Stefan Mileschin

It appears that Pebble's smartwatch is officially feeling its largest growing pain since debuting just two months ago. A five-page long (and growing) thread on the company's forum has some owners describing a bug that's leaving their Pebbles pebbled bricked after shutdown. Pebble's Eric Migicovsky let us know that the company is actively replacing affected units, while examining those being sent in to find out the root cause:

We've had reports of this issue, and we understand of course that it's annoying for users. We're replacing any Pebbles for users who report this issue. We're reviewing the Pebbles that get returned, working to get to the bottom of the issue. We have our support team ready to follow up to any user that reports this issue.

As it stands, there's no word on whether firmware update 1.9 has any role in keeping the devices from turning on after being shut down. Owners have further reported that no amount of charging their Pebble will help it to actually come back to life. We've reached out to the company for more info on the matter (including nailing down how many units the company has replaced so far), and we'll be sure to keep you updated. For now, let us know whether your experience with Pebble has been rocky at all so far.

Update: That was fast -- apparently Pebble has received about 30 reports of this issue since Friday. Here's the official word from Migicovsky:

We're tracking a few reports of this issue. Up to Friday, we've had 20-30 reports (out of 30,000+ pebbles in the field). We've gotten several back to the office, and we're getting to the bottom of it.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/23/p...report-owners/