[HN Gopher] Pebble Watch software is now 100% open source
___________________________________________________________________
Pebble Watch software is now 100% open source
Author : Larrikin
Score : 513 points
Date : 2025-11-24 18:52 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ericmigi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ericmigi.com)
| apparent wrote:
| > We are trying our best to get into mass production and ship out
| at most several thousand Pebble Time 2s before CNY [which starts
| in January].
|
| > Realistically, at this time we're forecasting that the majority
| of people will receive their PT2 in March and April.
|
| If the factories close for 3 weeks for CNY, then why will the
| second batch arrive 2-3 months after the first batch?
| erohead wrote:
| Good question! (I am the Pebble founder)
|
| When factories restart, not all of the workers who were working
| there before actually come back to work. Some of them stay in
| their hometowns or they get other jobs. This means that
| restarting the production line actually means retraining people
| on how to assemble the product. There is also an entire supply
| chain behind the assembly line that takes time to restart.
| Think of all the sub-components like plastics, metal
| components, etc. that need to be built at respective factories.
| It takes time to ship them to the primary factory for final
| assembly and test.
|
| After the product gets assembled, there are several stages of
| testing, like gluing, environmental testing, final assembly
| test, and packaging, that take time as well. Then the product
| has to be shipped to the fulfillment center, packaged, labeled,
| and then shipped out. Each step time, and the process needs to
| completely re-start after CNY.
| apparent wrote:
| Thanks for explaining this. Would you estimate that the
| January units will be more likely to have issues than the
| later ones, since they'll be first off the line? Or will
| there be no changes to the components/process that might make
| the later units more reliable?
| erohead wrote:
| They should be identical.
| njovin wrote:
| Sorry to hijack, but are there plans to re-manufacture the
| Pebble 2 Duo in black?
|
| I was one of the pre-orderers that was offered either a
| refund or a white version and chose the refund because I
| really had my heart set on the black and don't want a color
| screen.
|
| I'm also an OG Pebble enthusiast, although sadly my old one
| is long gone.
| small_scombrus wrote:
| I may be wrong, but I think they mean ship from the factory to
| the distribution point so that could add _some time_ between an
| item being made and shipped to a customer
|
| But I've never done anything like this, so - \ _ ( tsu ) _ / -
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Yesterday, Pebble watch software was ~95% open source. Today,
| it's 100% open source. You can download, compile and run all the
| software you need to use your Pebble. We just published the
| source code for the new Pebble mobile app!
|
| Except...
|
| > Another important note - some binary blobs and other non-free
| software components are used today in PebbleOS and the Pebble
| mobile app (ex: the heart rate sensor on PT2 , Memfault library,
| and others). Optional non-free web services, like Wispr-flow API
| speech recognizer, are also used. These non-free software
| components are not required - you can compile and run Pebble
| watch software without them. This will always be the case. More
| non-free software components may appear in our software in the
| future. The core Pebble watch software stack (everything you need
| to use your Pebble watch) will always be open source.
|
| So 100% FOSS, except for the parts that are closed source now,
| and any that they add later.
| modeless wrote:
| The important thing is that all the code written by Core
| Devices is open source. They can't force third parties to open
| their code, but they're opening all of their own work. And that
| proprietary code is not required to use the watches. Most of
| them don't even have heart rate sensors, and clearly Memfault
| is not required. They're committing to maintaining a 100% open
| source version that still allows you to use the watches with
| minimal compromise.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Then say "Pebble Watch Software _written by Core Devices_ Is
| Now 100% Open Source ", or "Pebble mobile app open sourced"
| (that seems to be the major actual change?), or something
| like that. The thing they've actually done _should_ be
| commended, but that doesn 't mean ignoring that they've
| chosen to make a claim in the headline that isn't actually
| true.
| fao_ wrote:
| Part of this is driven by necessity, for example, cellular
| network chips are typically binary blobs, etc. as mentioned,
| the heart rate sensor is a binary blob and that's likely
| because there are no good OSS solutions for those components.
|
| A lot of battery firmwares are closed source, the way that they
| fixed this for the early pinephone was literally just staring
| at a memory listing and aiming a heat gun at the battery to see
| how it reacted when it went hot.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Sure; I'm aware that embedded sucks. And to be clear, this is
| (IMHO) tolerable so long as the blobs are redistributable.
| But then maybe don't headline with "100% open source". It's
| better to be honest about it.
| jdiff wrote:
| I see that kind of thing more often labeled "open hardware"
| rather than open source.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| That's a different thing. They're also doing at least
| some degree of open hardware:
|
| > We've also published electrical and mechanical design
| files for Pebble 2 Duo. Yes, you can download the
| schematic (includes KiCad project files) right now on
| Github! This should give you a nice jumpstart to
| designing your own PebbleOS-compatible device.
|
| But this is about the software/firmware running on it.
| fragmede wrote:
| Yeah, it's weird because they're the ones writing that
| headline, and the claim is that it's 100% open source. They
| didn't have to word it that way, they chose to.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| I see your point, but it feels more like the difference
| between 99% fat free and 100% fat free. Technically
| measurable, but irrelevant in practice when the
| alternatives are all basically closed source.
| fwip wrote:
| To some people, it's more like "99% shellfish free." I
| personally don't mind that the cellular radio is closed-
| source, but I'm also not allergic to shellfish.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > I see your point, but it feels more like the difference
| between 99% fat free and 100% fat free.
|
| Then why not have the headline say "99% open source"?
| IMO, either it doesn't matter and you can just say that
| it's _almost_ all FOSS, or it does matter and you
| _really_ shouldn 't be lying about it.
|
| > Technically measurable, but irrelevant in practice when
| the alternatives are all basically closed source.
|
| The alternatives are the pinetime, watchy, and bangle.js,
| which AFAIK are _also_ ~95% FOSS. I guess Apple and
| Google also offer smart watches, but I 'd argue that
| those are so different in terms of features that they're
| not really direct competitors.
| traverseda wrote:
| Yeah, but it's running on a device that has closed source blobs
| in it. Hell, even the linux kernel often has firmware blobs for
| wifi devices.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're splitting hairs or not. I definitely
| thought this post would be about them finding open source
| alternatives to binary firmware, but if it doesn't interoperate
| with optional non-free software then it is not Open Source.
|
| It seems to be comparable to debian, and that's as open source
| as it gets.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Yeah, it's a perfectly fine place to land. My objection is
| completely to claiming to be 100% open source when it isn't;
| if they'd just said 99% open source, or that everything _they
| 'd_ written was now open, then I wouldn't mind (or at least,
| I'd view it as unfortunate, but I wouldn't be upset with
| them).
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| They don't really have a choice with those modules
| janpio wrote:
| Also includes news about a new Appstore, which can probably be
| seen as a reaction to the stories from last week:
| We've created our own Pebble Appstore feed (appstore-
| api.repebble.com) and new Developer Dashboard. Our feed (fyi
| powered by 100% new software) is configured to back up an archive
| of all apps and faces to Archive.org (backup will gradually
| complete over the next week). Today, our feed only has a subset
| of all Pebble watchfaces and apps (thank you aveao for creating
| Pebble Archive!). Developers - you can upload your existing or
| new apps right now! We hope that this sets a standard for
| openness and we encourage all feeds to publish a freely and
| publicly available archive.
|
| https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-watch-software-is-now-100pe...
| zeta0134 wrote:
| Honestly this feels like the best possible outcome. It's pretty
| unusual for an appstore implementation to support multiple
| feeds[0], but it's great resilience to large company failures
| when they do. This way, users can totally still access Rebble's
| feed (and pay for a subscription if they like) just as before,
| but they are free to also use something else.
|
| It is the *end user* who decides which feeds to trust, as it
| should be. And since it's built right into the app as a core
| concept, it doesn't take massive engineering effort to switch
| feeds if some sort of drama occurs.
|
| [0] I'd normally call these repositories, but I've used Eric's
| term for consistency with the article.
| t0mk wrote:
| I read the drama last week, and after seeing this, I have to
| side with Rebble. I think they kept the community alive since
| Eric M cashed out and Fitbit shut it down. As the stars have
| aligned in recent years, Eric revives Pebble, but if Rebble
| wouldn't spend all the effort maintaining the app store, his
| consumer base would be much smaller and it would be much harder
| to bootstrap again.
|
| With Repebble (Core Devices) and their new appstore (or/and
| apt-style repository system), Rebble seems obsolete, it's a bit
| sad. They deserve credit which they won't be able to claim
| anymore. They should be rewarded somehow for bridging the dark
| age, otherwise it seems they served purpose all until Eric
| returned and said "Thank You and fuck off".
|
| Also, to me, Eric talking doesn't sound authentic, and I
| wouldn't be surprised if he's lying. I don't mean to insult
| though, mad respect for putting project like Pebble together.
|
| Hope that there's some place and purpose for Rebble in the
| future.
| esrauch wrote:
| I'm surprised by this comment; after the drama last week and
| after seeing this I fully have to side against Rebble.
|
| The nature of driving a healthy open source centered
| ecosystem is that you don't control it under your iron fist:
| you make good contributions, users _and_ companies are able
| to use them in all new ways which comply with the licensing
| terms. And it seems that RePebble is going way beyond the
| licensing terms requirements, but bending over backwards to
| honor Rebble here when they aren't actually required to.
|
| I just can't imagine what people want from RePebble if not
| this: they are being maximally open, making it so all of
| everything would be able to continue if they went out of
| business tomorrow, while also actively enabling people to
| continue using Rebble's store and paid offerings. Should they
| be forcing users to use Rebble's offerings (instead of making
| things even more open) as a reward for doing a good job
| bridging the dark age?
| liampulles wrote:
| I agree, and Rebble themselves highlight how inflammatory
| their initial blog post was in their most recent one:
| https://rebble.io/2025/11/24/rebble-in-your-own-world.html
| .
|
| They also backed down from their ludicrous position that
| they are acting as protectors of other people's watchfaces
| being downloaded in bulk by a particular company they don't
| like, whereas they are totally fine with the watchfaces
| being publicly available for general use. It clearly reads
| as them trying to clutch control of the one thing they
| haven't open sourced.
|
| Rebble contributors did have a legitimate gripe, which is
| that they were lead to develop some additional software
| under the idea that there would be an agreement at the end
| of the day. But the Rebble Foundation's response to this
| was totally immature and irrational.
|
| I agree with what Eric said in his follow up, which is that
| it is quite concerning to engage in a partnership with an
| organization which reacts like this as part of a
| negotiation process. God knows I wouldn't, and it doesn;t
| surprise me that an alternative solution was found.
| niwtsol wrote:
| Well said and exactly my thoughts on it as well. Eric has
| done more than he really had to, and it is unclear to me
| what rebble really wants/is positioning for.
| wvenable wrote:
| My impression is that there is a lot more going on than
| just the facts provided by both sides. Core technologies
| managed to get Katie Berry to step away from the project[1]
| and that's extremely significant to me. Her tireless
| dedication to keeping Pebble alive (and get it open
| sourced) is how any of this is possible. For her to just up
| and leave _now_ tells me that Eric and Core are not being
| as magnanimous and friendly to community as these blogs
| posts and actions might suggest.
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1ozzsr9/an_upd
| ate_o...
|
| [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/pebble
| _rebb...
| liampulles wrote:
| You are not really factoring in all the work on the hardware,
| much of the software, and the entirety of the financing,
| which is being done by Eric and the Core Devices team.
|
| If Rebble wants to take the risk and put out a smartwatch,
| there is nothing stopping them. Infact all of the open
| sourcing work Core Devices has done gives them a good
| starting point.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| He gave them a deal that would directly send cash their way,
| which he didn't have to do at all. The vast majority of
| founders wouldn't have touched that with a 10 foot pole.
|
| This seems like an overly harsh take.
| apparent wrote:
| Is it me or is the "Rivian blue" that he refers to in the video
| not that close to the color of actual Rivians? IMO the watch
| band/insert color is less green and quite a bit lighter. Not bad,
| per se, but I feel like this is not the best descriptor since it
| might make people think it's a different color.
| erohead wrote:
| Material color is very tough, especially comparing metallic
| paint to polycarbonate. Lighting matters, reflections matter.
| We tried our best, but yes, obviously it's not exactly the
| same.
| apparent wrote:
| And of course, video adds another layer of complexity. Would
| you say that the video looks accurate to you, or does calling
| it "Rivian blue" help people understand what it looks like in
| real life?
| erohead wrote:
| I don't actually own a Rivian. I've seen them from afar.
| They look cool. I have not held a Pebble Time up to a
| Rivian yet. Maybe I'll creepily do that in downtown Palo
| Alto today :)
| apparent wrote:
| I will await your photo post on (where else?) Bluesky.
| collingreen wrote:
| Get your creep on, for science!
| apparent wrote:
| No need to creep. It appears there is a Rivian store in
| Palo Alto. [1]
|
| Surely they must have one on hand in their namesake blue.
|
| 1: https://rivian.com/spaces/palo-alto
| devilbunny wrote:
| I don't know if using them would wreck the economics of the
| matter, but this is exactly why Pantone exists. Perhaps
| Rivian uses them, and someone there might be willing to share
| with you the exact Pantone code.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| Pantone doesn't work for metal and reflective surfaces,
| because as the poster above said, reflections and viewing
| angles have an impact.
| apparent wrote:
| I'm excited that the back will screw off so we can replace the
| battery. I'm curious about waterproofing. Will that hold? Will we
| need to replace a gasket or other parts, in addition to the
| battery?
| erohead wrote:
| In the video, the green thing is the gasket. It _should_ be
| reusable, but nothing 's guaranteed in the world of
| waterproofing.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I really like the look of the Pixel watch 4's approach to
| this:
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/News/113620/the-pixel-watch-4-is-
| the-...
| erohead wrote:
| That is incredibly fantastic feat of engineering!
| Fnoord wrote:
| Exciting, except it runs Android Wear OS by Google
| instead of a deGoogled OS, and in the comments it says:
| "Repairability is admirable but only 3 years of security
| updates isn't near enough"
|
| FTA: "We're also making sure that our new watches are
| more repairable than old Pebble watches. The back cover
| of Pebble Time 2 is screwed in. You can remove the back
| cover and replace the battery."
|
| So the battery of the Pebble Time 2 (the watch I bought
| to replace my Fossil HR Collider which replaced my orig.
| Pebble 2) is user serviceable. I had to open my Pebble 2
| because my buttons were falling off. I bought a second
| hand donor (Pebble OC, since I ditched my broken Pebble
| OC at some point) and unfortunately I failed to succeed
| the transplantation of the buttons. Which made me very
| sad.
|
| I also very much liked you could turn the radios off on
| the Pebble 2. The HR was useless though. But if I want a
| good quality of that, I'd go for Garmin or (if I were in
| the Apple ecosystem) an Apple Watch.
| daemonologist wrote:
| Yeah I find the Time 2 design to be kind of fugly, but the
| screwed assembly is definitely tempting me to pick one up. Very
| nice feature.
|
| (A lot of the original Pebbles were ugly too, but in a way that
| I personally found more appealingly utilitarian. Or maybe I'm
| just used to them.)
| ndiddy wrote:
| The watch is only listed as water resistant, not waterproof. I
| don't know if he's said anything specific about the Time 2, but
| for the 2 Duo (same target water resistance rating) he's
| written about the water resistance here:
| https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-2-duo-is-in-mass-production .
| He says you shouldn't take the watch swimming, shouldn't expose
| it to hot water like a shower (weakens the glue and eliminates
| the water resistance), and shouldn't expose it to high pressure
| water. They seem designed mainly to protect against incidental
| splashes rather than any serious water exposure.
| apparent wrote:
| True but he does say "it is waterproofed" [1] and this is the
| common way of referring to this level of water resistance
| (IPX8, 1 meter for 30 mins). I wouldn't take it in a hot
| shower, but IPX8 should be good for more than being "water
| resistant" to incidental splashes.
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTlRBI2QCzM
| vessenes wrote:
| Eric, congrats. Typo in the first photo caption: "in all it's
| glory" -> "in all its glory"
| lawn wrote:
| They've made two big changes that are surely the result of the
| recent drama:
|
| * The companion app is now completely open source, ensuring that
| the community can continue supporting the watches if Core goes
| under.
|
| * You can subscribe to multiple app stores while optionally
| paying for services, and Core will maintain their own store. This
| seems to placate Rebble so they can do their thing and provide
| their paid services.
|
| Seems like very good steps forward overall.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and
| conditions of this Agreement, You hereby grant to Core Devices
| and to recipients of software distributed by Core Devices a
| perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free,
| irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative
| works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and
| distribute Your Contributions and such derivative works."_
|
| A few years from now we will see the usual HN thread were
| contributors lachrymosely complain about how their precious work
| was stolen by a good-turned-evil organization.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Pebble was bought a long time ago by google yea? So this
| already happened
| erohead wrote:
| Please note our CLA explicitly include a clause to require Core
| Devices to distribute all contributions under an OSI-compatible
| FOSS license (e.g. GPLv3). So no contributions can be 'stolen'.
|
| https://ericmigi.notion.site/Core-Devices-Software-Licensing...
| weinzierl wrote:
| I'm the first to agree that contributions can't be stolen in
| this scenario but read the threads I'm referring to. People
| feel that way anyway if you stop supporting a component or
| distribute your focus between a free and a paid tier.
|
| What we need is more awareness that looking at the license
| alone is not enough to make an informed decision if
| contributing to a project is aligned with the contributors
| attitude and personal goals.
|
| With that in mind: Thank you for putting the CLA right in the
| repo where it belongs and people can easily find it. Many
| organizations put a license upfront and bury the CLA. For a
| particularly bad example try MonoDB.
| josephcsible wrote:
| But OSI-compatible FOSS licenses include pushover ones like
| MIT, so even though you couldn't steal all of the
| contributions to make a proprietary fork, any other company
| then could.
| notpachet wrote:
| > lachrymosely
|
| Learned a new word, thank you!
| exceptione wrote:
| The h is peculiar, as the latin word reads `lacrimosus`
| jaggederest wrote:
| Interesting etymology:
|
| https://www.etymonline.com/word/lachrymose
|
| Greek dakryma
|
| "-d- to -l- alteration in Latin"
|
| "The Medieval Latin practice of writing -ch- for -c- before
| Latin -r- also altered anchor, pulchritude, sepulchre. The
| -y- is pedantic, from the former belief that the word was
| pure Greek."
| amwehrli wrote:
| Wearing my new white pebble right now and am very happy with how
| open source the comeback has been. Incredibly happy with it and
| if you want a geeky, simple watch I really can't recommend it
| enough. The battery life and always on screen alone (especially
| at this price point) is reason enough.
|
| Cheers to Eric for bringing back pebble in the way that he has !
| apparent wrote:
| In terms of long-term market viability, have you considered
| whether your success could encourage Apple or other large
| competitors to make a battery life-optimized version of their
| smartwatches?
|
| I understand that some Pebble fans are all about the
| customization, and will be with you forever. But probably many
| people care mostly about the battery life, which is severely
| lacking in watches from Apple, Google, etc.
|
| If Apple realized there was a big enough market to justify making
| a $200 Apple Watch Basic, how much could that undercut your
| business?
|
| Relatedly, when will we learn more about the other "core" devices
| that you're contemplating, and which you alluded to in the video?
| Building more of a unique ecosystem could help with the moat.
| jsheard wrote:
| > In terms of long-term market viability, have you considered
| whether your success could encourage Apple or other large
| competitors to make a battery life-optimized version of their
| smartwatches?
|
| Companies like Garmin, Coros and Suunto already make less-
| smart-watches with weeks of battery life, and those haven't
| convinced Apple to budge from only making watches that do
| everything under the sun but barely last a day. Another long-
| lasting watch from a tiny brand probably isn't going to move
| the needle.
| apparent wrote:
| IDK about Coros or Suunto, but the only Garmins with a
| battery life approaching 30 days cost ~$1,000. This could be
| competition for AWU, but wouldn't communicate that there is
| demand for a more basic/long-lasting Apple Watch.
| jsheard wrote:
| 30 days is asking a lot of any reasonably sized smartwatch,
| but if you set your sights a bit lower then a $250 Coros
| Pace 4 will do ~3 weeks with AOD off, ~1 week with AOD on,
| and 30-40 hours of continuous GPS recording. That's still a
| _lot_ longer than any Apple Watch even if it 's not hitting
| the 30 day milestone.
| apparent wrote:
| Yeah I don't need 30 days, but starting out at a week
| with AOD puts a pretty low ceiling on future battery
| life. Appreciate the pointer though.
|
| In thinking further, I realized that the buttons are
| actually a pretty good moat against the big tech company
| competitors. Their UIs are all about touchscreens, so
| they'll never have as many/useful buttons as Pebbles do.
| krabizzwainch wrote:
| My Coros Pace 2 was my solution to my desire for a less
| smart watch. It cost $200 when I got it 3 years ago. I
| run a ton and the exercise features of the Pebble just
| didn't do it for me (and I don't want to keep swapping
| watches based on what I'm doing). I easily get 2+ weeks
| with 7-8 exercises with GPS on. The screen is some
| variation of those transflective LCDs or MIPs LCDs.
|
| I can never go back to a 2 day battery life for a watch,
| even if my 5 year old iPhone technically can't make it
| through half a day of use....
| jsheard wrote:
| > The screen is some variation of those transflective
| LCDs or MIPs LCDs.
|
| They just switched to OLED with the Pace 4, for better or
| worse. AOD battery life took a hit but it does look a lot
| nicer than MIP.
| lawn wrote:
| I've got an Instinct Solar 2x and it does last 30 days for
| me, and it's much cheaper than $1000.
| apparent wrote:
| Didn't realize Garmin made monochrome solar watches. It
| is much cheaper. However, looks like an absolute tank,
| which would not fit under many shirtsleeves...
| ianburrell wrote:
| Unfortunately, they have been replacing in new models the
| monochrome MIP display with colorful AMOLED with less
| battery life.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| Unlikely pebble to get 30days with garmin type usage
| either. A forerunner with mip display should survive for 2+
| weeks though
| com2kid wrote:
| When I first bought my pixel watch 2 I was able to optimize the
| settings to get almost 3 days of battery life.
|
| A year of firmware updates later, I am back down to less than 2
| days using the same settings.
|
| I don't think the big manufacturers are going to change their
| ways anytime soon...
| julianlam wrote:
| I sold my Pixel Watch 2, but I wasn't able to get two days'
| worth. The sacrifices weren't worth it.
|
| Namely, you'd have to turn off the always on screen (I gave
| this up easily), as well as "flick to wake", which I found
| harder to give up.
|
| If I were to press a button on my watch to read a
| notification, I may as well use my phone. YMMV.
| freedomben wrote:
| Love to see this! I personally find this incredibly exciting.
| There is a major death of hardware out there that is user-
| respecting and hacker-friendly, and it warms my heart immensely
| to see such committments. I'm buying two today (one for me and
| one for my wife)!
| diego_moita wrote:
| This is precious.
|
| Almost every tech company wants to continue the IBM "surrounded
| by blue" strategy, fencing customers into their "walled garden"
| surrounded by a Warren Buffet moat and blocking obsessively any
| competitor that wants to breach in. Google mandates that every
| Android application must be signed by developers verified by
| them, Microsoft demands that users open an account with them, ...
| and just don't get me started with AWS, Apple, John Deere,
| Nespresso, etc. Meanwhile, I fail to see any real contender in
| the smartphone arena.
|
| But, in wearables, Pebble puts up a fight. The platform/product
| has proven resilient, mostly because of its users passion and
| commitment. It is more alive today than Fitbit, the company that
| bought and buried it.
|
| And will only get stronger.
|
| Now I'll be anxiously waiting for my PT2. It will be the 5th
| Pebble in my collection.
| hemmert wrote:
| Great solution, great example of how open source should be done.
| lrvick wrote:
| THIS is the post that finally got me to make a pre-order, as a
| former Pebble engineer.
|
| FOSS all the things so my freedoms are never restricted again,
| and I am happy to pay.
| Pfhortune wrote:
| It's great to see the app open-sourced! Hopefully this can be
| distributed on F-Droid one day soon!
|
| And the ability to choose app repos is also a wonderful
| development. Nothing against Rebble at all, but more choices and
| more openness is always better!
| DrammBA wrote:
| (Un)related new post made by rebble today:
| https://rebble.io/2025/11/24/rebble-in-your-own-world.html
|
| Doesn't address the multiple feed support for the app store, and
| seems to be calling Eric to action a few times, but it would be
| too much of a coincidence that these two posts come out so close
| to one another.
| niwtsol wrote:
| Thank you for posting this, it really gave me an answer to the
| "huh, how did all that drama from last week play out." IMO
| rebble jumped to some conclusions and felt robbed/cheated by
| what Eric was doing. With Eric going above and beyond to open
| source everything, I really feel he is trying to live up to
| what the original promise of pebble was. It is cool what rebble
| did to keep the pebble community alive, and I get that they
| might feel slighted, but if you take all egos out of the
| equation, what Eric is doing is like the best possible outcome
| - we get new pebble devices. Isn't that the best possible
| outcome?
| jpalawaga wrote:
| through all of this, it really feels like rebble didn't know
| what they want (as they say). the future collaboration with
| eric also sounds like they don't know what they want. they want
| a third party mediator for... something. Eric was already
| prepared to pay them per user, which seemed generous to me to
| begin with.
|
| It sounds to me like Rebble (the board + community) should
| figure out what they want before trying to proceed, lest they
| further waste time and good-faith negotiating capital. like are
| they unhappy with the previous payment rate per user? or
| something else?
| liampulles wrote:
| To me it speaks to the fact that Rebble is not really an
| organization that is in a position to actually negotiate a
| long term deal with another company and go through all the
| trials and tribulations that involves.
|
| That is not a criticism of them nor is it surprising, their
| responsibility up to now has been to maintain a core set of
| open source software. A loosely structured control structure
| is entirely appropriate for that task. But it really does not
| work when instead of bringing one person representing the
| company to a negotiation, you have half a dozen people who
| all have their own thoughts and levels of interest and
| commitment, some of whom will resort to community action if
| they don't like something about the process.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| Sitting here with my white pebble 2 duo just glad they resolved
| all this drama. Was not fun seeing the explosion days after
| getting it!
| riazrizvi wrote:
| Is there a vibration mechanism? That's a must-have in a watch for
| me.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| There is, but I would set expectations lower than Apple's
| "taptic engine" where they designed their own hardware with a
| team of engineers and a bazillion dollars.
|
| One of the recent development updates mentioned adding a global
| "vibrate on hour" setting which historically had to be
| implemented as an option by the specific watchface you're
| using.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| I'll be comparing to a Timex Expedition Grid Shock, which
| I've been using for years. Have no idea why they discontinued
| it. Suspect it had something to do with clueless leadership
| who undervalue customer satisfaction.
| Pxtl wrote:
| I hadn't been following the new Pebble watch story and this
| prompted me to look into it... and I gotta say, considering that
| the original Pebble was a Canadian product, it's disappointing
| that the new one is American and is now trapped behind the
| tariffs and counter-tariffs and general mayhem ushered in by the
| current US government.
|
| I would not want to roll the dice on getting one of these shipped
| across the border here into Canada today.
| apparent wrote:
| Good thing he isn't shipping from the US to Canada then, eh?
|
| Only the US-bound watches are shipped to the US. The rest go
| straight from Asia.
|
| Also, I'd be surprised if the Pebble company that was acquired
| by Fitbit was a Canadian company. I assume it was a US company.
| mkhalil wrote:
| I'm sure its happened before, but this is the first time i
| finally get to see some sort of modern hardware in KiCad.
|
| Pretty cool to see all 6 layers, paste layers, and adhesive
| layers as well. I've always wondered how the cake was made and if
| big projects do/could use KiCad. Seems like a lot more work
| relative to those Single Layer PCBs on YouTube for things like
| emulators and custom PCBs. Glad I now know for sure, that I can't
| do this.
| Ninjinka wrote:
| As someone who has been working on a pair of smart glasses
| running RTOS, and having to make companion apps for both iOS and
| Android, I am very interested in reading your approaches to a lot
| of the same problems I have faced. There's not a lot of
| information out there on these topics.
| whyenot wrote:
| This is great news! I know the new Pebble has a small team and is
| focused on being a long term sustainable enterprise. This should
| help with that goal quite a bit.
|
| I received my Pebble 2 Duo about a month ago, and it is awesome.
| Nice job and thank you! I feel 10 years younger :)
| tamimio wrote:
| My current smartwatch is $7 I got from the thrift store. Not only
| does it offer everything an Apple Watch offers, but it also
| measures blood pressure (surprisingly accurate) and has a small
| flashlight, and I charge it once every 3 weeks. The only issue is
| its app is limited and you can't customize anything besides the
| watch faces and the wrist strap. So having that, it's really hard
| to compete if you are just going to offer another smartwatch,
| which is a great strategy to open source the software and allow
| customization, even on the hardware level to some degree. Myself
| and a lot of people would be interested to have that!
| bredren wrote:
| I see a future where FOSS designs for consumer products compete
| with commercial releases.
|
| It will take far more sophisticated micro-manufacturing (like
| 3d-printing but different tools handling more types of
| materials).
|
| Get the jacket in your exact size with the best materials.
| Benefit from having incrementally improved from the original (for
| example under arm vent zipper angle improved). All of it
| unbranded or custom branded.
|
| Seems hard to believe annual released, mass manufacturing will
| compete.
| pastel8739 wrote:
| Really? To me it seems hard to believe that small-scale
| manufacturing could ever meaningfully compete with economies of
| scale.
| dcreater wrote:
| That's good to hear!
|
| If the health monitoring is reliable, im sold. I want to move on
| from apples clutches despite the pebble hardware not looking
| particularly attractive to me
| ck2 wrote:
| I wish someone would take on an open-source project for a sports
| watch with full features like vo2max estimation, etc.
|
| like a cyanogenmod or lineageos but for an older watch model
|
| someone has completely decompiled the firmware for the Garmin
| Forerunner 245 which is very similar to a Fenix 5
|
| imagine if someone took on making open firmware for it
|
| https://github.com/anvilsecure/garmin-ciq-app-research/
|
| if taking on a brand name might incur lawsuits there are other
| watches like the wahoo rival which was completely retired and
| they got out of the business (it was only $99 too)
|
| or there are other ppen hardware options from China
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