Pebble Mega Update – July 2026
repebble.com
repebble.com
> Why can't it be recharged?
> We considered this but decided not to for several reasons:
> You'd probably lose the charger before the battery runs out!
> Adding charge circuitry and including a charger would make the product larger and more expensive.
> You send it back to us to recycle.
I don't think this is true. The charging circuit could have been in the charger itself. To provide access to the battery, one of the terminals could be behind a transistor enabled by the micro. The charger could then send a signal to the ring to unlock the battery terminal. Then all you needed to do was expose two/three pads externally.
> Wait, it's single use? Yes. We know this sounds a bit odd, but in this particular circumstance we believe it's the best solution to the given set of constraints
I don't want to be too harsh, since it seems like the pebble team are working hard at producing some exciting tech. But intentionally making a single use device is phenomenally irresponsible in today's climate.
I know they say they'll recycle them, but it'd be naive to expect anything other than a tonne of these becoming e-waste.
I think the amount of ewaste is pretty small. My uneducated guess is that it's probably about the same as a musical birthday card. And unlike a singing card that probably gets used a dozen times and thrown away, the Index can be used >10,000 times before it's time to recycle it (assuming it lives up to the specs)
For comparison, check out the rechargable Stream ring. It's bulkier, costs >2x as much (before including subscription... The sub alone costs more than buying an index every 2 years), and needs to be recharged every night. It's sort of in line with Pebbles advantage over other smart watches- doesn't need to sleep on a charger every night
I assume you will use your phone for 20-40 years?
So making this single use is kinda flying into the wind in that regard.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/07/14/apple-watch-meta-...
- Human impact on the environment, which e-waste is a big part of, is causing damage to wildlife, and serious climate change.
- There's huge awareness of and push back against bad hardware practices (often around non-replacable batteries) so they must have at least considered this.
But even more so than that, your own wikipedia article seems to fly in the face of your point:
> Estimated annual temperatures in 1540 were by far the highest between 1500 and 2000, while estimated precipitation was by far the lowest registered until 2025
The weather events we're seeing now are even more extreme that those of 1540, but the impact hasn't been as severe because our food and water supply chains are more resilient.
HOT WEATHER. Many a man has mopped his brow during the summer months of 1884, declaring it was the hottest weather the world ever knew, which, of course, would not be true for the extreme heat in the records of the past, which has not been approached during the late summer.
In 627, the heat was so great in France and Germany, says the London Standard, that all springs dried up, water became so scarce that many people died of thirst.
In 879, work in the field had to be given up; agricultural laborers persisting in their work were struck down in a few minutes—so powerful was the sun.
In 993, the sun's rays were so fierce that vegetation burned up as under the action of fire.
In 1000, rivers ran dry; under the protracted heat, the fish were left dry in heaps and putrefied in a few hours. Men and animals venturing in the sun in the summer of 1022 fell down dying.
In 1132, not only did the rivers dry up, but the ground cracked and became baked to the hardness of stone. The Rhine in Alsace nearly dried up. Italy was visited with terrific heat in 1139; vegetation and plants were burned up. During the battle of Bela in 1200, there were more victims made by the sun than by weapons; men fell down sunstruck in regular rows. The sun of 1277 was also severe; there was an absolute dearth of forage.
In 1303 and 1304, the Rhine, Loire, and Seine ran dry. In 1615, the heat throughout Europe became excessive; Scotland suffered particularly. In 1625, men and beasts died in scores. Meat could be cooked by merely exposing it to the sun. Not a soul dared to venture out between noon and 4 PM. In 1718, many shops had to be closed; the theatres were never opened for several months. Not a drop of water fell during six months.
In 1753, the thermometer rose to one hundred and eighteen degrees. In 1779, the heat at Bologna was so great that a large number of people died. In July 1793, the heat became intolerable; vegetables were burned up and fruit dried upon the trees. The furniture and woodwork in dwelling houses cracked and split up; meat became bad in an hour.
In Paris, in 1846, the thermometer marked one hundred and twenty-five degrees in the sun. The summers of 1859, 1860, 1869, 1870, 1874, etc., although excessively hot, were not attended by any disaster.
They would also need to ship a separate charger device to go with it, which approaches the complexity of the simple ring product.
These are solvable problems, but it would increase the cost, decrease their margins, or both.
For a niche, low volume product with an unknown market demand I think making the simplest possible version of the product is a good idea to start, but at $99 it’s getting into the range where buyers don’t want to think of it as a disposable item.
The bigger problem is that the 2 year battery life depends on the device being used for only short notes like “Add milk to the grocery list”. The people who expect to use this for taking notes or thinking out loud could exhaust the battery in a couple months.
This is a solved problem though. Wireless earbuds can do it. We're probably just talking about a TVS diode.
> For a niche, low volume product with an unknown market demand I think making the simplest possible version of the product is a good idea to start, but at $99 it’s getting into the range where buyers don’t want to think of it as a disposable item.
> The bigger problem is that the 2 year battery life depends on the device being used for only short notes like “Add milk to the grocery list”. The people who expect to use this for taking notes or thinking out loud could exhaust the battery in a couple months.
$75 for a use once device that could last as little as a few months under normal usage, or $100 for something that could operate for 5+ years. Knowing whether there is a market is always difficult, but if you do crack a market you typically only get one chance to get people onboard.
They’re all solved problems!
That doesn’t change the fact that every additional complication adds cost, complexity, failure points, more warranty returns, and time to market.
Saying it’s just a transistor and a TVS ignores the hard parts like sealing the enclosure and building an entire second device to charge it.
Solvable, but less so for a low volume product with unproven demand. You have to be building a lot of a product to offset the costs of developing it.
> $75 for a use once device that could last as little as a few months under normal usage, or $100 for something that could operate for 5+ years.
The retail price of this device is $99. The $75 is only for the promotional preorder period.
It’s already a $100 product. Adding charging ports and a separate charger is going to be even more expensive unless they start shipping 100,000s of these to build at scale.
Just have a look at Google results: https://www.google.com/search?q=garmin+watch+contacts+corrod...
edit: Done. :-D Better safe than sorry.
I’m sure we can figure this one out too.
I agree losing the charger is actually pretty likely but THAT'S ON ME. For a $75 product, I don't want to consider it a consumable.
So 100% agreed, +$10 add terminals and a special charger.
> Roughly 12 to 15 hours of recording. On average, I use it 10-20 times per day to record 3-6 second thoughts. That's up to 2 years of usage.
2 years is optimistic I think. 3-6 second thoughts is not much, most ideas I'm having past TODOs are >15 seconds. Plus this would definitely depend also on how regularly you sync to the app.
Bare in mind, these devices have not yet been used in the wild on people outside of the product creator. Maybe one of the use cases is to note down monologues, or to easily record conversations with clients for later review.
1 month battery life is also highly usable, but there at least should be a way to charge it.
You could even make it a seperate item - buy one with/without the charger, then in 2 years you decide if you want the charger or an upgrade.
It’s effectively a regular ring with a button on it that’s smaller than a typical 1ct engagement ring. The oura by contrast (even the 4) is a chonker compared to “regular” wedding bands. I’ve tried in the past but personally a very thick ring is a non-starter for me. Might just be a personal sensitivity thing. Clearly the oura sells.
From a V1/MVP/founder lens I am sensitive to the value in shipping a product that just works rather than doubling the complexity with a bms, custom charger, wrap around flex pcb, and associated engineering effort to mitigate ignition hazards. Especially when there’s platform risk in seeing if this thing even gets used. There’s no platform risk on the watch side which has comes miles from my first pebble/Alerta that was one day charge and blackberry phone compatible only.
As for the ewaste argument? If the market demands a rechargeable product then that’s the right move. But from a weight perspective? This feels performative. Even pessimistically three-four 5g device that are 0% recyclable will generate less ewaste than a 200g phone with 55% recovery and a 5% recapture rate of obsolete devices thats turn over every 3.5 years. It’s like 10x less and probably in the ballpark of what a hypothetical “rechargeable” index would look like.
Assuming most of the weight of that ring is the battery, it appears to be storing around 0.5Wh, so two years of operation should amount to approximately 30uW of power.
It should be possible to squeeze this much from a 0.5mm2 amorphous cell in direct sunlight. Considering the ring is 6.6mm wide at the widest point, they could get orders of magnitude more power even in poor lighting conditions, by just wrapping a thin-film solar panel around the ring.
EDIT:
Or just slap on four of these photodiodes:
https://www.sparkfun.com/miniature-solar-cell-bpw34.html
They're tiny, they're light and even though woefully inefficient, they should do the trick.
This is version one, I'm not particularly worried as I will probably upgrade to version two by the time the battery runs out.
So it’s a brick as soon as the battery goes flat?
> Adding the port, the USB-C PD circuitry may take up too much room.
You don't need PD circuitry for this. 5V 500mA over USB2 is more than enough. But the actual port and battery charging circuit is a bit ridiculous at this size.
I'm not sure precisely what the EU rules are, but the requirement should really depend on the dimensions/power of the device.
That seems extremely little for 100$...
> When in doubt, order a larger size. You can always adjust a larger Index 01 to feel smaller with a foam adhesive or clip but you can’t make it larger!
Size up and shim it with foam!
The ring has a button on it that you are going to press often, and you will likely wear it on a different finger than you would normally wear a ring on. That is/was the advantage of the sizing kit IMO: you can try the different sizes and wear the "dummy" ring for a couple of hours or a day and get a better idea of what size and finger will work best for you.
I think calling the ring sizing a "debacle" is being a little over-dramatic. It is a shame the ring kit is off on sizing, but how big of a problem it is, is kind of an unknown right now. It's a limited production product, there will be problems at the start, just like there have been with the Pebble Time 2.
How do you manufacture a ring and not know what size it is / sell it to people?
What's worse, I threw it out when I was done, given that it was a PLA sheet with no other apparent use, with it being nonstandard and all. So now I'm not even sure if I need to size up, because I'm not going to buy a second sizing kit to refresh myself on the fit.
Like, come on.
> Yes, we warrant against manufacturing defects for 30 days after you receive your order.
Is this the shortest warranty on a consumer electronics device ever? What on earth are they thinking.
The EU came from the "European Union of coal and steel". It's a business first, not a government. And yes, they've really deceived a lot of people about this.
That's why we have the DMA ... except for Apple ... except for Google, as if that doesn't negate the entire law.
That's why we have the GPDR, except for (just for the Netherlands) any company the government wants https://www.avgregisterrijksoverheid.nl/ (specifically this negates the purpose of the GPDR. The first purpose of it was to protect your medical data from insurers, taxes, police and courts, so the insurer cannot decide you're committing fraud based on your medical data, or raise prices for you, or ... for example) well "ministerie-van-sociale-zaken-en-werkgelegenheid" has a specific exemption so they can regulate whether unemployment money can be used for medical treatment, and which ones ... And that's just one example.
That is true, but omits an important part of the motive for that. The aim was to tie France and Germany together economically to discourage them from going to war again.
It became irrelevant quite quickly due to the cold war and NATO, but it was an important part of what was intended.
And of course, we keep having people claiming that they were, despite a decade of complaints about it, including in courts, somehow not aware that they were doing this. Why?
To say nothing of the other problems with Chinese goods: repression, use of slavery, use of child labor, ...
Now they'll do something about China (or so they claim) ... right after they created the same situation for South America, who also have a history of moral failings when it comes to products: repression, use of slavery, use of child labor, ...
This is exactly what I'd expect a business conglomerate, willing to make any compromise, allow any practice, as long as they can deflect blame and make a lot of money on it ... exactly
And if the EU tries to do something structural about it the backlash is enormous - look at that 3 euro fee for packages for example.
Usually the terms will use wording like "30 days or the minimum applicable by law".
My guess is that if you got a bad unit and discovered it later when the software was updated, they'd probably swap the unit for you. That seems like more of a no-brainer than the screen crack replacements they're apparently doing.
> most frequent are problems with the touch panel. At first, we thought this could be a hardware problem and replaced around 70 watches. After reviewing the units with our factory, we now believe this could be a software bug. We’re working to fix these issues with a software update - if we can’t, we’ll replace the affected watches (regardless of your warranty eligibility).
When leaders are both technical and open about these sorts of things it makes me feel like I can trust that they are invested in supporting and improving their products.
To be clear: 51 broken screens in less than two months results in a yearly failure rate of over 1% which is find quite high for a watch.
The device is being marketed as external memory for your brain. I'm hardly a philosopher, but I don't have many useful thoughts that are 3-6 seconds in length. heck, when i try to voice record a thought, i'm uhming and erring for the at least 3 seconds.
But there are 1,000s of us that heard about it, researched the limitations.. and still bought one immediately.
At $100 even if it only lasts a year it would still be worth it. For me.
No one is using the thing like a dedicated microphone to record their entire day's audio, it's a note-taking tool.
The original Time was my first smartwatch, which I used for maybe 7 years, until decided to sell it after briefly switching to iphone.
Since then I was constantly looking for something similar in terms of capabilities and battery life.
I pre-ordered my Time 2 immediately after it opened, but since then I started regretting my decision. It's quite an expensive watch, and I got used to living without it, so it the spending seemed unjustified.
But all regrets went away when I received the package. It's a good product. Excited for you too!
Seiko doesn't seem to make the movement in my watch anymore (5M83), but the equivalent automatic-winding mechanical watch can be had for under $200 still.
Casio and Citizen sell analog watches for under $100.
But there are also a lot of watches that are more expensive, way more expensive than the pebble. Plus the typical price for the smartwatches, I just checked the Samsung galaxy watch, over 300€. The pebble looks fine there.
I've been on Amazfit Bip S. That's 10% of the price if we account for taxes and delivery.
And I haven't even considered the vast majority of alternatives due to (IMO) ugly OLED screens. Wouldn't buy any of those even for 30$, but you're right, they can be quite expensive.
The Pebble Time 2 is a huge step up from the Pebble 2 Duo in almost every conceivable way, but the contrast ratio on the latter is so much better that I still wear the P2D instead of the PT2, and just resign myself to deal with the lower resolution screen and inferior build quality.
Its so good having Pebble back in action though.
>How long does the battery last?
>Roughly 12 to 15 hours of recording. On average, I use it 10-20 times per day to record 3-6 second thoughts. That's up to 2 years of usage.
They then say:
>Wait, it's single use?
>Yes. We know this sounds a bit odd, but in this particular circumstance we believe it's the best solution to the given set of constraints. Other smart rings like Oura cost $250+ and need to be charged every few days. We didn't want to build a device like that. Before the battery runs out, the Pebble app notifies and asks if you'd like to order another ring.
My oura has lasted ~3 years, I recharge it twice a week usually, and I think it has spent way more than 15-20 hours turned on.
Same issue Apple had when the iPod was new. How big is 20 gigs? Better put 150,000 songs instead…
That's like, horror game flashlight levels of longevity.
It's crazy they manage to say this with a straight face when their product still costs $225. Gee, $225 for a disposable piece of e-waste or $250 for a rechargeable device... but hey, at least it reminds you with an advertisement to spend another $225 before it dies!
Also, rechargeable does not mean it is infinitely rechargeable. After around four years, the Oura's battery will not hold a charge long enough to be useful (record a night's sleep), so it is also disposable.
We are comparing apples and oranges though because the Index is not a smart ring.
Update: ah, here (obv the founders claim):
How long does the battery last?
Roughly 12 to 15 hours of recording. On average, I use it 10-20 times per day to record 3-6 second thoughts. That's up to 2 years of usage.
So far it's been working great, and it's allowed me to offload important ideas that are on the tip of my brain.
I am very keen to use the PT2 version. Don't need a dedicated ring.
Is it to download the Pebble mobile app?
I deeply appreciate the battery life personally. Every time I charge it is an opportunity to forget to put it back on. I can go on a long trip and not worry about packing a charger. I can wear it at night to track sleeping more easily. And probably most importantly, with weeks of life, there's basically zero chance of me being surprised at 9am after leaving the house that my watch is about to die in a couple hours.
The reason Pebble has a chance at success is because they carved out a niche years ago, and for some reason no one decided to occupy it in their absence.
I can vouch for the falsity of this statement. I am more than happy to pay hundreds of dollars for a watch that has weeks of battery life and a great UI. Although there are other watches with long battery life (Garmin, and to a lesser extent Amazfit), their UIs are not good.
Apple and others make watches with nice UIs, but of course the battery life is measured in days, not weeks.
It can still tell you the time. Its primary function is a watch.
At least, that's what quartz watches could manage in the early 90s, as does the clock in my microwave oven from the early 2000s. Why would a modern disconnected device would be any worse?
I must say it's a fantastic piece of kit. Not worrying about charging it for 18 days is great and it gave me a little reminder the morning of the day it was expecting to need a recharge (in the evening) so it was nicely thought through.
In terms of usage, it's just right - all vrry intuitive (although weirdly they didn't seem to list anywhere what each of the buttons did, so you need to explore but that's not difficult and you quickly get the hang of it). I used to find with my Google watches it wasn't clear when you were in Google Play looking at watch apps or for phone apps and the whole mental model was surprisingly frustrating but the Pebble nails it with a much more intuitive way.
I think the reason this is so exciting to me is that it's a way to interact with technology that's a lot less "evil" feeling. I am at my best when I'm not looking at screens all day, and the index provides an off-ramp that can potentially move several common workflows off those screens. I think even on my technology-off days, using the ring would still be fine. It also looks cool, and speaking into a ring to make things happen is much more aesthetically pleasing to me than "ok google." I really think you can't discount the cool factor here.
The issues are a bit sad. But I will happily upgrade with the discount to the revised version of time 2.
To me, a Pebble is better than an apple watch due to battery life and hack-ability. Especially with the latest AI models it is just your imagination. And with ASK and Notification Forwarding it will be much closer to a Apple Watch in functionality.
Anyone still expecting anything different is ignoring reality.
It's really not complicated. If you want to continue to be gate kept, use their products and keep giving them your money. If you don't want to be involved with their shady practices, stop giving them your money and using their products.
https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-...
That said, I'm happy with my Pebble on iPhone (though I'd be happier if it had fuller access).
Soon in Europe you can reply to notifications via voice.
Has an updated version been mentioned anywhere?
The what? The only discount mentioned in the article is when they stop replacing cracked glass for free and heavily discount replacements instead.
And the only hardware changes mentioned are making sure they all get assembled correctly.
Hacking your own app is also something easily accessible. When I preordered the watch I thought of a breathing app which could be used with closed eyes. App must indicate breathing phase with vibrations. Guess what? In couple days I got first version running and published (couple more weeks of polishing completely transformed the initial version which still has screenshots in the project folder for historical reasons). In case you also want to meditate/box-breach with your pebble here is it free on any charge
bit of a bummer that the new weather app is not for P2D, but well.
I'm jealous that yours is still working, and I'm looking forward to getting back in the fold. My Fitbit Versa that I finally got after the acquisition is definitely spiritually related, but after Google bought Fitbit and got involved it became terrible with bugs.
Unfortunately it isn't quite everyone, it appears to only be folks affected by the overheating issue and you need to have all the original accessories. I replaced the strap because the one it came with tore.
They didn’t demand any proof or that I send the device back or anything. They just gave me the money which due to exchange rate fluctuations actual turned a profit!
There are other options like Garmin and Amazfit, but honestly the UI on both of those are pretty awful, especially compared to the slick Pebble UI.
I absolutely hated brushing the iWatch screen and triggering random crap and there was no other way to interact with it! Garmin's w/ 5 buttons and transflective (sunlight-readable) displays have been the closest alternative, and they have a pretty cool "touch-screen alt mode" which you can access via press+hold on two of the diagonal buttons to enable/disable (or automatically starts if you open up the "maps" app for dragging it around).
Long battery, sunlight readable, buttons.
Every time he makes a post I can't help but somehow lose even more respect for him and his stupid ring is so enviromentally unfriendly and anticonsumer that even if I was given one for free by him I would likely still spit in his face and cuss him out.
Also... a 30 day warranty? Does he think that's cute? What the f--.
Is my smoke detector "so environmentally unfriendly" because it requires alkaline batteries? There are so many things that are bigger than a ring (and have a greater manufacturing carbon footprint) that we do not think twice about using.
You should worry more about your daily commute than a little ring.
It’s plastic straws all over again.
youve never made a mistake? you didnt think google had at least a decent shot of making pebble even bigger and better? he has not been shy about google's errors in handling pebble post acquisition. please be kinder - this is clearly his passion and he wants to run things his way. let him cook. spitting on a strangers face just because you dont agree with how they run their business when its really none of yours is something you should reflect on.
This project is the continuation of Pebble watches after they sold their assets to Fibit, Fitbit got bought by Google and Google open sourced Pebble software.