Pebble Time 2 review: The perfect smartwatch for a select group of people

It's hard not to sound like a crank when talking about my ideal smartwatch given the prevailing trends. Apple, Samsung, Google and its partners have achieved the miracle of shrinking a general-purpose computing platform into a device that can sit on a wrist. The fancier models even have LTE radios, freeing them from the yoke of needing a smartphone at all. But, what if all you really want is a watch that operates as a companion to your phone, rather than a poor substitute? It was this line of thinking that defined the early smartwatch era , and I think things got a lot worse when we lost that sense of restraint.

So, imagine my delight to see Pebble, back from the dead after nearly a decade in limbo, offering something that now feels radical. Not because of what it does , but because of what it doesn't do . Because this isn't a fitness watch, or a general-purpose computing platform on the wrist, it's a second screen for your phone. You can read notifications, control music playback, check the weather and run basic apps that do a single job at a time. And that's it. This is a watch not for general-purpose users, but for everyone who feels that smartwatches got worse as their missions expanded.

There are few companies as rooted to the early 2010s zeitgeist than Pebble, whose rise and fall exemplified the age. The e-paper smartwatch was the first blockbuster Kickstarter hit, raising more than $10 million with almost 90,000 pre-orders. Almost overnight, Pebbles were the watch of choice for a class of tech devotees who understood the geeks were inheriting the Earth. Two years later, the company raised $20 million for the Pebble Time, with a color display and 80,000 more pre-orders.

Pebble bet the farm mainstream success would follow but, less than a year later, it would be dead, its leftovers bought by Fitbit for three percent of what the company was worth less than 18 months before. The wheel has since spun a few more times and, last year, Fitbit owner Google handed the trademark back to Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky. In January, he explained to me that his mission is to make a smartwatch that empowers its user. With 20,000 orders already, it's clear that even now, there's at least some demand for a different type of wearable.

The Pebble Time 2 looks like it was plucked from the previous decade, because it kinda was. It uses a design laid down for a second-generation (OG) Pebble that never saw the light of day due to the company's demise. It's one heck of an upgrade, refining and tidying up the template, with a more integrated package and better colors. The watch feels a lot nicer than its predecessors, with a CNC-milled, PVD-coated body and stainless steel buttons with knurled edges. For all of Pebble's protestations (and the grousing from Reddit users) that its watches aren't designed for the rough and tumble world, they feel like they could take a beating.

It has a 1.5-inch, 220 x 228, 64-color, always-on e-paper touchscreen which has been optically bonded to its Gorilla Glass crystal. You get the same quartet of buttons found on the original model; back on the left side, and up/down/select on the right. E-paper performs well in bright sunlight, but you'll probably need the backlight a little more than you might expect. You need to pick the right watchface too, because some of them aren't that readable in your peripheral vision. But when you chance upon the right one (Halcyon, it's Halcyon), you'll find things are just smooth from there on out. To trigger the backlight though, you'll need to flick your wrist quite hard, which took me a little while before I got the knack.

Inside, there's a SiFli system-on-chip, which is designed for low-power applications, alongside a 185mAh battery and 32MB flash memory. It's based on ARM's Cortex M33 dual-core platform from 2016, which helps affirm the throwback charm of the Pebble Time 2. Migicovsky jokes that the Pebble Time 2 is running on a "calculator chip" compared to the beefier silicon found inside Apple and Google's timepieces.

The bottom cover is held in place with screws to aid repair, and if you can use a soldering iron, it's possible to replace the battery. On the underside, you'll find the optical heart rate sensor and the magnetically-aligned pogo pins for charging. The Time 2 ships with a little charging adapter, designed by Nomad Goods, which is barely wider than the watch itself. At one end, there's a USB-C port, and you can just hook it up to a USB-C cable, making it wonderfully easy to travel with. Not that you should really need to worry given the Time 2's battery life, which should last for more than a week on a go.