The Pebble name is back where it belongs & here’s why that matters

Pebble is officially Pebble again. Eric Migicovsky has recovered the trademark and is now using it across the next generation of watches.

The Pebble name returns

This was something I suspected weeks ago. When the Pebble app quietly appeared on the Play Store, the description used the names Pebble 2 Duo and Pebble Time 2. At that point, Eric was still publicly calling them Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2. That shift suggested the trademark had already changed hands or was about to.

Now we have confirmation. This means we are getting a direct continuation by the original founder, using the original name. That matters. It ties the past and present together without caveats or disclaimers. It also sends a clear message to the community. This isn’t just inspired by Pebble. It is Pebble.

The branding also unlocks possibilities that were previously out of reach. There’s nothing stopping the return of official Pebble apps, watchfaces or forks that use the name without legal ambiguity. And with the trademark back, the odds of reclaiming the pebble.com domain suddenly look less far-fetched. Right now it still redirects to the Google Store’s Fitbit section. That could change.

Shipping delays and production tweaks

The transition to the new names comes in the middle of a hardware project that’s still not in mass production. Migicovsky says batch 1 of the Pebble 2 Duo will now ship in late August, with batch 2 expected by mid-September. That’s a delay from the original July estimate, but there’s a reason behind it. The team is trying to improve the waterproofing, potentially pushing past the initial IPX8 spec toward something much deeper.

Adding a speaker this time around has made waterproofing more complicated than it was a decade ago. The engineering work involves repeated tests with wait times built in, thanks to glue curing cycles. All of this takes time, which is why production has been pushed back.

Hardware tweaks and fun bugs

Hardware testing has brought its usual share of surprises. A clicking sound during speaker playback caused a moment of panic before the team discovered it was a software issue, not a hardware defect. The speaker and mic hardware are both working well now. Bluetooth range testing has also started, with early results showing around 140 feet of outdoor range, depending on the environment.

There’s also progress on the Pebble Time 2. The device is now in the engineering verification test phase, and the first fully assembled unit was expected to arrive this week. PebbleOS has already booted successfully, and there are early signs that the new version will look a bit sleeker than what was originally planned.

With the Pebble name now officially back, Migicovsky says others can also use the Pebble and PebbleOS trademarks for software and hardware projects. There are a few guidelines to follow, mostly to keep the brand consistent. And while the company behind the project is still called Core Devices, the watches are now unmistakably Pebble.

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