Two new PebbleOS smartwatches go up for pre-order for the first time in nearly a decade

Pebble was an early innovator in the smartwatch space, but the company struggled to compete when bigger companies like Apple, Google, and many of the companies partnering with Google entered the space. So Pebble sold it assets to Fitbit in 2016 and basically shut down.

But Pebble’s watches still have a small but loyal fanbase thanks to their simple but useful features, affordable price tags, sunlight readable displays, and other features. Earlier this year Pebble founder Eric Migcosvky announced plans to bring Pebble back from the dead… kind of. While the Pebble name is dead and gone, Migicovsky has launched a new company called Core Devices that’s now taking pre-orders for two brand new watches that will ship with PebbleOS.

These will be the first new PebbleOS devices to launch since 2016 when Pebble shipped a limited number of Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2 device as Kickstarter rewards before Fitbit ended production of those devices.

Since then Google acquired Fitbit, which means that Google has been the guardian of Pebble’s intellectual property. In January Google open sourced most of the PebbleOS software, allowing Migicovsky to work with Chinese electronics manufacturers to build new watches that would run the operating system (and possibly allowing independent developers to port PebbleOS to other devices as well).

And that brings us to today, when Core Devices is introducing two new watches that… are a lot like the last two watches from Pebble.

The Core 2 Duo is a watch with a 1.26 inch, 144 x 168 pixel black and white sunlight visible display, a polycarbonate body that comes in black or white, Bluetooth support, and a design that could easily be mistaken for the Pebble 2. It has four buttons on the side for navigation rather than a touchscreen. It’s up for pre-order now for $149 and should ship in July, 2025.

It’s powered by a Nordic nRF52840 BLE chip and compared with the original Pebble 2 it has longer battery life, a built-in speaker, buttons that are designed to last longer, and new sensors including a barometer and compass. There’s also a linear resonance actuator that’s “quieter and stronger than a vibrating motor.”

The Core Time 2 is a model with a 1.5 inch 200 x 228 pixel touchscreen display with support for 64 colors, four buttons, and a sturdier design with a metal frame. It also has a heart rate monitor, and Core Devices describes it as “like a Pebble Time 2, but better!” It’s up for pre-order now for $225 and should ship in December, 2025.

Both watches have mics and speakers, support for step tracking and sleep tracking, IPX8 water resistance, and up to 30 days of battery life (about four times longer than the original Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2).

And they’re both compatible with the newly open-sourced PebbleOS, which means that they should support the 10,000 or so existing Pebble apps and watch faces, as well as any new apps developers create now that the platform has been revived. A new SDK is on the way.

Core Devices plans to launch mobile apps for Android and iOS that will allow users to manage their watches, receive notifications, install apps, and sync data, among other things.

Wondering why Migicovsky is bringing back a watch business that arguably failed a decade ago… and offering devices that are functionally nearly the same as the last products the company ever released? Well the last part is easy to answer – in a recent chat, Migicovsky told me that in all the years since Fitbit acquired Pebble, he has yet to find other watches that do things the way Pebble’s did so he’s been hanging onto his own collection of aging Pebble watches tightly. He also lamented the lack of the kind of companies launching tinker-friendly “gadgets” like Pebble watches in recent years.

As for why Core Devices could succeed where Pebble failed? Because it’s trying to do less. Success looks different if you set a goal of selling hundreds or maybe thousands of devices and generating enough revenue to cover expenses and maybe make a small profit than it does if you have to pay back investors who put millions of dollars of venture capital into your company.

A few years ago Migicovsky wrote a postmortem for Pebble with the thesis that the company made a few decisions that doomed the smartwatch maker. Some of those were hardware choices, but some were strategic: for example Pebble focused more on “huge growth” than serving its “initial geeky/hacker user base” and “doubled our operating expenses in anticipation of future growth,” which lowered profit margins.

This time he’s keeping things smaller and scrappy with Core Devices, which doesn’t have to sell many units to stay in business.

via Eric Migicovsky