【Watch Sex (1994) Part 1】

Remember Pebble?Watch Sex (1994) Part 1 The company made cool, versatile, affordable smartwatches a decade ago, before shutting down in late 2016 and selling most of its assets to Fitbit (which itself was acquired by Google in 2021).

Now, Pebble is back — sort of. Eric Migicovsky, founder of the original Pebble, is restarting the brand with two PebbleOS watches, set to launch later this year. Given that Pebble's intellectual property was sold off, these aren't exactly Pebble watches; Migicovsky's new company is called Core Devices, and these watches are called Core, even though they run the open source PebbleOS.

SEE ALSO: Apple M4 MacBook Air review: A really good deal

First, there's the Core 2 Duo, a $149 watch which is very similar to the old Pebble 2, and has a 1.26-inch, black and white e-paper display, a polycarbonate frame that comes in white or black, water resistance (Migicovsky says he's "targeting" IPX8), step, and sleep tracking. Given that the Pebble 2 is eight years old now, you'd expect some improvements, and indeed, the Core 2 Duo has a 30-day battery life (up from 7 days), a speaker, barometer, compass, and more reliable buttons.

---

You May Also Like

---

---

The $149 Core 2 Duo has a black-and-white, e-paper display. Credit: Core Devices

Then there's the Core Time 2, which has a larger, 1.5-inch e-paper touchscreen display that supports 64 colors. The frame is made out of metal, and the watch will be available in black and white, though Migicovsky says there will "likely" be a third color option as well.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Other features include water resistance (again, targeting IPX8), sleep and step tracking, microphone and speaker, and a heart rate monitor. Both watches can run existing Pebble apps and watch faces.

Pre-orders for both devices are open now over at store.rePebble.com; the Core 2 Duo ships in July, while the Core TIme 2 ships in December.

The new PebbleOS watches are platform-agnostic, but there's a bit of bad news for iPhone owners. In a blog post, Migicovsky argued that Apple "restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones," and listed a number of limitations Apple imposes on third-party smartwatch makers. These include the inability for a third-party smartwatch to send text messages or iMessages, or reply to notifications. He also says it's "very difficult to enable other iOS apps to work with Pebble," among other issues. Check the blog post for a full list of limitations according to Migicovsky.

The short version of it is that the new Pebble watches will work with iPhones, but fairly poorly. Android users should have a much-better experience. Sorry, Apple-lovers who also want a smartwatch with an e-paper display.

Topics Smartwatches

• Digital Culture
• Life
• Entertainment
• Deals
• Science
• Tech
• Social Good
• Shopping

• Then and Now: 6 Generations of GeForce Graphics Compared
• Photoshop magic transports Zelda the Shiba Inu through time and space
• Pavlov the Corgi graduates from UCLA
• In front of Congress, Facebook defends its decision on InfoWars
• NYT Strands hints, answers for April 23
• 2018 is only halfway over, but a troubling warming trend is apparent
• Robotic vacuum with camera is vulnerable to hackers
• Unfortunately opening the ancient Egyptian sarcophagus didn't unleash a curse on us
• Samsung Unpacked stream is set for May 12, 2025
• 14 reasons why Hillary Clinton is a big f*cking deal today

• The best Grok interactions according to users on X
• NYT's The Mini crossword answers for December 9
• Walt Whitman’s Right Hand by The Paris Review
• X's new mobile logo looks like bad distressed jeans
• Staff Picks: Ballet, Bob Dylan, and Black Smudges by The Paris Review
• Running into My Dead Mother at 7
• Survival as a Creative Force: An Interview with Ocean Vuong by Spencer Quong
• Arkansas vs. OU basketball livestreams: Game time, streaming deals, and more
• The Anonymous Diary by Kathryn Scanlan
• Gangster Bedtime Stories by Rich Cohen

• NYT Connections hints and answers for April 25: Tips to solve 'Connections' #684.
• Google CEO Sundar Pichai says company will appeal record fine from EU ruling
• The first 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' reactions are here
• Photoshop magic transports Zelda the Shiba Inu through time and space
• Trump signs AI education order to train K
• Chance The Rapper may have hidden a meme in the artwork for his 4 new songs
• This Londoner's attempt to drive through a heavily flooded road didn't end well
• Robotic vacuum with camera is vulnerable to hackers
• How This Long
• What young voters forget about Hillary Clinton's historic moment

• Trump's national security strategy omits climate change as a threat
• Ansel Elgort busts out some sick dance moves at the 2016 CDFA Awards
• Star Wars goes back to prequel era, revives 'Clone Wars': Watch
• Trespassing child just really wants to hug neighbor's big dog
• Today's Hurdle hints and answers for May 12, 2025
• Watch the powerful ESPY Awards speech by Larry Nassar survivors
• Google Cloud outage brings down Snapchat, Spotify, and 'Pokémon Go'
• Student protesters shot by police in Papua New Guinea, reports say
• NYT Connections Sports Edition hints and answers for March 4: Tips to solve Connections #162
• The first 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' reactions are here