The Pebble Smartwatch Is Making A Comeback

Eric Migicovsky still wears his Pebble. Thirteen years aft he founded nan wearables institution and recovered immense occurrence connected Kickstarter, and overmuch than 8 years aft he sold nan institution to Fitbit, which was past acquired by Google, Migicovsky’s watch still works. (In suit you’re wondering: erstwhile I saw him astatine CES a less weeks ago, he appeared to beryllium wearing a achromatic Pebble Time Round model. But he has a instrumentality afloat of them astatine home.) It hasn’t gotten a package update since December 2016, though, and he’s been worried for a while that it will yet extremity getting notifications, aliases connecting to his phone, aliases tally into immoderate different show-stopping problem.

Rather than bargain different smartwatch, Migicovsky decided to effort and get Pebble going again. He sold his astir caller startup, a messaging app called Beeper, to Automattic past twelvemonth and adjacent nan institution successful nan fall. Since then, he’d thought astir starting a Pebble-like merchandise from scratch, figuring it’d beryllium easier to do nan aforesaid constituent again a 2nd time. “But past I was like, what if I conscionable asked Google to open-source nan operating system?” he says. It felt for illustration a agelong shot, but he knew nan codification was conscionable sitting dormant incorrect Mountain View somewhere. So he asked. A less times.

To Migicovsky’s surprise, Google agreed to merchandise Pebble OS to nan public. As of Monday, each nan Pebble firmware is disposable connected GitHub, and Migicovsky is starting a institution to premier up wherever he adjacent off.

The institution — which can’t beryllium named Pebble because Google still owns that — doesn’t personification a punishment yet. For now, Migicovsky is hosting a waitlist and news signup astatine a website called RePebble. Later this year, erstwhile nan institution has a punishment and entree to each that Pebble software, nan strategy is to commencement shipping caller wearables that look, feel, and activity for illustration nan Pebbles of old.

The reason, Migicovsky tells me, is simple. “I’ve tried virtually everything else,” he says, “and point different comes close.” Sure, he whitethorn conscionable personification a very circumstantial group of requirements — tons of group are intelligibly happy pinch what Apple, Garmin, Google, and others are making. But it’s existent that there’s been point for illustration Pebble since Pebble. “For nan things I want retired of it, for illustration a bully e-paper screen, agelong artillery life, bully and elemental personification experience, hackable, there’s conscionable nothing.” 

The halfway of Pebble, he says, is simply a less things. A Pebble should beryllium quirky and nosy and should consciousness for illustration a gadget successful an important way. It shows notifications, lets you powerfulness your euphony pinch buttons, lasts a agelong time, and doesn’t effort to do excessively much. It sounds for illustration Migicovsky mightiness personification Pebble-y ambitions beyond smartwatches, but he appears to beryllium starting pinch smartwatches.

If that sounds for illustration nan aged Pebble and not overmuch else, that’s precisely nan point. Migicovsky tells maine complete and complete that nan strategy is not to reinvent Pebble, aliases AI nan bejesus retired of nan concept, aliases do immoderate different you’d do starting a hardware institution successful 2025. The truth that nan Pebble connected his wrist still works, and still useful for him, is grounds that perchance Pebble had already vanished its job. “We’re building a spiritual, not successor, but clone of Pebble,” he says, “because there’s not that overmuch I really want to change.”

A batch of different things personification changed successful 8 years, though. Google, Apple, and Samsung each now personification bully smartwatches that are tied tightly to their different devices — Pebble ever had problem getting entree to features connected iOS, successful particular, and that’s not getting easier. Smartwatches are presently wellness and fittingness devices supra each else, and they’re getting vastly overmuch analyzable and powerful successful pursuit of those features. Google evidently doesn’t spot immoderate style of Pebble arsenic a threat; its champion chance is to level scheme different measurement entirely.

The biggest value this clip will beryllium really nan institution itself operates. Migicovsky wrote a agelong blog position successful 2022 explaining what went incorrect astatine Pebble nan first clip and ascribed its nonaccomplishment successful information to taking a bunch of finance money and letting it alteration nan company. Since then, Migicovsky has made plentifulness of money from Beeper and during a stint arsenic an investor astatine Y Combinator; his caller institution is his alone. Right now, it’s conscionable Migicovsky and a less part-time labour — it’ll grow, he says, but not excessively much. “The halfway constituent coming is: sustainable.”

Migicovsky too hopes to beryllium information of a broader open-source statement astir Pebble OS. The Pebble diehards still exist: a group of developers astatine Rebble personification worked to support galore of nan platform’s apps alive, for instance, connected pinch nan Cobble app for connecting to phones, and nan Pebble subreddit is amazingly progressive for a merchandise that hasn’t been updated since nan Obama administration. Migicovsky says he plans to open-source immoderate his caller institution builds and hopes tons of different folks will build stuff, too. “There’s going to beryllium nan expertise for anyone who wants to, to return Pebble guidelines code, compile it, tally it connected their Pebbles, build caller Pebbles, build caller watches,” he says. “They could moreover usage it successful random different hardware. Who knows what group tin do pinch it now?”

This afloat task will return time, Migicovsky cautions. He only recovered retired for judge that Google would open-source nan package a less days ago, and he hasn’t been tin to usage it astatine each yet. But he’s already moving connected hardware prototypes, and he’s crystal clear connected what he wants nan caller Pebbles to be. He knows he tin do it because he already did it once. The grounds is correct location connected his wrist. All he’s trying to do is make judge it tin enactment there.