Eric Migicovsky nonetheless wears his Pebble. 13 years after he based the wearables firm and located enormous success on Kickstarter, and greater than eight years after he bought the corporate to Fitbit, which was then acquired by Google, Migicovsky’s watch nonetheless works. (In case you’re questioning: once I noticed him at CES just a few weeks in the past, he seemed to be carrying a white Pebble Time Spherical mannequin. However he has a field stuffed with them at dwelling.) It hasn’t gotten a software program replace since December 2016, although, and he’s been nervous for some time that it’s going to finally cease getting notifications, or connecting to his cellphone, or run into another show-stopping downside.
Slightly than purchase one other smartwatch, Migicovsky determined to try to get Pebble going once more. He bought his most up-to-date startup, a messaging app referred to as Beeper, to Automattic final yr and left the corporate within the fall. Since then, he’d thought of beginning a Pebble-like product from scratch, figuring it’d be simpler to do the identical factor once more a second time. “However then I used to be like, what if I simply requested Google to open-source the working system?” he says. It felt like a protracted shot, however he knew the code was simply sitting dormant inside Mountain View someplace. So he requested. A number of instances.
To Migicovsky’s shock, Google agreed to launch Pebble OS to the general public. As of Monday, all of the Pebble firmware is offered on GitHub, and Migicovsky is beginning an organization to choose up the place he left off.
The corporate — which may’t be named Pebble as a result of Google nonetheless owns that — doesn’t have a reputation but. For now, Migicovsky is internet hosting a waitlist and information signup at an internet site referred to as RePebble. Later this yr, as soon as the corporate has a reputation and entry to all that Pebble software program, the plan is to begin transport new wearables that look, really feel, and work just like the Pebbles of previous.
The explanation, Migicovsky tells me, is straightforward. “I’ve tried actually every little thing else,” he says, “and nothing else comes shut.” Positive, he could have a really particular set of necessities — numerous persons are clearly pleased with what Apple, Garmin, Google, and others are making. But it surely’s true that there’s been nothing like Pebble since Pebble. “For the issues I need out of it, like e-paper display screen, lengthy battery life, good and easy consumer expertise, hackable, there’s simply nothing.”
The core of Pebble, he says, is just a few issues. A Pebble ought to be quirky and enjoyable and will really feel like a gadget in an necessary method. It exhibits notifications, enables you to management your music with buttons, lasts a very long time, and doesn’t attempt to do an excessive amount of. It appears like Migicovsky might need Pebble-y ambitions past smartwatches, however he seems to be beginning with smartwatches.
If that sounds just like the previous Pebble and never a lot else, that’s exactly the purpose. Migicovsky tells me again and again that the plan is to not reinvent Pebble, or AI the bejesus out of the idea, or do no matter else you’d do beginning a {hardware} firm in 2025. The truth that the Pebble on his wrist nonetheless works, and nonetheless works for him, is proof that possibly Pebble had already completed its job. “We’re constructing a religious, not successor, however clone of Pebble,” he says, “as a result of there’s not that a lot I truly need to change.”
Quite a lot of different issues have modified in eight years, although. Google, Apple, and Samsung all now have good smartwatches which can be tied tightly to their different gadgets — Pebble all the time had bother gaining access to options on iOS, particularly, and that’s not getting simpler. Smartwatches are presently well being and health gadgets above all else, they usually’re getting vastly extra advanced and highly effective in pursuit of these options. Google clearly doesn’t see any type of Pebble as a menace; its finest probability is to chart one other path solely.
The most important distinction this time will likely be how the corporate itself operates. Migicovsky wrote a protracted weblog publish in 2022 explaining what went mistaken at Pebble the primary time and ascribed its failure partially to taking a bunch of funding cash and letting it change the corporate. Since then, Migicovsky has made loads of cash from Beeper and through a stint as an investor at Y Combinator; his new firm is his alone. Proper now, it’s simply Migicovsky and some part-time workers — it’ll develop, he says, however not an excessive amount of. “The core factor right here is: sustainable.”
“They may even use it in random different {hardware}. Who is aware of what individuals can do with it now?”
Migicovsky additionally hopes to be a part of a broader open-source neighborhood round Pebble OS. The Pebble diehards nonetheless exist: a bunch of builders at Rebble have labored to maintain most of the platform’s apps alive, as an illustration, together with the Cobble app for connecting to telephones, and the Pebble subreddit is surprisingly lively for a product that hasn’t been up to date because the Obama administration. Migicovsky says he plans to open-source no matter his new firm builds and hopes numerous people will construct stuff, too. “There’s going to be the flexibility for anybody who needs to, to take Pebble supply code, compile it, run it on their Pebbles, construct new Pebbles, construct new watches,” he says. “They may even use it in random different {hardware}. Who is aware of what individuals can do with it now?”
This entire mission will take time, Migicovsky cautions. He solely came upon for positive that Google would open-source the software program just a few days in the past, and he hasn’t been in a position to make use of it in any respect but. However he’s already engaged on {hardware} prototypes, and he’s crystal clear on what he needs the brand new Pebbles to be. He is aware of he can do it as a result of he already did it as soon as. The proof is true there on his wrist. All he’s attempting to do is be sure that it could actually keep there.
