The Pebble E-Paper Smartwatch Is Back. Just Don’t Call It Pebble

Nearly a decade after its demise, smartwatch maker Pebble is back—sort of. Today, the company’s founder, Eric Migicovsky, has unveiled new hardware running open source PebbleOS. However, since Google owns the Pebble trademark, these are not Pebble smartwatches. Instead, say hello to the first watches from a new brand called Core Devices: Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2.

For a brief history lesson, Pebble skyrocketed to fame in 2012 through a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. The company’s smartwatches had e-paper displays and arrived ahead of the first Apple Watch, offering wearers the ability to see notifications, create custom watch faces, and even access an app store—all with battery life that lasted a week despite an always-on screen.

But the company scaled too quickly and then didn’t meet its sales targets, eventually deciding to sell to Fitbit. A few years later, Google bought Fitbit, which meant it owned Pebble’s assets.

The original Pebble smartwatches didn’t die off—Fitbit kept the lights on for some time, and thanks to Pebble’s cult-like fanbase, a coalition of developers and enthusiasts helped launch the Rebble project to replace Pebble’s web services when Fitbit eventually shut everything down, so that core functions of the watches kept working.

But what’s enabled Migicovsky to introduce new hardware running PebbleOS is Google’s decision to release the source code in January. “I asked politely if they would open source the operating system, and they very graciously did,” Migicovsky tells WIRED. “We wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing now if Google hadn’t done that, so we’re super appreciative.”

New Leaf

That brings us to Migicovsky’s new brand—Core Devices—a nod to the Pebble Core, the screen-less wearable that never shipped. This is a very small operation that consists of Migicovsky, another full-time employee, and a few contractors—he says he’s taking things a bit more cautiously this time around. That’s why there will only be roughly 10,000 units available for the Core 2 Duo and a little more of the Core Time 2—preorders are live today if you want to reserve one.

“I’m intentionally trying to build something that’s sustainable, rather than a fast-growing do-or-die company,” Migicovsky says. “We’re taking small risks, we’re doing a couple of products, one at a time—and cautiously, carefully building this company to be sustainable. If we can do our jobs, build these watches and make people happy, we’ll build more. There’s always more time.”