16
votes
Pebble/Core Devices (hardware and software open source update)
Link information
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- Title
- Pebble Time 2 Demo + Pebble Watch SW Is Now 100% Open Source!
- Authors
- Tick Talk w/ Eric Migicovsky
- Duration
- 29:17
- Published
- Nov 24 2025
Rebble misplayed their hand and I don't see a future for the group long-term. Unless Eric decides to throw them a bone, it sounds like a split between Core and Rebble and who's going to install a third-party Store and pay a subscription fee? Gotta wonder what the Rebble devs think the future of the project is at this point.
Not sure they ever had a "real future" to begin with. They were a kickstand on a bicycle actively deteriorating. That being said, I think everyone's actions from the fallout have been net positive for consumers, creating a more open and resilient ecosystem. I think Eric is right to focus on what's in his control while launching these new watches. Mess that up and it doesn't really matter if a deal was made
I think most have pretty low trust in Eric. They see themselves as the lifeboat of the community if/when Core Devices gets sold/goes bankrupt.
Keeping this lifeboat afloat has now become a whole lot easier than last time, since all the work is now properly open source and the mobile app already comes with the option to switch to a backup repository for getting apps and watch faces. So users wouldn't even have to patch/side-load once Core disappears.
If I understand them correctly, this wasn't so clear last week. The companion app wasn't open source yet, and if Core would have switched it over to their own, proprietary app repository, a whole lot of effort would have been necessary to save the watch apps/watch faces if Core would have switched of their servers.
I'm a complete outsider to this whole thing that only really started looking at the amusing drama, but I've been wondering what this divide really achieves in the long term. From my perspective it seemed like Rebble had the position "we're likely to be destroyed by RePebble and we'd rather not get destroyed" and RePebble had the position "we'd like to supply something that 'just works' without customers needing to figure out all this Rebble stuff".
I'm curious why Rebble didn't essentially fold themselves into RePebble, but with some protection clauses to prevent what happened last time from happening again. From my understanding those clauses would've amounted to "all the code and data needs to be open and under a license that allows forking so that it's easy in the case we need to found ReRebble in the future". Presumably some historical stuff I'm out of the loop on? Or maybe they just really really want to keep Rebble active even though RePebble is probably right that them being active seems likely to be more confusing than helpful.
I'd love to be corrected on any of my wrong impressions.
My general impression is pretty much what you said. Rebble was a great way to keep old devices running. It should have stuck around just for those old devices, but I don’t see why they would have any ongoing involvement with new devices.
The way I see it, rebble provided two distinct things: an archive of the pebble App Store from the Fitbit closure, and ongoing paid api services for things like weather. The App Store archive should be publicly available and hosted on something like the internet archive or a public torrent. The paid api services should ideally continue to be available for older devices, but a new commercial device using a service like rebble would be bonkers. So that part of rebble should stay separate (unless core devices decided it was profitable and worth it to run those services).
The agreed system sharing where rebble would handle parts of the server infrastructure for a separate commercial entity was weird. It seemed like it was naturally unstable. I’m not surprised it fell apart.
The blog post: https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-watch-software-is-now-100percent-open-source
Some extra links for those who want them directly:
Hardware: https://github.com/coredevices/hardware
PebbleOS: https://github.com/coredevices/PebbleOS
Mobile App: https://github.com/coredevices/mobileapp
its pretty exciting. I have three Pebbles. I don't use the HR2 as much because the buttons are shit -- but I'm back to wearing a black OG right now.
I love Pebbles. They kind of fucked up with the last kickstarter, the Citizen deal, etc... but I hope they get it sorted this time.
Will I buy another Pebble? probably not. I've moved to analog watches, but it is nice to get certain notifications on my wrist.