could use it with a laptop as a quick voice dictation/input for various uses? I'm thinking like a simple microphone for an localy hosted app like Hex: https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex
what safety measures does this have to avoid some incident (held down button, software bug, etc) draining the entire battery within a few hours, thus bricking the device?
It has a hard cutoff built into the firmware at two minutes so after that point the recording stops and the ring turns off until the next button press.
Happy to see new pebble products !
I have few questions :
What do you mean by never need charging ? Is it a disposable product (or is there a disposable, removable battery) or does it have a way of recharging itself by energy harvesting ?
Isn't this feature of pushing a button, talking to the microphone and getting a transcription in the app already available on the pebble smartwatches ?
Please note our CLA explicitly include a clause to require Core Devices to distribute all contributions under an OSI-compatible FOSS license (e.g. GPLv3). So no contributions can be 'stolen'.
But OSI-compatible FOSS licenses include pushover ones like MIT, so even though you couldn't steal all of the contributions to make a proprietary fork, any other company then could.
but in the rest of the ecosystem a bunch of the inherited code is already Apache or MIT. so, i presume you have already forked the other repos to relicense them. can you drop a link?
I'm the first to agree that contributions can't be stolen in this scenario but read the threads I'm referring to. People feel that way anyway if you stop supporting a component or distribute your focus between a free and a paid tier.
What we need is more awareness that looking at the license alone is not enough to make an informed decision if contributing to a project is aligned with the contributors attitude and personal goals.
With that in mind: Thank you for putting the CLA right in the repo where it belongs and people can easily find it. Many organizations put a license upfront and bury the CLA. For a particularly bad example try MonoDB.
We are excited to make new devices, but wary about over-promising. We'd rather under-promise and over-deliver. So far, we have only received a few requests for warranty support for our first new watch (Pebble 2 Duo) and we have provided support for everyone who has asked.
reply