Pebble is bringing its e-ink smartwatches back in an open-sourced way

By
Surakshya Acharya
-
Pebble is relaunching its e-ink smartwatches
Asus Ad

Pebble, the company that revolutionized the smartwatch industry with its first device in 2012, is making a comeback. Its smartwatches were known for their unique e-paper display and impressive 7-day battery. Because of this, they sold over 2 million units back then. In 2016, the company handed over its intellectual property to Fitbit, but now, after nearly a decade, Pebble is planning to return with a new and improved version of its e-ink smartwatch.

Pebble’s Return

What makes Pebble’s E-Ink smartwatch special?

For those unfamiliar with e-ink display, it is the technology that allows screens to be easily read in direct sunlight, unlike traditional backlit displays. This feature has made Pebble’s smartwatches stand out for their readability. Furthermore, the smartwatches used to run on PebbleOS, the custom operating system that took the engineers of the company more than four years to develop.

Pebble e-paper design

“Core set of features”

Pebble’s founder, Eric Migicovsky, has expressed his dissatisfaction over the direction smartwatches have taken since 2021. As per him, smartwatches should feature always-on e-paper displays. Moreover, the watches should also have a long battery, after all, the original Pebble had a 7-day battery life back then.

Furthermore, the official also believes the UI on smartwatches should remain simple. The users should be able to control music directly from their watch with physical buttons, all without needing to look at the screen.

Pebble e-ink display

Not just that, Migicovsky also took a swipe at Apple’s closed ecosystem, stating that the smartwatch should be “hackable,”. Meaning, that it should allow users to customize features like watch faces, something Apple does not allow.

What’s next?

In a recent blog post, Migicovsky revealed that he and a small team are diving back into the hardware world to revive Pebble. While the new smartwatch may have a different name (Google currently owns the rights to “Pebble”), it will retain the core features that made the original device so successful, along with some exciting new additions.

While the exact specifications of the upcoming Pebble smartwatch remain not confirmed, we are expecting they will be built on the strengths of the original model.

PebbleOS goes Open-Source

One of the most exciting developments for the Pebble brand is that PebbleOS is going open-source. Thanks to Google, which now controls Pebble’s intellectual property. This will let enthusiasts and developers build and create new Pebble-compatible smartwatches.