> new round square look

I really like the term "squircle"

"The new pebble time 2 sports the chic squircle aesthetic"

That sounds way too American

Haha, I can't think of anything distinctly American about it. A cursory search suggests it's a word coined by an Austrian architect while he was working in Canada.

Just the way the word sounds

Clicked 6 links, googled stuff, couldn't figure this out. Makes me so, so, so irrationally upset. I do not get it. It's just basics? Thanks for sharing this.

I’m shocked they think they can get such long battery life with a heart rate monitor running all the time.

There are a bunch of weird smartwatches that get pretty close to this - for example, the Amazfit Bip S Lite claims 30 days of battery with a similar transflective screen (albeit I think the heart rate monitor drops to once every measuring 5 minutes in battery saver mode).

Similarly, the Withings Scanwatch claims the same, although as a hybrid smartwatch, it is not driving such a power-hungry screen.

I had the OG Bip and got extremely close to 3 months at one point. Unfortunately I don't remember if I had the HR set to 5 minute intervals but if it was on, I think that was the setting.

Even with 1 minute intervals though, battery life was absolutely stellar. I'd often lose my charger, and in few days after I saw the battery dropping/low battery alerts, I'd find it too (before the watch died)!

I would expect an extremely infrequent heart rate sample rate at idle. I believe the current-gen watches only sample every 10 minutes unless activity is detected.

it'll probably pulse on / off. The main draw would be the display but since it's e-ink it only draws when changing.

I guess so. I've had two previous fitbits and I believe those track every second during exercise and every five minutes otherwise. But those watches would still only get 5-7 days of battery life.

Hence my skepticism that this feature can be offered and still get 4x more life than that.

it's e-paper (reflective lcd), so it does draw some power at all times, but lower without an always on backlight

I don't know if it's the same thing, but Sharp Memory LCD has low quiescent consumption and memory somehow built into the display.

https://sharpdevices.com/memory-lcd/

Did they give up on the “Core” branding?

When I was looking at this a month ago it was the “Core 2 Duo”

https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watch...

Maybe Intel had a word?

They recently recovered the 'Pebble' trademark and thus rebranded: https://ericmigi.com/blog/july-pebble-update

And much needed, because to me at least, "Core 2 Duo" is an old Intel processor.

Check out the first 1 minute of the linked video for answers to both of these questions.