Pebble smartwatch not dead, just resting
There's a saying. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift. That is why it is called a Present. - Oogway
What a fitting quote for Pebble smartwatches [1]. Released in 2013, dead since 2016. But not really. Today is a great day for all fans of this miniature wearable hackable platform. Eric Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble, writes on his blog [2] about bringing those devices back, with style! Thanks Google [3].
It has been almost 10 years since the official discontinuation of Pebble smartwatches. But actually devices never died. The Rebble [4] community kept them working to this day. In 2022 I participated in first Hackathon dedicated to this dead platform and it was a blast! I've made the pRebble [6] watchface which is one of most loved watchfaces among new project released in recent years [7]. The interesting thing about developing for Pebble platform is that Front-End is written in C and Back-End in JavaScript.
Enough about the past. In present moments we have new official rePebble website [8] on which you can join the excited crowd of hackers which I did. And the PebbleOS is now open source available on GitHub [9].
In latest Rebble blog post [10] you can read about future of Rebble. But what is more important - the second Hackathon was announced [11]. Last time it was just for a weekend. This time it's a full week. No clue what I will do this time but you know - tomorrow is a mystery. I will enjoy today's gift for now.
Oh, And I have to take few days-off for Rebble Hackathon #002 in March. Nothing like a holiday from programming at work for even more programming. It will be awesome. Hours of coding, very little sleep and food. Super unhealthy. But the stakes are high. Eternal glory, internet points and street cred. Yep, totally justified.