> 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.
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.
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.
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?
"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.
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.
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 !
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.
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.
Definitely agree that this is the best outcome for everyone! In particular, with multiple repo support, I'm hoping this can open the door for some kind of "F-Droid for Pebble" with automated builds from source repos. So many Pebble apps are open source anyway I think it would be a good fit.
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)!
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.
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!
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.
They went from “Core Devices to stealing and everything is terrible and we are making demands” to “Actually everything was fine all along oopsy sorry for the misunderstandings”…
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.
Depends on any project ideas, but as a newbie to hardware dev and with my own small scope eurorack module idea, I am having a lot of luck with flux.ai. Even got a small order of 5 PCBs printed for under $200.
Paste and adhesive are spat out by KiCad as part of the manufacturing outputs. It works pretty much the same way other EDA packages like altium do - the extra layers are part of the part footprint. If you don’t design your own footprints it’s basically no extra work to generate those.
You almost certainly could do it - obviously with some time investment. Getting multi layer PCBs made is surprisingly affordable now.
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 :)
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!
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 73.3 ms ] thread> 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?
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.
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.
* 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.
Cheers to Eric for bringing back pebble in the way that he has !
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.
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.
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.
FOSS all the things so my freedoms are never restricted again, and I am happy to pay.
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!
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.
They went from “Core Devices to stealing and everything is terrible and we are making demands” to “Actually everything was fine all along oopsy sorry for the misunderstandings”…
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.
You almost certainly could do it - obviously with some time investment. Getting multi layer PCBs made is surprisingly affordable now.
I encourage you to browse it, I found that while challenging, it does not seem unreachable to get to that level of proficiency in KiCad.
I received my Pebble 2 Duo about a month ago, and it is awesome. Nice job and thank you! I feel 10 years younger :)