Pebble: How to Build a Smartwatch: Software – Setting Expectations and Roadmap
12 comments
·November 13, 2025NewUser76312
I loved Pebble back in the day, and Eric is a great guy and friend to entrepreneurs trying to build cool things.
I do wonder how a modern revival of Pebble will compete from a product perspective within the current landscape. Obviously there's the high-end Apple Watches, but there's also incredibly cheap and long battery life products from China that you can see on Aliexpress and similar. Fitness tracking is another related niche that seems oversaturated, unless you do something really unique in biometrics sensing.
So it seems like a hard market to get back into, curious where they take things.
jmcphers
I used a super-cheap Chinese smartwatch (Amazfit Bip S) for years and recently switched to the Pebble. The Bip's battery lasted forever and it did check a lot of feature boxes, but overall it was clunky to use and not in any way hackable.
I switched to a Pebble 2 Duo recently and while the features are comparable on paper (multi-week battery life, reflective display, basic health tracking, etc.), everything is just nicer on the Pebble. The software is thoughtful and fun and there are tons of third-party apps, so it can do all kinds of things the Bip could never do.
There really isn't a huge market for this kind of thing; most people, including nerds, want a watch with a brightly colored screen and tons of health metrics and service integrations. I imagine Pebble will stay a boutique brand this time around.
modeless
They sold the whole production run of Pebble 2 Duos, and they are keeping the company small to be sustainable this time. I think they have a chance.
The Pebble software is second to none in nailing the basics. I'll definitely continue to choose Pebble over no-name brands on AliExpress.
hellcow
The key value of Pebble to me was its incredible C SDK that made it super easy to write custom apps for it. I remember way back I got full turn-by-turn navigation working on it.
lawn
I think they have a very clear niche: nerdy techies (like me).
The question is indeed if it's a big enough market to carry to the company. I hope so.
xeromal
Got my duo a few weeks ago and my battery lasted about 3 weeks before needing a recharge. It does everything I need. Great little smartwatch
maufl
Does anyone know whether more than one device can connect to a Pebble watch at the same time? I'm thinking using it with your phone but also sending notifications from your laptop.
throwaway74354
Pebble watches can use Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth Classic connection profiles simultaneously. It's possible to pair two phones this way, but that's considered an undocumented hack. Also there's no ready-made desktop OS support, I'd look into forwarding your laptop notifications to a phone via KDE Connect or something like that instead.
modeless
Connecting to a laptop isn't supported AFAIK. Personally I don't have any important notifications on my computer that don't come to my phone already. What would you use it for?
desireco42
Yeah, I got burned once, I don't want to be burned again. You will sell out at first opportune moment. Which is why I am passing on this. (I don't blame you for that, just don't want to be part of it)
BTW, Amazfit, rules.
ls-a
Or "Milking content out of the old dry Pebble well"
Their libc is kind of a mess of various sources. I wonder what's going on there?
https://github.com/coredevices/PebbleOS/tree/main/src/libc