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?
(Pebble founder)