Pebble's warranty backlash just got a surprising response from its founder

Core Devices founder Eric Migicovsky is standing behind the Pebble Time 2's 30-day warranty in a new interview, arguing that trust matters more than paperwork. That's a bold claim for a five-person team whose watch has already needed hundreds of free replacements, and it's worth weighing against the best smartwatches you're considering right now.

Migicovsky says trust matters more than a 30-day clock

In a new interview this week, Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble and CEO of Core Devices, addressed the backlash over the Pebble Time 2's 30-day warranty directly. His answer wasn't a policy change. It was a philosophy.



That's a different promise than a longer warranty. Core Devices' own site still lists 30 days as the official policy, with a free replacement once you ship a faulty watch back.

But in a blog post published days later, the company went further: every verified hardware issue has gotten a free fix, warranty period or not. Our own review of the Pebble Time 2 called that same window "frankly abysmal" a month ago, so this shift stands out.

What a 30-day warranty actually buys you here

If you own a Galaxy Watch, an Apple Watch or a Pixel Watch, this doesn't affect you at all, as Samsung, Apple and Google back their wearables with a standard one-year warranty. That's easy coverage to offer at their scale.

However, Pebble can't offer that math, and Migicovsky isn't pretending otherwise. What he's offering is a track record. Core Devices says it has replaced 330 Pebble Time 2 units out of more than 19,000 shipped, warranty eligibility aside.



That's the part that wins me over. A small team eating the cost of every legitimate defect, instead of hiding behind fine print, is the kind of scrappy commitment that made the original Pebble worth rooting for a decade ago.

What to do if your Pebble breaks

If you own a Pebble Time 2 and something breaks, the process is simple. File a bug report with photos or video through the Pebble app, and Core Devices ships a free replacement once verified, whether you're a day or a year past that cutoff.

Migicovsky has also floated selling the front glass assembly separately for self-repair down the line. Nothing's confirmed, but it echoes the repair options Apple only recently opened up.

Here's why I want this scrappy approach to work

I don't own a Pebble, but I've followed this comeback since Google open-sourced PebbleOS, and there's something charming about a five-person team replacing watches for free instead of hiding behind a warranty clause. That's not how most companies behave once they've scaled past a garage.

A longer warranty would be the safer promise to make. But Migicovsky is betting people would rather trust a small team that owns its mistakes than sign up for a year of coverage from a company that barely picks up the phone. So far, that bet is paying off, and I'd love to see Core Devices keep it that way once these watches stop being a novelty.

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