this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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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.
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?
Methinks you underestimate the complexity.
And all the other watch makers I've looked at are not doing, or even considering, what Pebble did.
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.
Maybe I do. But there are dozens of Chinese no-name companies who developed entire smartwatch ecosystems.
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.
To interject a bit, as both an original pebble and current re-pebble backer who also has tried most of the other watches (no-name chinese ones and samsung) The no-name ones actually aren't bad. But none of them have anywhere near the build quality - which is frankly a bit shocking. They also have nowhere near the interoperability - I can (and did) crank out faces and apps for my pebble to suit my own personal use case. That's possible with some of the big-name ones (like the Samsung), but certainly not the chinese knockoff ones.
So for me, personally, having effectively a backup to my time steel is a good deal and I'm down for it. I'd actually prefer nothing else about it change much - aside from going to normal lugs. The weirdo ones are why I still am using the same slightly ratty band all these years later.
Go to Amazon and search for smartwatch
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.
Some reasons: