Pebble’s Iconic Round Watch Is Back (and Better)

Pebble, the smartwatch pioneer, has added a new model to its lineup. restarted line-upand it's the slim, round model Pebble fans have been waiting for. What's even more intriguing to me is that Pebble Round 2 doesn't have a heart rate sensor, signaling that a smartwatch doesn't have to be a fitness watch. Pebble Round 2 will begin shipping in May and will be affordable pre-order now for $199.

The new watch is conceived as a modern remake 2015 Pebble Time Round. Pebbles fans loved around the clock, and every new product thread on the Pebble subreddit has at least a few comments asking for a new version. This wish was granted. (I noticed that there was a teaser on the Pebble website urging people who visited the site to “check again” to see what was in today's announcement. Nice.)

What's in Pebble Round 2

Pebble Round 2 is a round smartwatch with a stainless steel case. It's about the same size and shape as the old Pebble Time Round, but has a much larger display area with nearly twice the resolution, better angled visibility, significantly improved battery life, and—unusually for a smartwatch these days—no heart rate sensor. Specifications include:

• Battery life 10 to 14 days

• Size 42 millimeters, thickness 8 millimeters (thinner than any Apple Watch)

• Color e-paper screen (the same technology Garmin calls MIP)

• Screen 1.3 inches with a resolution of 260×260.

• Dual microphones for voice input

• Accelerometer

• Magnetometer

• Touch screen

• Fits 20mm watch band (black and brushed silver models) or 14mm watch band (brushed silver and rose gold models)

• Works with iOS and Android

• Tracks steps and sleep

Eric Migikowski, founder of the original Pebble and its modern iteration, Core Devices, told me that the e-paper screen is the same one Garmin used in its older Forerunners. You may remember this I think the Forerunner 255 is one of the best kept secrets. in the world of smart watches, and this MIP screens have some advantages compared to AMOLED displays which are more common these days.

I'll say more about this below, but the lack of a heart rate sensor is an interesting choice. The Pebble Round 2 can still track steps and sleep through motion detection, so it's not like health tracking features are completely missing. But it won't measure your heart rate during exercise or try to measure your heart rate and HRV while you're sleeping.

How the Pebble Round 2 bucks the smartwatch trend (and why it does) likely good thing)

To me this is a really interesting list of characteristics. Microphones for voice input are a new trend that is spreading to more and more watches (as Garmin And Choirs added them to other models this year). Battery life is a nice improvement, as the old Pebble Time Round only had about three days of battery life, and even today's smartwatches often struggle to last more than a few days. The thin body is impressive – I think it's the thinnest on the market right now.

But some aspects seem retro. The display technology is older and appears to be on its way out. And what I, as a fitness writer, can barely wrap my head around is How to release a smartwatch without a heart rate sensor in 2026? This is crazy! Or… this?

Over the last few years, maybe even the last decade, smartwatches and fitness watches have started to move closer to each other. It seems like every device wants to be able to say, “We have that feature too!” So Oura now tracks activity and not just sleep, Whoop tracks steps and not just heart rate and HRV, and Apple – always wanting to be seen as a fitness company but always lagging behind in fitness features – finally in 2025 gave us a real fitness app. These days, every watch has a heart rate sensor, every brand is abandoning MIP-style screens in favor of AMOLED, and there is no longer a categorical difference between smartwatches and fitness watches. Everyone is trying to do everything.

This trend is not necessarily good for users. For example: Garmin needed to add more features to Forerunner 265 to justify the new model, but it already had almost everything a runner could want, at an already premium price. So Garmin added a speaker and microphone to create 570and raised the price by $100. Should a mid-range running watch cost $550?

In contrast, the Pebble Round 2 builds on what it's good at (thin body, e-paper screen, microphone for input) and ignores what Pebble Round 2 users theoretically don't care about. It lacks a heart rate sensor and speaker, but its rectangular sibling, the Pebble Time 2, has both. These two models retail for $199 and $225 respectively.

I'm cautiously optimistic that Pebble's approach may signal a change in trend. Migikovsky wrote in revealing the bankruptcy of the original Pebble company that Pebble could maintain its niche as “That “smartwatches for hackers” but tried to be too many things for too many people (in the same blog post, written in 2017 and updated in 2022, Migikowski notes that the smartwatch market in 2015 was moving towards fitness, but Pebble was not a fitness company and perhaps should not have tried to become one).

“People want different things,” Migikovsky told me during a phone conversation earlier this week. It focuses Pebble's new products on things He would like to use it, not for what he thinks everyone else wants. This could be a risky move as I'm not sure there's a huge market for a smartwatch without a heart rate. But I think he may be right that the smartwatch market is ready to stop being everything to everyone.