The tech enthusiasts among you may remember Pebble, the original smartwatch, and more than a decade after its introduction, the company is set to make wearables once again.
It’s not something I had on my tech bingo cards for 2025 but Pebble is officially coming back to the market. Well, in one form or another.
A quick recap is required here as Eric Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble which launched in 2013 – ahead of the LG G Watch and the first generation of Apple Watch. The devices were fun, used an e-paper display and offered long battery life.
Back in the day, we reviewed the Pebble Time and Pebble Steel (the latter tested by yours truly).
Foundry
Its relatively short rise to stardom ended up with insolvency and the company was sold the company to Fitbit, and therefore Google later amid cancelled shipments and refunds to Kickstarter backers.
Though Fitbit acquired assets including engineers and the Pebble operating system, we never saw another Pebble smartwatch, but that’s about to change.
Migicovsky has revealed that he will once again make Pebble devices. After many requests, Google has agreed to make PebbleOS open source for anyone to use – it’s available on Github now.
Migicovsky is setting up a company to revive Pebble wearables which he says will be much like the much-loved models from a decade ago.
RePebble
“A small team and I are working on a new Pebble-like smartwatch that runs open source PebbleOS, has the same beloved features (plus some fun new stuff), and stays true to the core Pebble vision,” said Migicovsky.
The brand won’t be called Pebble, of course, as Google owns the name so, for now, a site called RePebble has been set up so you can register your interest.
Why it matters
Even if you haven’t heard of Pebble, it’s an important development in the smartwatch and wearable industry.
Despite Fitbit and Google acquiring the brand and intellectual property, we didn’t see anything Pebble-like arrive and we haven’t seen anything comparable from the big names like Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus and others.
Instead, they have favoured bright and colourful AMOLED screens and we’re typically charging smartwatches every night.
More choice in the market is always a good thing so I’m excited about what the new Pebble will be like.
It’s also exciting because the PebbleOS code is open source meaning anyone can make use of it, whether that’s existing wearable companies or new start-ups. We could soon se a wave of new smartwatches offering something different to the Pixel Watch, Galaxy Watch et al.
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