Why I spent $225 on an old, outdated Pebble smartwatch

As a consumer tech writer/reviewer, I’m privileged to have access to numerous smartwatches at any given time — often flagship, high-end ones, too. Right now, I’m wearing the excellent OnePlus Watch 3. Before that, I was wearing an Apple Watch Ultra 2. I also have the Google Pixel Watch 3, a couple of Garmin watches, and some Amazfit ones, too. Suffice it to say that I don’t need any more smartwatches; I have some of the best models you can buy in 2025. But even so, I just spent $225 on one that’s objectively worse than all of the competition. The smartwatch in question is the Core Time 2, which, for all intents and purposes, is a resurrected Pebble Time 2. Pebble’s founder and former CEO, Eric Migicovsky, recently launched a new company called Core Devices — and its first two products are smartwatches running PebbleOS. While they aren’t branded as Pebble watches, that’s essentially what they are. They have e-paper screens, run the same Pebble software as your old Pebble did, and are ... Read full article.