Pebble Time Round is the world’s thinnest and lightest smartwatch

"But that bezel though"

This holiday season, consumers will have a ton of new smartwatches to choose from, including the Huawei Watch, Moto 360 (2015), Apple Watch, Gear S2, and, as of today, the Pebble Time Round. Wait, what?

Pebble on Wednesday announced a beautiful new wearable for your wrist, and it actually looks like a watch. Yeah, sure, the Huawei Watch and new Moto 360 have circular faces and try to mimic the timelessness of classic watches, but the Pebble Time Round more closely matches that Timex you got as a Christmas gift a few years ago.

Pebble says the Time Round is the thinnest, lightest smartwatch in the world, which might not sound like a big deal, but the company says it’ll make a huge difference. The thing about smartwatches is that they still seem like wrist computers, obnoxiously big Things that protrude from your arm like a police ankle monitor. But the Time Round is just 7.5mm thin and 28 grams. The new Moto 360 is 11.4mm thick, which seems downright gargantuan in comparison.

But that thinness comes at a cost. Pebble says the battery had to be shrunk down, so instead of the 10 days of battery you might get from the Time Steel, you’ll only get two from the Time Round. Two days in the world of smartwatches is still decent, though it does take some of Pebble’s allure out of the equation, but Pebble claims the tradeoff of fashion over function is worth it. The good news is that customers should get a full day’s use from the battery from just a 15 minute charge.



The only real problem I have with the design is the obnoxiously large bezels, which is something that’s present across all of Pebble’s devices. Maybe it won’t be such a big deal in real world usage, but it looks bad when compared to some of the circular Android Wear watches on the market. Otherwise, Pebble says the Time Round sports an always-on, e-paper display, and will be water resistant.

You can pre-order the Pebble Time Round beginning today for $249, with shipments slated to go out in early November. While the actual watch itself will only come in one size (38mm), customers will get to choose between different band sizes (20mm or 14mm) and colors, including silver, black and rose gold.