Meet Pebble Time Round, Pebble's seriously thin, circular smartwatch (hands-on)

The watch in my hands doesn't look like a smartwatch.

I'm surprised. Maybe a bit confused. Pebble, a company that pioneered the modern wave of smartwatches in 2013, has already released two new watches over the past few months. And now, here is another. Round. Small and thin, too. I strapped an all-black model on my wrist. The screen almost seems too small. But it's also shockingly, impossibly thin.

At the top floor of a midtown Manhattan office building, CEO Eric Migicovsky had all the previous Pebble watches laid out when I arrived. The original plastic Pebble, Pebble Steel and this year's Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel. A family tree of square-faced watches, but with evolving designs. All, however, now run the same exact software. And the new Round is the next in the series. I tried them all on as we talked about the future of smartwatches.

Editor's note: The Pebble Time Round will need to have apps updated to work on its circular display, according to Pebble.

So what's new?

The Pebble Time Round will debut this November, but is available for pre-order now from Pebble, Best Buy, Target and Amazon. It costs $250, the same price as the Pebble Time Steel, but more than the Pebble Time. (UK and Australian prices were not announced, but the Steel costs £180 or around AU$360.)

The round display and design are the new things here. It's still got three buttons on the right and one on the left, but differently placed. It feels less smartwatchy. But the new round color "e-paper" (a type of highly reflective LCD) display seems small, bordered by a very large round bezel. Why the round bezel, I ask? I'm told it's for the design, but I'd prefer a larger screen.

"It has the same features, pretty much, as Pebble Time: color e-paper screen, microphone for voice responses," explains Migicovsky. "We think it actually attracts a fairly different eye."

The Time Round uses the same OS as previous Pebble watches, mostly, with its clever timeline-based way of looking at future or past events, but it conforms to the round display a bit like Android Wear does. And there's another catch: apps and watch faces will need to be updated to work on this watch. Migicovsky says that won't take developers much effort, but I didn't get to see much of that in action during my demo.

The Round still has the same microphone as the new Pebble Time models to record voice notes or dictate quick replies when connected to Android phones (and Google apps on iOS), but it lacks the previous Pebble watch water resistance. You can wear the Round while washing your hands, but not for showering or swimming (it's IPX7, as opposed to 3 ATM; a big difference).

The battery life has also taken a hit: it now lasts two days, instead of the seven days or more of previous Pebbles. It seems like a strange choice. Battery life was the shining star of the older Pebbles, and now these watches take it away. But Migicovsky sees battery efficiency as a tool that can work both ways. "We look at battery power and battery life as one of our core competencies, but also one of our biggest advantages," Migicovsky said to me. "Battery life gave us the flexibility to try to build something extraordinarily small." Since the Pebble watches are very power efficient, even a smaller watch could still last as long as larger, bulkier competitors.

I'm upset at this decision, but then I realize that the other Pebble watches aren't going away. These are alternative options. Some people might choose style over function. I'm not that person. But if Pebble's goal to end up on more wrists, the Pebble Time Round is a smart way to accomplish that goal. The designs I saw, all created in-house by Pebble, cover a wide spectrum: classic-looking leather with white dials, bold red, all-black and lots of gold-colored metal.

The Pebble Time Round comes in silver, black or rose gold, all stainless steel with glass displays. The large bezels are available a range of colors and designs. They really do look a lot like regular watches, and a few were pretty stand-out: the brown-leather banded steel model with a white bezel caught my eye. The 38.5mm body feels equivalent in diameter to the smaller-size Apple Watch, but a lot thinner. Its range of bezels and strap designs -- with 20 or 14mm strap watch models -- give the Round a range of different looks. The small e-paper screen looked a little dark in the ambient light of the office we were in, but got much clearer in direct light.

Many watches, one set of software

The release of the Pebble Time Round will come alongside updates to the rest of the Pebble watches to finally give them all the same system software, and nearly the same functions.

That seems like a big deal to Migicovsky, and to Pebble: make one platform, not several. Even the oldest Pebbles that debuted in 2013 will get the new and useful at-a-glance Pebble timeline feature, and a firmware update that will enable "unlimited" app storage, versus the current eight slots (apps still tend to load up from the phone's Pebble app when unused for a while, but it's better than the old system). It means the Pebble Time Round is one more watch running common Pebble software.

"We designed Timeline to run across all the different watches on the platform, and designed them for pretty specific reasons," says Migicovsky. "The Pebble Time will catch one person's eye, and someone else will be attracted to Pebble Time Round. And I think that's okay. It's not one size fits all."

But it's also a big departure. This new watch leans more to fashion. It's clearly trying to be something men and women alike might wear. And, it makes deliberate compromises -- on battery life and water resistance -- to get to that size. It's a deliberate gamble.

What happens to those people who already backed the Pebble Time, or bought one? To Migicovsky, all Pebble watches will be equally good at their basic functions. But it might annoy people (like me) who didn't expect another Pebble watch right around the corner. Pebble is also offering current Pebble Time Steel backers a chance to change their order to a Time Round, or try both and keep the one they want most. (Or, buy both and get a $50 discount.)

The future still lies in smart straps, and fitness

The Pebble Time Round has the same charge connector as the Pebble Time watches and can hook into the same future-targeted smart straps: sensor-studded straps that will draw power from that rear port. But those straps won't see the light of day until sometime next year.

"There are a lot of companies that are pursuing some really interesting battery straps, GPS straps, sensor straps, but nothing at the consumer stage yet. I'd say that we're still about 8-12 months away," Migicovsky said of smart strap development. Pebble has invested in strap development and has organized "hackathons," but hasn't committed to making its own strap accessories yet. Some, like GPS sensor straps, will undoubtedly be fitness-focused.

Too many watches, or one watch in many forms?

There are more smartwatches than ever, and tons of fitness trackers. This doesn't seem to phase Migicovsky, but he acknowledges the changes in the landscape: "The Apple Watch has had a dramatic impact on the industry. There's no beating around the bush here. Apple has the power into come into TVs, watches, cars, and they shake things up. I think what's amazing about Apple's strategy is they've been so clear about what they're doing. They're building the Tag [Heuer] of the smartwatch world, the Rolex, the Hermes. And I think they're proud of it. That's not what I would choose, but it's definitely their choice, and they're sticking with it. We, on the other hand, are embracing kind of the Swatch end of the spectrum."

Migicovsky hinted at continuous software updates going forward for all Pebble watches, and more fitness updates coming soon. "We're going to be doing a lot more with fitness and activity tracking over the next couple of months," he said, reminding me that Pebble's always been fitness focused since the original Pebble Kickstarter video more than three years ago. That's good news, because the landscape's getting a lot more crowded with fitness trackers and smartwatches.

And for Pebble, time is ticking.