alt Hacker NewsPebble Watch software is now 100% open source
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(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.
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.
"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.
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 !
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!
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.
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.
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 :)
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?
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.
> 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?
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.
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.
Is there a vibration mechanism? That’s a must-have in a watch for me.
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)!
Great solution, great example of how open source should be done.
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.
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!
> 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.
Eric, congrats. Typo in the first photo caption: "in all it's glory" -> "in all its glory"
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!
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.
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.
Also includes news about a new Appstore, which can probably be seen as a reaction to the stories from last week:
https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-watch-software-is-now-100pe...