Deliver the first item immediately, ‘debounce’ following items
Update: From @lopar’s comments a better way would be: Observable.from(items).publish(publishedItems -> publishedItems.limit(1).concatWith(publishedItems.skip(1).debounce(1, TimeUnit.SECONDS))) Would something like this work: String[] items = {“one”, “two”, “three”, “four”, “five”}; Observable<String> myObservable = Observable.from(items); Observable.concat( myObservable.first(), myObservable.skip(1).debounce(1, TimeUnit.SECONDS) ).subscribe(s -> System.out.println(s));