Pebble Goes Fully Open Source

Core Devices has fully open-sourced the entire Pebble software stack and confirmed the first Pebble Time 2 shipments will start in January. "This is the clearest sign yet that the platform is shifting from a company-led product to a community-backed project that can survive independently," reports Gadgets & Wearables. From the report: The announcement follows weeks of tension between Core Devices and parts of the Pebble community. By moving from 95 to 100 percent open source, the company has essentially removed itself as a bottleneck. Users can now build, run, and maintain every piece of software needed to operate a Pebble watch. That includes firmware for the watch and mobile apps for Android and iOS. This puts the entire software stack into public hands. According to the announcement, Core Devices has released the mobile app source code, enabled decentralized app distribution, and made hardware more repairable with replaceable batteries and published design files.

Where do I buy one?

[greytree]

Frame.work and Pebble.

Now we just need a small, sturdy, Open Source, repairable phone.

Drama

[Grady Martin]

This piqued my interest, so I looked into it.

In summary, there seems to be a bit of drama [rebble.io] regarding governance of this project. The dust has yet to settle, and the person currently attempting to position himself as BDFL is the same person who previously sold off the company for $23 million [businessinsider.com]. Meanwhile, the community version that emerged from those ashes nickel-and-dimes for things like weather reports and “a warm fuzzy feeling”? [rebble.io]

I think I'll wait and see.

I can't wait!!!

[Bodhammer]

"Core Devices has confirmed that the Pebble software stack is now fully open source and says the first Pebble Time 2 units will begin shipping in January 2025. "

Good. If they get hardware crews ...

[Qbertino]

... on board this could eventually be the next big thing, like Blender for 3D stuff. I might even actually buy a Smartwatch some day.

Sure

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

Pebble shat on their users last time around, let's see how the new old owners will do it now. With https://gadgetbridge.org/ [gadgetbridge.org] supporting more and more hardware, the case for Pebble is a bit unclear.

Re:

[PleaseThink]

Yeah, I got burned by their failing screens. I'd love to have a FOSS smartwatch, but they can't ignore hardware quality.

Re: Sure

[etherspin]

To be fair while the company was active they'd give a free replacement for zebra connector fails where if you did one of the many fix options you could wind up with two perfectly functional watches.

Re: Sure

[etherspin]

Doesn't sound like they did, they had 2 watch models in their last round of production and ran out of funds as the second of the two was to begin being made. Sold off what they could to Fitbit with a commitment from Fitbit with a promise to keep the services running for a couple of years and they refunded 90 percent of customers They weren't planning to flop and only took normal salaries not exorbitant millions of anything like that

Re:

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

I supported them from kickstarter and their first watches to pebble time steel.

Tell me more about what you read on the internet about it, thanks.

Re: Sure

[etherspin]

I'm much like you, got OG for myself and wife on release, ran those until they wore out, ordered PT2s company folded, managed to get pebble 2s, ran those till the buttons wore out and now a bundle of years into us running Pebble Times on Rebble App I don't think I'd know anything you don't