Click if you want to learn the backstory of Pebble

When Pebble launched in April 2012 as a crowd-funded Kickstarter campaign, it raised a record $10.3 million from ~68,000 backers - a record for its time.

Way before Apple Watch and Android Wear existed, Pebble offered notifications, fitness data, and phone control on your wrist. Another thing that made Pebble compelling is that it was built on simple, durable technology. By pairing with Android or iOS phone, most of the heavy-lifting was off-loaded from the Pebble itself, reducing power and hardware requirements. And its E-paper display meant you got multi-day battery life and readability in sunlight, both strong pain-point solutions to the “dead screen every day” fear.

After the first watch models shipped in January 2013, Pebble released a number of new models in 2014-2015. But by 2016 its heydays were over and it ran into financial trouble. In December 2016 the Pebble assets and IP were sold to Fitbit, which immediately started to phase the brand out.

Yet somehow, even until just a few years ago, Pebble-owners in tech would continue to rave about their old watch and how good it was. So when Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky announced that he was reviving the Pebble there was lots of rejoicing among tech enthusiasts, including… me. :)

Last week I finally got my hands on my brand new Pebble 2 Duo. It was delivered straight from the factory in China in a white box with a separate pouch for the straps:

The “It’s still time” refers back to Pebble’s old slogan of “It’s time”

The box contains the watch itself (with a 1.26” eink display) and a charger dongle, which converts from a USB-C cable to Pebble’s own charge connector.

This charger dongle is the part that is most likely to get lost over time, but I get they decided to stick with the original charge port to keep things simple.

To use the watch, you have to install the Pebble app on your Android or iOS phone. If you’re an iPhone user, please read this note from Eric: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones on its limitations compared to an Apple Watch.

Pairing the watch with the app on the phone is simple enough, and then you can…

As both Eric and my wife pointed out: I had one of the straps attached the wrong way around, as that little metal blob should be on the inside.

As you’d expect from an e-ink screen, it holds up really well in even bright sunlight. What I didn’t expect from the e-ink screen though is how much animation Pebble OS shows, such as in this beautiful watchface:

See: now the metal nob is hidden on the inside

Another cute animation is when the watch is charging:

Sorry for the shakey videos, I forgot to use a tripod/stabilizer

Here you can also see the little charger dongle behind the watch. It attaches magnetically, so it’s all pretty easy.

So far, I’ve had to charge the watch once after about 4 days. That’s a bit sooner than expected, but there are two likely reasons:

• They’re still working on optimizing the software, which should double battery life.
• I’ve been running the Pixel Miner game a lot, which probably uses more battery.

So far I love the new Pebble, as it’s looks and feels like a retro device at this point. It reliably shows notifications from my phone and is a good reminder that I need to get those a bit more under control again. I still likely won’t become a regular watch wearer, but like playing with the tech for now.

Want to get your own Pebble? Order it from repebble.com.