Nearly 10 years after the Pebble Watch disappeared, it may be making a surprise return.
Today (Jan. 27), Eric Migicovsky, the founder and inventor, dropped a blog post on his website announcing that he's reviving Pebble, after having convinced Google to make PebbleOS, the watch's operating system, open-source.
When Pebble folded, Fitbit bought many of the company's assets, including the Pebble operating system. According to Migicovsky, he asked if Google would be willing to make PebbleOS open source. Apparently, they said yes and have now released the source code for PebbleOS.
Migicovsky says that he still wears his Pebble but that new hardware is needed. He also notes that "manufacturing hardware...is infinitely easier now than 10 years ago."
While some dedicated fans of Pebble have continued to use their watches and keep the proverbial flame lit via Rebble, no new watches have come out in a decade.
"This time round, we’re keeping things simple," he wrote in his post. "Lessons were learned last time! I’m building a small, narrowly focused company to make these watches. I don’t envision raising money from investors, or hiring a big team. The emphasis is on sustainability. I want to keep making cool gadgets and keep Pebble going long into the future."
He goes on to write that the new watch will have more or less the same specs and features as the Pebble "with some fun new stuff."
When the original Pebble watch was launched via Kickstarter in 2012, it quickly became one of the most funded Kickstarters to that point, raising over $10 million from nearly 69,000 people. Over its lifetime, Pebble shipped over 2 million smartwatches.
Pebble made some aesthetically great smartwatches; at the time, Tom's Guide called the Pebble Time the "most beautiful smartwatch on the market." That success didn't last as the company failed to scale properly and made some serious missteps with the Pebble 2 lineup.
Pebble announced bankruptcy in 2016 and had to refund backers of its most recent Kickstarter. Online support ended in 2018, though fans of the Pebble managed to keep some services going in unofficial communities.
A new website to preorder the next iteration of Pebble Watches has been set up at RePebble.com. There is no real timeline or pricing yet, but signing up will let keep you abreast of future developments.
It's not clear at this time if Migicosky will go the route of crowdfunding again, but it appears we have some time before anything more physically tangible gets announced.
