Eric Migicovsky

> Surely if a lack of open phone OS and feature access was the problem, we’d see a rich ecosystem of integrations that exist on Android devices that are just impossible to achieve on iOS right? ...yes, and that's exactly what has happened. Android has a thriving ecosystem of excellent smartwatches (Garmin, Pebble, Fitbit, Samsung & Pixel watches, etc) with lots of features (particularly around notifications and interactions with apps on the device) that are impossible to support on iOS. https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi… has some concrete details.

I don't love the color of the Core Time 2, but it sounds like there will actually be 3 colors (black/white/other), and they will be finalized later this year. [1] Fingers crossed for gunmetal! 1: https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watches

Isn’t it valuable to Google to keep potential competitors from getting expensive IP for free? “PebbleOS took dozens of engineers working over 4 years to build, alongside our fantastic product and QA teams. Reproducing that for new hardware would take a long time.” [0] [0] https://ericmigi.com/blog/why-were-bringing-pebble-back

> Instead, we took a more direct route - I asked friends at Google (which bought Fitbit, which had bought Pebble’s IP) if they could open source PebbleOS. They said yes! Over the last year, a team inside Google (including some amazing ex-Pebblers turned Googlers) has been working on this. And today is the day - the source code for PebbleOS is now available at github.com/google/pebble (see their blog post). https://ericmigi.com/blog/why-were-bringing-pebble-back

For visibility (via comment by 1337shadow @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42848245): ---- > Instead, we took a more direct route - I asked friends at Google (which bought Fitbit, which had bought Pebble’s IP) if they could open source PebbleOS. They said yes! Over the last year, a team inside Google (including some amazing ex-Pebblers turned Googlers) has been working on this. And today is the day - the source code for PebbleOS is now available at github.com/google/pebble (see their blog post). https://ericmigi.com/blog/why-were-bringing-pebble-back ----

> This is more than just a revenue calculation Everything is a revenue calculation > that has massive engineering implications for an ecosystem as vast as Apple’s. That is Apple's problems. All Eu says is "do not deliberatly hamper competition and don't install artificial barriers to differentiate your products". Apple has had no issues complying with every single request from any government. > Simple features like Live Translation or iPhone Mirroring become 10x more complex to build when you need to test and support other vendor devices. You don't have to test and support them on vendor devices. You either provide an API, or let "vendor devices" implement the same features. This has never been such big of an issue. > In fact some features become downright impossible if you require interoperability. Then those features are either not needed, or it's Apple's own fault (e.g. for preventing others from building the same feature set). It's insane to me that Hacker News, of all places, would argue that walled gardens are good, actually. Ponder this article, for example: "Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones" https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi… > This is about slowing down the pace of development and adding engineering complexity to everything worldwide The only ones insisting and making it so are Apple. A great example is this: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/03/14/dma-compliance-default-maps-app-in-… Apple…

And as usual, Apple has it crippled in order to make sure it can't complete with whatever they're trying to sell you instead: https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi…

Migicovsky wrote an article on it: https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi… That said, I'm happy with my Pebble on iPhone (though I'd be happier if it had fuller access).

I'm excited for my preorder – but realistic in my expectations: it just won't integrate well with Apple tech. https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi… It'll never be able to react to a notification, or send an iMessage.

Not so surprising. In the interim, Apple watch became a thing, and Apple has since locked down the ability for third-party smart-watches to do things in the iOS ecosystem. Some info from Eric: https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi…

> So the Pebble Duo was a one time thing The Time 2 too: > Both are available in limited quantities, with worldwide shipping. Prices are in USD. Pre-ordering is the only way to get one --- https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watches/

I believe you can see that stuff on the Pebble app but you can't sync with Apple health. See this previous pebble blog post: https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi…

I made that same comment! https://ericmigi.com/blog/how-to-build-a-smartwatch-software-setting-e… ...fingers crossed or "patches welcome" I'm sure.

While the original announcement just said ipx8, the chart at https://repebble.com/watch says the target for both watches will be 30 meters (search for "30m"). (note: even though the duo is rated for 20m, they've said specifically not to dive with them: https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-2-duo-is-in-mass-production)

Pebble Time 2 has a compass sensor and HRM. https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-time-2-design-reveal#final-pebble-tim… Unless you specifically are after a barometer, in which case I don't think the PT2 has that.

Eric has made it clear that the Pebble 2 Duo was always going to be a limited run because it was made mostly of leftover components and there's no reasonable path towards making new copies of those components. > Pebble 2 Duo is sold out! We are not making more. https://ericmigi.com/blog/how-to-build-a-smartwatch-software-setting-e…

From Eric’s previous blog post, he did not “cash out”: > I earned almost nothing from Pebble Tech Corp. I paid myself a $65,000 salary each year. I did not get any payout through the asset sale. Eric also made a pretty detailed writeup a few years ago about what drove the failure and acquisition of the original Pebble company: https://ericmigi.com/blog/success-and-failure-at-pebble

Also includes news about a new Appstore, which can probably be seen as a reaction to the stories from last week: We’ve created our own Pebble Appstore feed (appstore-api.repebble.com) and new Developer Dashboard. Our feed (fyi powered by 100% new software) is configured to back up an archive of all apps and faces to Archive.org (backup will gradually complete over the next week). Today, our feed only has a subset of all Pebble watchfaces and apps (thank you aveao for creating Pebble Archive!). Developers - you can upload your existing or new apps right now! We hope that this sets a standard for openness and we encourage all feeds to publish a freely and publicly available archive. https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-watch-software-is-now-100percent-open…

The watch is only listed as water resistant, not waterproof. I don't know if he's said anything specific about the Time 2, but for the 2 Duo (same target water resistance rating) he's written about the water resistance here: https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-2-duo-is-in-mass-production . He says you shouldn't take the watch swimming, shouldn't expose it to hot water like a shower (weakens the glue and eliminates the water resistance), and shouldn't expose it to high pressure water. They seem designed mainly to protect against incidental splashes rather than any serious water exposure.

Update: Response from Eric. https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-rebble-and-a-path-forward

> "They sold cheap" as soon as they encountered some hardship Nobody is perfect, and running a small hardware startup is difficult. I'm not saying Eric and co are perfect, but it seems like he's been fairly forthright about the mistakes made at Pebble[1] and what Core aims to do better. Shit happens, people make mistakes, Apple/Google decide to compete with you and/or lock you out of parts of their garden. [1] https://ericmigi.com/blog/success-and-failure-at-pebble

Pretty much spot on https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi…

Sorry, I guess I was just reading about them, and went to the original blog post published on 2025-03-18 https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watches I was able to develop apps for Garmin Fenix 3, which was released in 2015 https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/160512/#specs it already supported building apps for the watch. They also had a funny name for the language they built, something like "Gorilla language" or something similar. EDIT: found it, they call it Monkey-C https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/monkey-c/

> I replied to someone else in the same vein but having had a garmin watch in the home there was nothing that it would have done better if it was able to work with Apple's proprietary stuff Maybe to you. Garmin watches cannot respond to notifications on Apple devices, for example. Detailed article about restrictions on iOS from Pebble: https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi… > If random devices of unknown provenance were able to freely connect with Apple devices then the security of Apple's ecosystem would take a hit. This would be bad. Random devices are not able to connect over bluetooth to your device without your consent. Then, the bluetooth device can only get as much information as the companion app will allow it to get. Besides, we have that on Android (and PCs) and the security of these "ecosystems" is not worse because of it.

The new Pebbles are also claiming two weeks (they're only just now shipping, so we'll see how that pans out): https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-2-duo-is-in-mass-production In any case I agree that it's crazy - particularly for Apple which tends to have pretty good power efficiency in its other devices.

Did they give up on the “Core” branding? When I was looking at this a month ago it was the “Core 2 Duo” https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watches Maybe Intel had a word?

They recently recovered the 'Pebble' trademark and thus rebranded: https://ericmigi.com/blog/july-pebble-update

People can buy the second option from someone else, like RePebble. Of course if they want to use it with an Apple phone, it will have artificial limitations[0]. That, rather than adding a product line that doesn't align with most of their market is what Apple should fix. [0] https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-wi…

Aww really glad to hear it! It is fast - but we've done this before (many times) and know what we're doing. I've been blogging about the experience too https://ericmigi.com/blog/february-shenzhen-trip-update

their stated reason [0] for that is "It’s almost exactly a Pebble 2, upgraded with modern chips and new tricks. Duo is short for ‘Do-over’." [0] https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watches