Pebble Time 2 Is Back From the Dead — And Somehow Still Cool in 2025

Breaking news from the “tech products that just won’t stay dead” department: Pebble, the smartwatch brand that Kickstarter’ed its way into our hearts in 2012, then got Fitbit’ed into oblivion in 2016, has somehow risen from the digital grave to announce the final design of its Pebble Time 2. And by final, they mean “until we inevitably tweak it again after reading Reddit comments.”

This is not to be confused with the “Core 2 Duo” or “Core Time 2” — names so generic they sounded like a Dell marketing intern’s leftover PowerPoint slides from 2008. Now that the company has miraculously “recovered” the Pebble trademark, they can once again slap that retro-geek cachet on the box, as if to whisper: Remember when we were relevant?

The Design Reveal: Now With More Words Than You Asked For

The Pebble Time 2 was originally teased in March with “preliminary designs,” which apparently meant some CAD files and a mood board. Since then, they’ve “tweaked and improved” the industrial design. Translation: the watch now looks 5% more expensive and 15% more like something you’ll find in a Kickstarter “tech for minimalists” ad.

Pebble’s CEO giddily mentions having a working early engineering sample “on my wrist,” reminding us that even after a decade of smartwatches, we’re still in the weird era where tech founders think strapping their own product to their body is newsworthy. (“Look! I’m wearing it! It works! This isn’t vaporware! Probably!”)

We also get multiple glamour shots, presumably to prove that yes, a smartwatch can still look like an actual watch and not like an awkward square trying to cosplay as jewelry.

Colourways: Because You Can’t Spell ‘Customization’ Without ‘Marketing Delay’

In a masterclass of hype without commitment, Pebble has announced four colourways… with no actual colours chosen yet. They’re not even named. For now, your Pebble Time 2 could come in anything from “Ocean Mist” to “Greige Apocalypse.”

Once they finally pick, they’ll email every pre-order customer to make them choose — a thrilling moment that will inevitably cause some poor warehouse worker to weep when 87% of orders all go for the same colour.

Until then, no need to email Pebble about it, they say, because they’re definitely in control of the situation. (Read: the factory is still waiting on Pantone chips.)

Specs: The Greatest Hits (With a Few B-Sides)

The Pebble Time 2 is bringing all the essentials you didn’t know you needed in 2025, plus a few new tricks:

• Stainless Steel 316 front, back, and buttons — because nothing says “premium” like the same metal your reusable water bottle is made of.
• Knurled buttons — yes, they name-drop this as if we’re all watchmaking nerds who will nod approvingly.
• Multicolour RGB LED backlight — finally, the ability to tell time and host a rave on your wrist.
• Second microphone for “potential environmental noise cancellation” — emphasis on potential. We’re talking feature vaporware that could arrive in a software update… sometime before the climate crisis ends.
• Compass sensor — for when you inevitably get lost trying to navigate Pebble’s UI.

And don’t forget the previously announced hall-of-fame Pebble features:
A 1.5" 64-color e-paper screen (so you can feel smug about battery life while your friends watch Netflix on their Apple Watches), touchscreen, quick-release straps, 30-day battery life (estimate), heart rate monitor, step and sleep tracking, speaker, vibrator (for notifications… probably), and “waterproof” status — with the exact rating TBD, which is exactly what you want to hear before taking your $225 gadget into the pool.

The Great Pre-Order Shuffle

Here’s where Pebble really flexes its Kickstarter DNA: the “don’t cancel your order or you’ll lose your place in line” clause. If you ordered the Pebble 2 Duo but now want the Pebble Time 2, you must wait patiently for a survey link. Canceling is forbidden. This is how cults work, but with stainless steel bezels.

It’s a delicate game of supply chain musical chairs: keep your seat and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be rewarded with a watch in the colourway you wanted. Change your mind the wrong way, and you’ll be demoted to smartwatch purgatory with the rest of the non-believers.

Pebble in 2025: The Retro-Tech Revival Nobody Predicted

To fully appreciate this moment, you have to remember: Pebble was the original smartwatch darling, the underdog that got Apple and Samsung to notice the category. Then it got acquired by Fitbit, which was later absorbed into Google, leaving the Pebble brand to vanish like an email attachment in the spam folder.

And now, somehow, it’s back — not through a glossy Google rebrand, but in a scrappy indie sequel with product shots that look like they were taken for an Etsy page selling “handcrafted artisanal smartwatches.”

It’s endearing, in the same way buying vinyl records or brewing pour-over coffee is endearing: a mix of nostalgia, irony, and stubborn resistance to the mainstream. This is not just a smartwatch — it’s a statement that says, “I liked wearable tech before it was cool, and I’m still here.”

The $225 Question

Pebble is offering the Time 2 for $225, which puts it in a strange middle ground: too expensive for an impulse buy, too cheap to impress your Rolex-wearing coworkers, and exactly in the range where you’ll regret it if the “potential environmental noise cancellation” turns into actual environmental noise amplification.

But this is Pebble’s sweet spot: appealing to a core group of fans who will happily pay for the brand’s combination of practicality (30-day battery life) and stubbornness (still e-paper in 2025, deal with it).

Will It Succeed?

The realist in me says the smartwatch market in 2025 is a knife fight between Apple, Samsung, Garmin, and a dozen Chinese OEMs who can make a functional clone for $29.99. The romantic in me wants Pebble to pull off a ridiculous comeback story just to see the look on Tim Cook’s face.

The truth? Pebble Time 2 probably won’t change the industry. It won’t dominate the market. It won’t even trend on TikTok unless someone straps one to a raccoon. But it will sell to exactly the kind of people Pebble has always appealed to: tech nostalgists, indie hardware supporters, and anyone who still thinks a month of battery life is worth sacrificing Instagram scrolling on your wrist.

And honestly? That’s fine. Not every tech product needs to conquer the world. Some just need to show up, tick, and remind us that sometimes the underdog gets one more round in the ring.