Pebble was from a time when enshittifiaction wasn’t as terrible as it is today, and died (post acquisition) before it could really be implemented in its products. Eric Migicovsky is an odd duck in that regard. Between this and Beeper, privacy has always been “not great, not malicious (yet)”, and before enshittifiaction could set in under his watch, the company gets bought out by a bigger one with a truly lousy CEO.
Under his watch. Heh.
Pebble was possibly one of the last great tech innovations before AI, in its desperate attempt to sell our stolen data back to us in a thoroughly butchered format. Which means it pains me to read
Upgrades to the hardware will include a speaker alongside the microphone, which Migicovsky teases will be used for talking with AI assistants (ChatGPT being one example).
Personal home labs might be able to go much further with this, I hope.
Considering how popular this product originally was with hackers and open source enthusiasts, I really hope the hardware has as much longevity as its predecessor. And considering that was closed source and got so much mileage, I have the feeling that this will be better simply by how open-source works.
As I understand it, most of the Pebble’s OS is currently Open Source. Traditionally, you could download updates and applets, watch faces for your Pebble through it’s app, as well has have many phone integrations. Most of the phone integrations can now be done through GadgetBridge and applets downloaded from Rebble.
Given the minimal need for always-online or really much of a internet connection at all beyond what is needed for third-party applets (weather watch faces, etc.), the older Pebble smart watches are able to be made about as private as one could reasonably expect from a Bluetooth wearable.
The two upcoming remakes appear to be basing the mobile app and applet repo upon the Rebble community’s work, if not outright using it as the source. If the watches gain GadgetBridge support and/or the companion app is fully open source, I imagine these will be as worthy as the older watches.
