On the Pebble Time 2 and Pebble Round 2, touch is used for two specific things:
Waking the backlight. A tap or double tap on the screen can light up the display in the dark. This is configured on the Backlight settings page, covered there in full.
Apps and watchfaces that choose to support it. Some apps and watchfaces are built to respond to taps, and they can use the touchscreen for their own controls. Touch only does something in an app if that app was written to use it.
The Pebble watch touchscreen is not a general navigation surface the way it is on a phone or an Apple Watch. You do not swipe through menus, tap list items to open them, or scroll by dragging. All of that is still done with the physical buttons (up, select, down, and back). The buttons are the primary way you control the watch, and they always work even with touch turned off or in conditions where touch is unreliable, like wet or gloved hands.
FAST navigation using only buttons!
Our watches are button-first by design. This keeps actions reliable, keeps battery use low, and keeps the always-on screen from reacting to every accidental brush.
The Touch setting
There is a single master switch for the touchscreen on the watch, at Settings → Display → Touch. It shows On or Off.
When you turn Touch off:
The screen stops responding to taps entirely.
The "Wake on touch" backlight option disappears from settings, because there is nothing for it to act on. Wrist motion and buttons still wake the backlight.
Apps that use touch will see that touch is unavailable and can adjust, so they don't look broken.
Reasons you might turn it off:
You keep getting accidental backlight wake-ups from your sleeve or from resting your wrist against something.
You wear the watch somewhere that constantly brushes the screen.
You simply prefer a pure button experience and want to remove any chance of touch doing something unexpected.
The master Touch switch lives on the watch itself, not in the mobile app. The touch-related backlight option (Backlight on Tap) is available in both the mobile app and on the watch, since it's a backlight setting.
Wake on touch (backlight)
The one built-in, system-level use of touch is waking the backlight. You can set it to respond to a single tap, a double tap, or turn it off, separately from the master Touch switch. This feature is explained in depth on our Backlight helpsite page.
Double tap or Single tap (choose this option in your backlight settings)
Touch in apps and watchfaces
If you want touch controls in an app or watchface, look for apps and watchfaces that advertise touch support. There is no setting that forces touch onto an app that doesn't support it. Here are some fun apps that use touch!
