New Delhi, June 11 -- When Eric Migicovsky flew to China a few weeks ago to inspect the latest pre-production samples of his company's revived smartwatch, he found something that could not ship: a small indentation near the point where the strap meets the watch face, a cosmetic flaw left behind by the CNC machining process. The fix required adjusting the metal-injection-moulding tooling. Mass production, which had been imminent, stopped.

noting that mass production had not yet started and that no firm date had been set.

That gap between the founder's public reassurance and the company's official documentation captures something worth examining in Pebble's broader comeback story. The brand, resurrected by Migicovsky through his company C...