Go all the way back to 2014, and on my wrist, I'm almost always wearing a lovely black-and-white-screened digital watch that looks very Casio-like, or a tiny Game Boy. It's showing me the time and wrist notifications, which is more than enough. These were my Pebble years, and I miss them. The Pebble watch is making a comeback now, in 2025. It's an improbable turn of events after the Kickstarter-launched watch company created by Eric Migicovsky was eaten up in a tech turducken, acquired by Fitbit, followed by Fitbit getting acquired by Google.The Pebble's identity disappeared. But Google has released Pebble OS for free to GitHub, and Pebble's original founder has announced he's bringing the smartwatch back. The news broke out of the blue, but the moment I heard the news, I thought, the gum I like is coming back in style. Since those old Pebble days, nothing has ever truly felt Pebble-like again.Migicovsky, Pebble's founder, is starting a new company focused on gadgets like the Pebble. He's starting with a single new Pebble model that will run the old OS and be hackable for new apps and ideas. "I just love gadgets," Migicovsky told me. "I'm just gonna make gadgets because I want them." As opposed to Pebble's mission 10 years ago, Migicovsky's satisfied with making gadgets for small groups of interested people, himself included. It's a return to an indie spirit for the Pebble, which is what it was in the first place.Migicovsky said he contacted Google about open-sourcing PebbleOS a year ago, and Google agreed. The process of making a new Pebble watch was a lot faster. Components are plentiful and the design process came together rapidly, he said.The Pebble could be the first of other devices in a similar spirit, but for now the goal is a 2025 return of a very familiar old wearable friend of mine. I miss the Pebble, and it's probably a great time for its return. Sadly, the Pebble Round isn't making a comeback, at least as far as we know. Sarah Tew/CNETSimple is niceBack in the days of the Pebble, most people I knew wore old-fashioned watches, and the Pebble's smart features felt like the future. Now, most people seem to be wearing smartwatches, and I'm seeing posts about people wanting to wear everyday watches again.The Pebble's return wouldn't be about sneaking the future into the everyday; it would be about taking something overly smart and making it less pushy, more low-key. I'm reminded of the recent social media obsession over the Boox Palma, a phone-like E ink tablet that people seemed to love because it wasn't so needy, so flashy or so deeply smart. It's like my Kindle, which acts as my break from other screens, a partially offline experience. Pebble watches could end up feeling the same way.The new Pebbles won't have touchscreens, just buttons like the old ones did. They'll be square, plastic black and white Pebbles, not round, steel or color-screened (as far as we know so far). They'll be straightforward. It sounds kind of nice.We're in a period where AI is infused in everything, snaking into earbuds, watches and glasses. It's very much the opposite of where we were when the Pebble watch first launched, hinting at things to come. Now, its classic style could help remove some distractions in favor of other thingslike longer battery life.A week between charges?Migicovsky tells me that the new Pebble will have a weeklong battery life, and it'll have that e-paper display that made the old models so fun. Always-on displays are now standard on smartwatches, but weeklong battery life certainly isn't.While Garmin watches and other wearables like Fitbits and the Withings Scanwatch do have longer battery life, a lot of those watches skew to fitness/health focus. Pebble's charms were more about whimsical watch faces, although the new Pebble will have step counting like the last Pebbles did.I've succumbed to everyday charging for smartwatches, or every other day at best. I miss the old days when I could go longer between charges. There will only be one Pebble design this time, but I did like the steel version. Scott Stein/CNETA fun idea while wearables reinvent themselvesThe Pebble makes me think of another favorite little gadget of the past few years, the Panic Playdate. Panic's whimsical tiny game handheld can run all sorts of games as well as self-made projects. Migicovsky is excited about hackable possibilities on the Pebble, pointing out that even coding now can be AI-accelerated.There won't be new types of sensors on the new Pebble. Expect low-energy Bluetooth to be the main way to interface with other devices. Migicovsky isn't revisiting Pebble's ideas for smart straps.Migicovsky sees three steps ahead: making new hardware, updating software bits (including a new Bluetooth driver) and getting a developer community going again to dream up new apps and watch faces. The new Pebble will run old Pebble apps and watch faces, but will more ideas start to sprout up?This might be the perfect time to play around with a fun, hackable smartwatch. Existing smartwatches have turned into a set of predictable features: mobile payments, phone calls and fitness tracking. In the next few years, watches may be changing into AI-injected agent companions, camera-equipped extensions of sensory systems or gesture-enabled companions to smart glasses. The Pebble won't have mobile payments, make phone calls or track your marathons but it could be a really fun alternative to the smartwatches we already have. I want to see what it's like to wear one again.