this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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Google recently open sourced Pebble and today, Repebble has put some of the watches up for preorder.

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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 9 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I had a Pebble Time Steel and it was the best watch I've ever head. I want another Pebble. So does Eric. So I gave him money to make me one.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org -5 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

Yeah, I get that. My question is why Eric (or literally anyone else) didn't just re-make the Pebble (or similar) under a different name at any time in the last 10 years? Why did they wait for the OS to be open sourced instead of just making a new one?

[–] synestine@sh.itjust.works 6 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Methinks you underestimate the complexity.

And all the other watch makers I've looked at are not doing, or even considering, what Pebble did.

[–] TiggerYumYum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 14 hours ago

That guy is intentionally obtuse and acts in bad faith. Pebble's IP and software were sold to Fitbit. Then Google bought Fitbit. Then Google made PebbleOS open source this year. It couldn't be made until now.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org -2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Methinks you underestimate the complexity.

Maybe I do. But there are dozens of Chinese no-name companies who developed entire smartwatch ecosystems.

[–] synestine@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Dozens? Name three, and be sure to include number of aps in each ecosystem.

I'm sure there are dozens of Chinese smart watches, but most that I've seen are white-labels and sorely missing an ecosystem.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 10 hours ago

Go to Amazon and search for smartwatch

[–] Abnorc@lemm.ee 3 points 16 hours ago

Making a new OS isn't easy as others have said, but it's also helpful that Pebble OS has a bit of a following. There are still people who are very vocal about how much they love/loved their pebble watches. Making a new OS that's inspired by PebbleOS would be met with more skepticism than just releasing a watch with an OS that people already know that they like.

Assuming that he made no major changes to the software, pebble fans almost already know what they'll be getting out of this product. You couldn't say the same for a watch with a new OS.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 points 17 hours ago

Some reasons:

  • It's a lot of work no one wants to do given there are half-decent proprietary alternatives
  • Eric wasn't sitting twiddling his thumbs
  • The corporate landscape wasn't nearly as hostile to users until the last few years