It looks like a Pebble, it works like a Pebble, but don’t call it a Pebble. Eric Migicovsky, the original creator of the Pebble smartwatch, just unveiled two new smartwatches — called the Core 2 Duo and the Core Time 2.
These spiritual successors to the Pebble smartwatches are available for preorder, costing $149 and $225, respectively.
If you aren’t familiar with Pebble, the Palo Alto-based startup was one of the first breakthrough successes of the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform — all the way back in 2012. The company created smartwatches before the Apple Watch and Android-based smartwatches existed.
While Pebble managed to sell over 2 million devices, the company abruptly closed in 2016. After an insolvency process, what was left was acquired by rival Fitbit (now a division of Google, of course).
Fast-forward to 2024, Migicovsky had a bold idea: What if we could go back to those simpler times and simpler tech devices? What if we could bring back the spirit of the Pebble?
Google has been surprisingly helpful in this process, as the tech giant is open sourcing PebbleOS, the operating system that powered the original Pebble smartwatches.
While Google acquired Fitbit a few years after Fitbit acquired Pebble’s assets, it turns out that Pebble’s IP wasn’t worth much to Google, so the company decided to give it back to the community of Pebble enthusiasts.
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