The Pebble smartwatch was introduced in 2012 as part of a Kickstarter campaign and saw moderate success before the company behind it got bought out by Fitbit. Although a group of enthusiasts kept their Pebble devices alive, including via the alternate Rebble project for online services, it seemed that no new Pebble devices would grace this Earth. However, we now got a flurry of Pebble updates, with Google, the current owner of Fitbit, open sourcing the PebbleOS source, and [Eric Migicovsky] as the original Pebble founder announcing new Pebble watches.
These new Pebble watches would be very much like the original Pebble, though switching from a memory LCD to an e-paper screen but keeping compatibility with the original Pebble watch and its hackability. Currently there’s just a rePebble site where you can sign up for announcements. Over at the Rebble project people are understandably excited, with the PebbleOS source available on GitHub.
A lot of work still remains, of course. The Apache 2.0-licensed PebbleOS source was stripped of everything from fonts to the voice codec and Bluetooth stack, and of course bootstrapping whole new hardware production will require serious investment. Even so, for lovers of smart watches that work with modern-day smartphones, featuring an always-on display and amazing battery life the future has never been more bright.
Thanks to [Will0] for the tip.
E-paper is what Pebble has been calling the Memory LCD before, so I don’t think they’re changing from it, just using the same terminology.
They surely won’t! The cutely animated UI would’t work on a sloooooow e-ink display. The battery life was insane ten years ago, and today with evven better cells and more efficient BT SoCs, it will be even better. I can imagine that Sharp’s display tech is even more efficient now as it was ten years ago.
I hope they’ll stay true to the cute, unbloated UI and sane feature set.
I’m really thrilled! I have a Peebble, a Pebble Time, and I was backing the Time 2.
Even when they would simply release the Time 2 just as it is (of course with all parts updated to current tech) I’d be more than happy :D
The founder of Pebble who is apparently working on RePebble mentions ‘e-paper’ specifically:
https://ericmigi.com/blog/why-were-bringing-pebble-back
Yes, but so did the Pebble Time Kickstarter, and that was a Memory LCD:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/getpebble/pebble-time-awesome-smartwatch-no-compromises
I habe a kickstarter Edition. Wirhout Bluetooth and App you can‘t Even set time. This needs to be changed quickly.
This would make it a useable watch Even wirhout ecosystem.
But how would they extract ongoing payments from you if they don’t offer highly valuable ‘cloud services’?
(sarcasm for those who’s first language isn’t English, I am really not a fan of everything having to be cloud connected and will actively avoid stuff for that reason)
Pebble never was “cloud connected” I still usee my Pebble Time today, with the Pebble iOS App that I installed ages ago.
And what “ongoing payments” are you talking about?
If it’s not a subscription you’re paying, then you will be paying by viewing advertisements. Most (but not all) digital gadgets work this way.
Like not Pebble, you mean
Well, Pebble did not do that, and I hope they will not do it in thee future
Weird. I have a Garmin smartwatch, for which I pay $0 subscription fees, and it has never shown me any advertisements when I try to look at the time or a notification.
Fair, Pebble is one of the few that didn’t pivot to that model, which, ironically, might be part of the reason they didn’t survive.
Being bought by Fitbit feels like catch and kill but Fitbit themselves make (made perhaps given the rumours) a decent amount of money from their subscription based cloud offerings and we all know about Google so it’s not an unreasonable (if snarky) comment to make.
You need the watch to be paired to the phone, but you’re not limited to the Pebble app. Libpebble was documented and officially supported. Time can be set via Gadgetbridge on Android and there were apps for different platforms such as Pebbled for Sailfish OS and RockWork for Ubuntu Touch. Compared to your run-of-the-mill IoT wearables, Pebble was always hacker-friendly.
I’m really stoked about this!
I had an original Pebble and a Pebbe Time Steel, but had to switch to a different watch a few years ago because I bought a new iPhone and I couldn’t install the Pebble app on it anymore (removed from Appstore).
I now have a Garmin Forerunner 55, which on paper is just as good. However, it has a terrible UI that’s very unintuitive. It constantly looses connection with my phone, and when it does it vibrates. There are little/no cool or useful apps. The only positive things I have to say about it is that is has the same screen technology as my Peble had, it has great battery life (~12 days) and it does fitness tracking pretty well.
I miss the old Pebble. I bought it when Kickstarter was still a thing and it was an amazing purchase. It sadly failed due to an accident so I can’t blame Pebble for it. I bought several smartwatches after that but they all ended up in a drawer. This might be the only smartwatch I’m willing to buy.
i used to be crazy about smart watches, back in the days of the casio databank. i’ve seen a bunch come and go and none of them have appealed to me. i just can’t see myself using them. i’ve got a clock on my phone, and my laptop, and on the wall in most of the rooms of my house. all the ‘fidget’ kind of things i might do with a watch, instead i do on my phone. i’m sad that i’ve lost the excitement.
the thing i do want, and i know this must exist in spades but somehow i haven’t seen it, is a ‘comm badge’. i want to slap a little button on my chest and say “text john i’m on my way” like on star trek the next generation. i got a cheap smartwatch on a lark and i was surprised it didn’t have this feature. voice assistant blah blah blah but no one is putting it in a wearable??
Two competing devices like that did come out last year, the rabbit r1 and the humane ai pin. Neither of them were really any good :(
This is cool! I had a Pebble Time Steel and I took advantage of their Kickstarter where you could get a discounted Time Round, and I gave the steel to my dad. I did like the round but I think the Steel was better. I will have to have a root around and see if I can find them
The round is still the thinnest smartwatch around. Even now, 8 years after it’s release. 7.3 millimeter.
This is important if you want to wear your smartwatch as a dress watch. Normal smartwatches are so thick that they catch the cuff of my shirt. Really irritating, and that’s why I never wear a smartwatch to any event I have to dress up for.
…except for my Pebble Round, which fits perfectly.
And I love it so much that I have even gone through the trouble of replacing the battery after it bloated. That’s really finicky to do, and you’ll have to improvise something to hold the front glass back on.
Only issue I have is that the battery lasts barely a day. With some new battery technology, I think it should be possible to have a battery of the same size but with more capacity.
Wishing for an improved Pebble Round. :)
Agreed- the pebble round was by far the best pebble but I think that’s a somewhat uncommon opinion.
Well, I actually meant: best of ALL smartwatches out there. :) In the sense of size vs wearability vs functionality.
The Pebble Round is 8mm thick. My Apple Watch Series 3 is 13mm thick. That extra 5mm is too much. An Apple Watch Series 10 is about 10mm, that might do the trick. But it’s not round, still 2mm thicker, and doesn’t cost $199 either. ;)
I do wish the Pebble had a touch screen though. But not at the cost of more thickness.
The last time I used my Rounds they lasted 2-3 days, but they are incredible, I agree they are there best dress watches, but I think they are hard to convince people how good they were that didn’t use them because of the large bezel.
I doubt this will be one of the first watches Repebble revives, but this with a smaller bezel would be unbeatable.
My hope is for the Time 2 🤞 I did the Kickstarter for it but lost out when Fitbit purchased them. The Pebble 2 was amazing too, but I really hope if that’s the one he starts with they pick a new material for the buttons, after years of use they get a bad case of rubber rot. They were the best Pebble watches aside from that.
I have never liked a Smartwatch as much as I liked my Pebble. I’ve had a few FitBit Versa watches, but they were never anywhere near as nice
Even today’s Google and Apple watches aren’t as fast, didn’t last as long on battery (5-10 days, 3 for the absolutely tiny time round), or have similar button interact that you can easily use blindfolded all with an always on screen.
I still use my Pebbles today and even after 10+ years they still work awesome. Just switched from the One+ Watch 2 which was definitely my best non-Pebble experience, but still not as good. The only reason I quit using Pebble for a while was because you had to connect your phone to your computer and do some command line stuff to get the app on Android after some of the newer versions of Android came out.
When I found out there was hope for the future with this announcement, I decided to do the extra work to get the app installed. The crazy thing is that I already thought the Pebble experience was better in my head then my one+, the actual experience of using it again was so much better than I remember and the problems I had with the one+ watch like getting only partial clips of notifications were all gone with the Pebble. And the speed of Pebble OS can’t be understated, still incredibly fast compared to Android OS… It’s just mind blowing after 9 years of no development!
Based on this from repebble.com, “A small team and I are working on a new Pebble-like smartwatch that runs open source PebbleOS”: I get the impression that Google is not really part of the new product.
I’ve never had a smart watch, but if it’s not a Google product, I might look into it. Then again, I’m on an Android phone so they probably already have all the data about me so maybe it doesn’t matter at all.
This will definitely not be a Google product. I don’t quite understand why Fitbit bought Pebble in the first place? Unless they wanted their engineers? I didn’t think they ever used the technology. They really should have though. The Versa line could have been so much better.
The original creator of Pebble is the one attempting to create these new watches and the hardest part was recreating the software from scratch. Now they have a huge headstart because the OS es open sourced. No other watch has really felt like it could hang with Google or Apple, but this does. It may not appeal to the entire Apple and Google customer base, but it will definitely have a ton of dedicated users and all makers. Heck the app store for Pebble already has more useful apps than anybody by Apple and Google… Even after being dead for 9 years!
https://store-beta.rebble.io/apps
I got really excited when I heard the news – the short battery life of current smart watches has always turned me off, and I kept thinking ‘man, I wish Pebble was still aeound’
However, I started thinking about it more and I really don’t see myself getting one. I don’t get any messages / calls, and I use a neckband style Bluetooth headset, so I have easily accessible buttons for media control.
I use mechanical watches for the most part, but my Casio watches with solar + WWVB time sync are undoubtedly the most useful timepieces I have.
Omega F300 tuning fork is happily humming away on my wrist…
I wouldn’t have one of those old fashioned mechanical things.
An F91 with step counter and Bluetooth is all I really want.
“Casio watches with solar + WWVB time sync are undoubtedly the most useful timepieces I have.”
Yep…LOVE mine.
it needs an OS?
Haha, another device firmware “open-sourced” by google to get more people using it, because let’s face it we all trust Google. All these freebies collect all your information and send it via “telemetry” services, or via “firmware update checking” etc. Google collects everything it can about all of us through Android, YouTube, Chrome, Search and Fitbit (this was to get data from kids). There is pretty much nothing Google, Apple and Meta dont know about all of us, and that includes everything you’ve been doing and everywhere you’ve been for the last 15 years. So before using this “open source” I would check the outgoing comms of this firmware before using it, as soon they will also have a complete breakdown of your health to add to everything else they know about you.
Get more people using what? There’s been no new Pebbles made since 2016 when FitBit bought them. FitBit could have made a new Pebble, but didn’t. Google could have made one when they bought FitBit, but didn’t (and killed most of the FitBit line too).
This is just them releasing source code for a device they inherited and never did anything with.
If you want to be cynical, they’re probably hoping for a bit of good PR for doing this, that cost them almost nothing to do.
Nailed it. Even with the beneficial PR I’m actually incredibly surprised Google did it. My guess is the reason it happened is because there are a few incredible former Pebblers who have worked hard to keep Pebble going since they died who now work at Google and their hard work and tenacity probably pushing hard from the inside made this happen. Katharine Berry comes to mind. She has pushed hard to keep Pebble going and there are still 10’s of thousands of people using Pebble today because of the hard work people like her put in and Pebbles are still superior to current smart watches in many ways. The amount of work to get your Pebble working now days is non-trivial. But this release could be to AVOID negative PR considering how many people love and continue to use Pebble.