The future of Rebble(rebble.io) https://github.com/google/pebble |
The future of Rebble(rebble.io) https://github.com/google/pebble |
Bought by Intel, then killed two years later after a battery related recall issue.
It was, in my opinion, by far the best fitness tracker watch ever, and remains so to this day. Not so much because of it's actual features (which were relatively standard), but the software paradigm of simple yet effective exercise gamification that helped encourage exercise habit formation. 8 years later and I still miss it.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_d...
The submitted title of this post was "Google has open-sourced the pebble smartwatch operating system" but it actually points to https://rebble.io/2025/01/27/the-future-of-rebble.html, so I've changed the title and moved the comments from here to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42845070, which has the Google announcement.
The 3 threads are:
We're bringing Pebble back - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42845091
Google open-sources the Pebble OS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42845070
The future of Rebble - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42845017 (<-- you are here)
But how are RePebble and Rebble related? Are they the same thing? Is Rebble making hardware as well as RePebble, or are they the same effort? Is RePebble also open source and community owned like Rebble?
(Disclaimer: I'm part of the team)
RePebble is a new thing by Eric, the original founder of Pebble and is unrelated to Rebble.
> Is Rebble making hardware as well as RePebble?
Potentially! We have always talked about it, but some of the announcements today have thrown us for a loop so plans are still being discussed.
> Is RePebble also open source and community owned like Rebble?
Remains to be seen, but if I had to guess it's unlikely.
Feel free not to answer, but: does this imply Rebbele were aware of an impending Pebble OS source release but not... the other thing?
If so, that seems... "unfortunate". :/
Also, btw, I really like the use of the phrase "user-respectful technology" in the Rebble post.
And, rather unsurprisingly given one of my other recent comments[0], I am supportive of the fact that the Foundation's missions includes these aspects in particular:
* "educating people about why these [little oasis of user-respectful technology] are important"
* "using them as a platform to teach embedded systems"
*insert additional supportive statement & well wishes here* :)
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[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42856930 [1]
[1] TooLong;Don'tRead. :)
Not only can you run anything you want on it but it supports the Arduino IDE and Micropython. I assume all of the Alibaba ones are based off of Watchy.
I like the idea. But I've been wearing mechanical watches for about a decade now...
Don't do that. Don't give me hope...
I've got a Bangle.js 2 at the moment and while I mostly like it, the screen is nowhere near as nice. Transflective is still very obviously what I want in a watch though, even the best oleds don't even come close in visibility.
Most fitness smartwatches (Garmin, Coros, Wahoo) used the same display technology for years, called it MIP displays. Nowadays they are switching to OLEDs.
https://garminrumors.com/amoled-vs-mip-in-garmin-devices-a-d...
The vast majority I've seen are black and white, with a color layer on top that is disabled when in "low power / sunlight readable" modes. And many of the smartwatch-focused devices (rather than Garmin's super pricey and gigantic "hiking for days without a phone so it solar charges and has gps and..." watches) only use OLED, even if the brand has MIP screens in some other product lines.
I haven't seen anything even close to what pebble's color watches did. Banglejs is by far the closest, with 6 colors and a much more muted screen in general.