- OG smartwatch company Pebble is back from the dead courtesy of Google.
- The brains of Pebble Watches, PebbleOS, was open-sourced by Google at the request of Pebble's founder Eric Migicovsky.
- Eric posted that he and his small team have already started working on the next Pebble smartwatch.
The early-to-mid 2010s saw a rise in Pebble smartwatches, a brand that almost instantly gained a cult following. However, it was acquired by Fitbit, which was itself bought by Google. Fast-forward, the hype around Pebble watches still lives, albeit as tiny remaining embers. Well, those embers will soon convert into fire as PebbleOS has been resurrected from the dead, meaning Pebble watches are making a comeback.
Over the last year, Pebble’s founder Eric Migicovsky asked Google if they could open-source PebbleOS, and they did. The source code of the OS is now available on GitHub. PebbleOS was the heart of Pebble smartwatches, and Google making it open-source means Pebble is back from the dead.
Eric shared a blog post stating that he and his small team have already started working on the next Pebble smartwatch and shared a feature set the watch will come with. This includes an Always-on e-paper screen, longer battery life, and dedicated buttons to control music.
Eric expressed his gratitude by saying:
I can’t stress how thankful I am to Rebble and Google, in general and to a few Googlers specifically, for putting in tremendous effort over the last year to make this happen. You’ve helped keep the dream alive by making it possible for anyone to use, fork and improve PebbleOS.
Eric also highlighted how most modern smartwatches aren’t hackable enough, and the firm’s willing to retain the hack-ability aspect of PebbleOS. While the release timeline of the next Pebble watch is still unknown, we should see an official announcement about the same in the next few months.
What are your thoughts on Pebble watches making a comeback? What are some of the things you’d like the watches to do better this time? Let us know in the comments.
