TL;DR
- Last week, Google released the PebbleOS source code.
- Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky is planning to create new Pebble hardware and today shares a peek at his progress.
- Plans are to build a new watch that largely mirrors the functionality and feature set of its predecessors.
Who doesn’t like a good comeback story? Over a decade ago, Pebble won the hearts of wearable fans with its affordable, long-battery-life smartwatches. But the beloved brand’s time in the spotlight ended all too soon, with the company ultimately closing its doors and being acquired by Fitbit back in 2016. Last week, not only did Pebble find itself back in the spotlight as Google released the PebbleOS source code, encouraging community development, but we heard that Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky was planning to work on new Pebble-inspired hardware. Today we get our first look at how his effort there’s going.
When Google published the PebbleOS code, it was incomplete. Before making it open source, the company had to review it line by line, and remove any proprietary code it couldn’t release. As a result, you couldn’t just download it, compile, and be up and running.
Well, a little over a week later, Migicovsky has managed to do just that, sharing this image of the software running on a development board. Right now, his team is looking to adapt PebbleOS for the modern nRF52840 SoC.
While this is very cool to see, we still don’t know a lot about how this new hardware is going to come together. Migicovsky says that he’s about to fly out to China to start looking into manufacturing options, but cautions fans against getting too excited about the idea of a modernized Pebble, with all the bells and whistles of a Pixel or Apple Watch. Instead, you can look forward to a Pebble that’s “almost exactly as you remember it, except now with open source software that can you can modify and improve yourself.”
There’s a whole group of ex-Pebble engineers and designers helping out with this project, and you can lend a hand, too. Obviously, coders and testers are encouraged to help with the software, but there’s plenty of room for people with all sorts of talents to help out, like designing icons for apps that didn’t exist back during Pebble’s initial run.
Even with this effort still in its very early stages, how excited are you about getting your hands on a brand-new Pebble? Or have you moved on, and have no plans to abandon your current smartwatch? Share your thoughts down in the comments.
