- Core Devices announces Pebble Round 2
- The new smartwatch has a large e-paper screen
- It also promises a week of battery life per charge.
After rising from the ashes like a phoenix in 2024, Pebble continues its return to the smartwatch space with a new Pebble Round 2.
If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the new wearable arrives a decade after the disappointing original Pebble Time Round. Rather than a mediocre repeat, the Pebble Round 2, from Pebble platform savior Core Devices, appears to address virtually all of its predecessor’s shortcomings.
The Pebble Round 2, which will be shown at CES 2026 but won’t ship until May, features a color e-paper display and a 1.3-inch edge-to-edge display. Put another way, the screen face is significantly larger than the original Round, which had a huge, inert bezel.
The other major update is the battery life. Pebble rates the new round with up to seven days of battery life. The Pebble Time Round was rated for only a couple of days. Core Devices achieved this without significantly increasing the thickness of the watch. The Pebble Round 2 is 8.1mm thick, which is slightly thicker than the Pebble Time Round.
It’s even cheaper than the Pebble Time Round, priced at $199 compared to $249 for the Pebble Time Round.
The Pebble Round 2 is also a wearable device of its time, tracking steps and sleep, and including an accelerometer and magnetometer. It even has a touchscreen, although Pebble says you can 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 screen) and the still-fresh Pebble Index 01, a smart ring that has no interest in your health but may be the short-term memory item your finger was missing (it can record short voice memos).
The growing stable of wearables lends credence to the impression that the open source Pebble platform is moving from survival mode to growth mode. For more than a decade, it’s been held aloft by long-standing 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 the focus 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 up for pre-order and should arrive in May.
Color options on the stainless steel frame will include matte black, brushed silver, and polished rose gold. Unlike many of today’s best smartwatches, the Pebble Round 2 will be compatible with iOS and Android.
Will the second round be a knockout for Pebble? It’s too early to tell, but Core Devices promises that all images provided are of real, working Pebble Round 2 models, and we’ll see them in person at CES 2026.
That will be our first chance to determine whether Core Devices really fixed all of the original Ronda’s problems and created a smartwatch alternative at least as attractive as an Apple Watch or a Samsung Galaxy Watch.
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