Back on March 19, which somehow frighteningly seems like such a long time ago, I reported that Eric Migicovsky, the founder of the original Pebble, had unveiled two new Pebble smartwatches under his company, Core Devices: the Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2.
Google, owner of Fitbit (which owns Pebble), had open-sourced Pebble’s operating system back in January so that anyone could develop a simplistic, bare-bones smartwatch based on Pebble OS.
Now, Migicovsky has released a demonstration of the two upcoming Pebbles on YouTube, and along with the demo, there’s a Q&A with some illuminating information regarding the problems Trump’s tariffs are causing for the young company.
tariff woes
Don’t remember the Pebble? When it launched in 2013, smartwatches were still in their infancy. The Pebble watch was eventually eclipsed by Pixel, Galaxy, and Apple smartwatches’ feature-packed models, and the original Pebble company folded in December 2016.
Pebble smartwatches’ appeal, now as well as back then, was their simplicity and clean user interface. “It comes down to 5 key features: Hackable, always-on e-paper screen, long battery life, simple and beautiful design, (and) physical buttons,” Migicovsky wrote on his blog when his company announced the two new watches.
Because of the tariff on Chinese electronics, and the fact that the Pebble watches are built in China, the situation has thrown a bit of a wrench into Core Device’s plans.
“For all non-US orders… we’re going to ship directly from Asia, so your shipment won’t be subject to the US tariffs,” says Migicovsky in the video.
“The US tariffs on China-made smartwatches are 27.5 percent. Our plan is for Core Devices to bulk-import all the shipments going to the US, so we pay a tariff only on the cost to our factory. This means the additional cost for each shipment will be between $10-$25 more.”
It just goes to show you how the effects from a tariff that’s outwardly aimed at China tend to boomerang back on companies formed right here in the US.
You can preorder a Core 2 Duo for $149, and they’ll begin shipping out in July of this year. Meanwhile, you can preorder a Core Time 2 for $225, and they’ll begin shipping out in December of this year.
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