Pebble is back, baby. On Monday, Google (which owns Pebble’s IP via its Fitbit purchase) open-sourced the OG modern smartwatch’s software. Although that paves the road for anyone to make new Pebble-esque wearables (or custom firmware for the old models), one high-profile figure has already raised his hand: Pebble creator Eric Migicovsky.
Google says the open-source PebbleOS includes most of the software’s source code. The only exceptions are proprietary code for chipset and Bluetooth software. Google’s Matthieu Jeanson, Katharine Berry and Liam McLoughlin wrote that developers face “a non-trivial amount of work” in finding replacements for the stripped-out pieces of code. Migicovsky says he spurred the project by asking friends at Google if they would open-source the software.
The Pebble founder, who went on to run Beeper (the iMessage for Android app that sparked a short-lived war with Apple), wrote on his blog that he wants his planned smartwatch to be a modern take on th
