10 ms·

Pebble, Rebble, and a path forward

468 points by phoronixrly 11mo ago

not_your_vase 11mo ago
It's a followup on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960893 from a few hours ago
- dang 11mo ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: Core Devices keeps stealing our work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960893 - Nov 2025 (110 comments)
dewey 11mo ago
The mentioned blog post (https://rebble.io/2025/11/17/core-devices-keeps-stealing-our-work.html https://rebble.io/2025/11/17/core-devices-keeps-stealing-our...) is a pretty great example why using Discord as your main communication tool for an open source project is the wrong choice. The only way to read about the decisions ("Shortly after, Core forked PebbleOS1 away from public maintainership. Back in June, they said that they would merge back periodically2;") is to read the manual transcript they added to the blog post.
- michaelmior 11mo ago
  There are solutions such as Answer Overflow[0] that allow public indexing and search of Discord content that solve this problem. [0] https://www.answeroverflow.com/ https://www.answeroverflow.com/
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
bigstrat2003 11mo ago
This is a pretty predictable response. The problem is, this is a classic "he said, she said" situation. So it's pretty tough to tell whom you should believe, unless you are close enough to the situation to see it first-hand. Clearly someone is not playing nice, but it's not clear which party that is. Sucks for the user community though, either way.
- tyre 11mo ago
  Eric has been a pretty stand-up guy when it comes to Pebble. He could have been content with an exit (though sad to see it wither in the hands of Fitbit => Google), but instead kept the dream alive. He bought it back and made another refreshed attempt, despite being a YC partner and repeat founder. It’s clear he cares deeply about this product and its potential, far and above what the community could hope for. I think the default trust should be with him, or at least it is for me.
  - radlad 11mo ago
    > It’s clear he cares deeply about this product and its potential, far and above what the community could hope for. I think the default trust should be with him, or at least it is for me. The default trust should be with him instead of _the community_ that built and maintained Rebble for a decade?
    - renewiltord 11mo ago
      It's not clear why the community refuses to make the app store archive public. It's an archive of other developers' work. Doesn't make any sense to say "you can only get these from the Rebble website". Just do requester-pays on the S3 bucket.
      - radlad 11mo ago
        The concern is that it will be imported into a separate app store owned by Pebble, which Pebble will lock Rebble out of (i.e. block scraping and refuse to release this data), and then if Pebble goes bust again, Rebble is left with less than they started with. As I understand it, they almost came to an agreement on this: > We want to give Core’s users access to the Rebble App Store. (We thought we agreed on that last month.) We’re happy to commit to maintaining the Web Services. We’d be happy to let them contribute and build new features. And what we want in return is simple: if we give Core access to our data, we want to make sure they’re not just going to build a walled garden app store around our hard work. To be clear, the Rebble app store includes more than just things uploaded to Pebble - many apps have been created and uploaded since Pebble OG shutdown.
BoredPositron 11mo ago
Now I am glad I didn't order a new one. Drama everywhere nowadays.
- roughly 11mo ago
  The difference between this product (and other open source-style projects) and every other product you purchase is all the drama’s happening out in the open. Google, Apple, and Amazon all have the kind of infighting that would embarrass the Sun King’s court, it’s just all kept inside the palace walls.
  - its-summertime 11mo ago
    There is drama for Watchy, but I don't think there is any for BangleJS (other than being a bit iffy on iphones)
    - dbl000 11mo ago
      What's the drama with Watchy? I wasn't aware of any but I didn't play with mine that much either.
      - its-summertime 11mo ago
        https://github.com/Szybet/WatchySourcingHub/blob/main/Watchy%203.0%20review.md https://github.com/Szybet/WatchySourcingHub/blob/main/Watchy...
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
  - BoredPositron 11mo ago
    Yes, and all I said is that I am glad I didn't order one so I have one less optional drama in my life.
- diego_moita 11mo ago
  > Drama everywhere nowadays. That's the way open source works. Do you think the Linux Kernel or Python communities are better? Btw, that's also the way democracy works. Dictatorships don't have drama because they repress it.
pokoleo 11mo ago
Summarizing the dispute, for anyone interested: Rebble's "one red line" is "there has to be a future for Rebble in there." They fear being replaced/made irrelevant after Core builds their own infrastructure using Rebble's work. They want guarantees that if they give Core access to the app store data, Core won't build a proprietary/walled garden that cuts Rebble out. There's also emphasis on "our work," "we built this," "we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars." They feel Eric isn't acknowledging where his infrastructure came from. Core Devices' thing is explicitly stating concern about relying on a third party (Rebble) for "critical services" his customers depend on. If "Rebble leadership changes their mind," they can't guarantee customer experience. They wants the app store archive to be "freely available" and "not controlled by one organization." They don't want to need "permission from Rebble" before building features (like free weather, voice-to-text) that might compete with Rebble's paid services. The fundamental fear seems to be business risk: being at the mercy of a nonprofit's decisions when his company has customers and obligations. Neither side seems to trust the other's long-term intentions, creating an impasse where both feel existentially threatened by the other's preferred arrangement. My take: I bought a watch in 2014. After the pebble 2 duo black fiasco (they ran out of stock, offered a white instead which I accepted 2 weeks ago, never shipped, and have ghosted my emails asking for shipping timelines.) I had high hopes, but given the messy interaction with the OSS world I'm considering cancelling my order for the duo and time two.
- pokoleo 11mo ago
  They sent an email a few minutes after I posted, saying that their fulfillment centre dropped the ball and they're escalating internally. I guess complaining on HN worked. Hope they can figure out the dispute with Rebble. Maybe they end up hosting apps on a package manager and create some binding contract?
  - calgoo 11mo ago
    There are also a bunch of cancelled order right now, so maybe they suddenly had a surplus of available devices...
    - 11mo ago
xyzzy_plugh 11mo ago
I view this entire thing through an extremely simple, reductive lens: Rebble effectively had free reign on this ecosystem for years, and could have at any time decided to try and capitalize on it further. They still can! But instead they're apparently interested in rent seeking while Core makes real headway. It's clear that Eric and Core want to make something now. It's not clear what Rebble wants, but it's clear they are feeling left out. That obviously sucks but it's clear from what both sides are saying that Core has been trying to involve Rebble in their efforts. That's certainly noble and I'm not sure others would do the same. Would Eric be able to do this all without Rebble? Lots of commenters have been saying "no" but I'm skeptic. I was an early Pebble user. I stopped using it before they went bust, and while I was aware of Rebble, there was nothing compelling there for me. It's neat that they have maintained a copy of the original watchfaces but beyond that I don't perceive a ton of value. I don't like the subscription fee. I'm sad they never took a serious crack at making a Rebble watch. I hope everyone finds a way forward, together, but I'm not optimistic.
- radlad 11mo ago
  The subscription fee was what enabled them to host these services. From their blog post, they mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on infrastructure and software. I expect that the connections and skills involved in running the Rebble web services don't directly translate to creating a hardware product. That said, I think you are right that Rebble is feeling left out - and that it is hard to figure out exactly how they can fit into Core's vision. But I think there are a couple of primary and immediate issues: 1. Core wants Rebble's data - so clearly there is value here, but Core is framing this debacle like Rebble is irrelevant. Also, I don't know that Google would've ever released PebbleOS if Rebble didn't exist 2. Rebble wants to see the future of Pebble remain open-source or at least compatible with their services, so that if Pebble goes bust again, the community can continue on
  - modeless 11mo ago
    Core doesn't want Rebble's data. They want the data from the original Pebble store, which is not owned by Rebble. It's the work of thousands of independent developers and it should be shared freely, not kept in a walled garden with "no scraping" terms added on. It's actually offensive that Rebble is using other developers' data (that they originally scraped from Pebble) as a bargaining chip in their contract negotiation that they made into a public squabble.
John-Tony 11mo ago
[flagged]
- titaniumtown 11mo ago
  AI slop comment.
micromacrofoot 11mo ago
Why is Rebble so set on protecting this code that would have an incredibly limited shelf life if not for the new Pebble devices? It seems like an incredibly short-sighted fight against someone who (legally) owes them 0 unless they can substantiate the allegation that Pebble stole their code (theirs not being code they themselves scraped after Pebble's initial failure).
jamesbelchamber 11mo ago
What an entirely avoidable lose-lose bust-up.
- apparent 11mo ago
  IDK that it was entirely avoidable, but it sure is a shame that they're spending cycles on this rather than getting the PT2s out the door. Looks like shipping has already slipped from Dec 25 to Jan 26: > We’re aiming to start shipping in January.
Defletter 11mo ago
This is a bit of a what-if, but I had a Pebble watch back then and was considering trying to make an app for it. The idea that, if I had succeeded and published the app, that Rebble would be claiming ownership over my binary and threatening legal action against the original Pebble creator, to be really quite ridiculous and affronting.
- tomaskafka 11mo ago
  I am one of the developers who did make Pebble apps - here's a screenshot with the Pebble version of Weathergraph on Eric's watch: https://x.com/weathergraph/status/1959253197664469246 https://x.com/weathergraph/status/1959253197664469246 Today is the day I found out Rebble is claiming the ownership of my app's binaries. All I can say is that they don't have it.
  - Brian_K_White 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - philipwhiuk 11mo ago
      > Rebble does not claim to "own" your app, they only claim to have done a lot of work saving and patching abandoned apps and recreated a whole service for managing and distributing them, wrote new apps, published new apps along with the old, to support watch owners that Pebble abandoned. Because they never had the right to redistribute it. This is like YouTube shutting down and me offering a bunch of videos I download for free, claiming that setting up a portal was a lot of work so I get rights. I’d get sued to high heaven and the only reason Rebble is getting away with it is that the watch face developers aren’t big outfits with lawyers.
      - Brian_K_White 11mo ago
        Core doesn not have any rights to it. Pebble did, and Pebble threw it away. Rebble honors copyright by taking anything down that a rightsholder says to. That's all copyright grants, and they are doing it. If you own an app and don't want Rebble to redistribute it, they won't. Core has no claim to anything. This is CoreTube coming along years later "Hey I used to work for Youtube. Give me your copy of all those videos other people actaully made and own, that Youtube threw away years ago. Also give me your whole NewTube back end site you wrote from scratch because I want to make CoreTube now and I don't have my old Youtube stuff any more because I sold it." Like holy fucking are you kidding me?
Larrikin 11mo ago
As long as I can get my data from my watch into Home Assistant and maybe Google Health, I'll keep my preorder. Hopefully this drama gets resolved but I never used any of the apps on my soon to be replaced Fitbit.
cookiengineer 11mo ago
If nobody trusts either party to keep up their end of the bargain, why not solve it with licensing? Isn't this the exact point of copyleft licenses? Relicense PebbleOS as GPL, relicense Rebble as AGPL. Problem is then solved, no?
- weinzierl 11mo ago
  Almost. The excessive CLA had to go too (or be replaced by a DCO). CLAs may have a place, but as long as they hadn't planned on a bait and switch all along they wouldn't need a CLA literally copied from Oracle's playbook.
- ergocoder 11mo ago
  Not really. If both sides don't trust each other, no amount license nor contract would suffice. It would be a headache to prove the other side violate licenses. In fact, they are already fighting on whether Eric was scraping data illegally or not, and people's opinions are divided. This would be an expensive lawsuit for both sides. At the current level of trust, it's better not to do any business together at all.
mcny 11mo ago
> I disagree. I’m working hard to keep the Pebble ecosystem open source. I believe the contents of the Pebble Appstore should be freely available and not controlled by one organization. I hate to say this but I have to agree with Eric. I want to side with Rebble But they are clearly misguided. The goal should not be to have an ongoing revenue stream for Rebble. The goals should be If and when Eric sells out again, there is a way for 1. all pebble and core devices to continue to get updates somehow (Rebble or otherwise) 2. all apps and metadata will continue to be available somehow (Rebble or otherwise) The otherwise is key here. If someone wants to not use Rebble, they should be able to do that. Rebble is not the end goal. Core is not the end goal. The users are.
- abhorrence 11mo ago
  I think your points 1 and 2 are exactly spot on. And, assuming that both Rebble's and Eric's are being relatively forthright, that Eric is the one that is actually trying to come to an agreement that accomplishes that. Whereas Rebble is taking the position of "only we can be trusted". And with all the people replying to the original Rebble post with "I'm canceling my preorder", I'm pretty worried that Rebble has created a self-fulfilling prophecy situation. :(
  - girvo 11mo ago
    On the other hand when you have the person Eric quoted saying this like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/comment/npjj1u3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/comment/npj... It makes me incredibly suspicious of Eric's motivations for some of this, and makes me less inclined to trust him.
    - micromacrofoot 11mo ago
      aren't they publicly accusing him of theft at this point though? trust is out once that happens
apparent 11mo ago
> My goal this time round is to make it sustainable. Was I the only one to get excited when I saw "time round" in a sentence written on Eric's blog? It took a second for me to realize this had nothing to do with the amazing PTR.
- wlesieutre 11mo ago
  You and me both. I have a Pebble Time 2 on order (said I'd buy one if they made it less ugly, and they did!) but what I really want is a Round. The downside of the old one was the battery life, on the order of 2 days when the battery is new compared to a week with the larger models. But they've been talking about how the new bluetooth hardware is more efficient and should let them get the Pebble Time battery life up to 30 days this time. One imagines that efficiency would get a new PTR up to a week which is plenty. Frankly with monthly charging I'm a little worried I'll lose the charger between uses. One thing I'm worried about is the thickness of the heart rate sensor, which could be even trickier with how small a Round should be. And that feels like table stakes for a wearable today, I'd buy one without it but I might be in the minority.
amatecha 11mo ago
Ignoring all else, did private conversation participants consent to their messages being posted publicly in this post?
- quantumwoke 11mo ago
  Nope: https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/pebble_rebble_and_a_path_forward/npjj1u3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/pebble_rebb...
- jwise0 11mo ago
  As someone else posted a link to the Reddit thread, I posted there to say, roughly, 'no, I'm pretty unhappy about it'.
  - skylurk 11mo ago
    I felt pretty uncomfortable reading those screenshots myself. Messages obviously sent in confidence.
Andrew-Tate 11mo ago
[flagged]
827a 11mo ago
The amount of internet drama a smartwatch that stopped being produced ten years ago generates even to this day is truly incredible. Nothing that's happening here is so important as to make enemies, and the fact that Core Devices even wants to use the open source app store and is willing to pay for it should have been an immediate "Yes, that's incredible, lets make it work" from Rebble. So what if they get bought by Fitbit or go closed source? Rebble will just be back to where they were before. That's the beauty of open source; it doesn't need them, it just needs people who are interested in the project.
- lopis 11mo ago
  Exactly. The fact that Rebble is against trying to make Pebble completely open made me lose trust in them. I thought that was the whole point of Rebble.
- lenkite 11mo ago
  > So what if they get bought by Fitbit or go closed source? Rebble will just be back to where they were before How can they be back to where they are if it goes closed source ?
- postexitus 11mo ago
  Reminds me of Genesi / Hyperion wars in late Amiga days.
quantumwoke 11mo ago
For some additional context, the screenshotted Rebble board member has commented here: https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/pebble_rebble_and_a_path_forward/npjj1u3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/pebble_rebb... Looks like they were not consulted by Eric before this post.
- protocolture 11mo ago
  Yeah thats kinda bad. Look, I am a bit of a hypocrite on this, I had a fun time when OpenAI dropped the musk emails. But this is not a great look for pebble.
evil-olive 11mo ago
this part of the response doesn't pass the smell test for me: > Accusation 4: ‘[Eric] scraped our app store, in violation of the agreement that we reached with him previously’ > Here’s what happened. I wanted to highlight some of my favourite watchfaces on the Pebble Appstore. Last Monday Nov 10, after I put my kids to sleep and between long calls with factories in Asia, I started building a webapp to help me quickly go through Pebble Appstore and decide which were my top picks. > Let me be crystal clear - my little webapp did not download apps or ‘scrape’ anything from Rebble. The webapp displayed the name of each watchface and screenshots and let me click on my favs. I used it to manually look through 6000 watchfaces with my own eyes. I still have 7,000 to go. Post your server logs, they will match up identically to the app I (well…Claude) wrote (source code here) so it wasn't "scraping"...it was just a vibe-coded webapp that made at least 6,000 requests to Rebble's servers in a short period of time? possibly more, depending on how many intermediate versions of the app he tested, and possibly many more, if one of those intermediate versions had a vibe-coded "feature" like prefetching a bunch of data for performance reasons? he agreed not to scrape their services. and then scraped their services. and his excuse seems to boil down to "but I was doing it for a cool reason" and he tosses in completely unrelated details about putting his kids to bed and having long calls with factories in Asia. those seem calculated to make him sound more relatable - an honest, hardworking, humble family man. this seems like a relatively minor point in the overall dispute, but if he's unwilling or unable to take any responsibility there, it doesn't boost my confidence that he's being honest about the rest of it.
- apparent 11mo ago
  I think the key question is whether the automated actions resulted in information being retained by Pebble. If it was just going through a motion and pulling some data (or pulling all data but only keeping some of it), then that would be consistent with Eric's story and not be the kind of scraping that Rebble is worried about. They're worried about the content being archived somewhere else, and they seem to think that happened. But did it?
  - AlotOfReading 11mo ago
    It might not be the kind of scraping rebble is worried about, but a bunch of requests to extract data into another form is very plainly scraping and the contract doesn't differentiate based on intent or whether the process is entirely automated. The entire contract is similarly loose and informal, which contributes to these sorts of misunderstandings. The most reasonable solution would have been for Eric to send an email first, but few contract disputes start with everyone doing the most reasonable thing.
Zetaphor 11mo ago
If you're looking for an alternative to all of this, the BangleJS v2 is both cheaper and more hackable than the Pebble watches. It doesn't tick all of the same boxes, but it's performed well for me over the last 6 months. Here's what it offers: * Screen is fully visible under direct sunlight * With the screen always on the battery lasts me well over a week * Heart rate monitor * EXTREMELY hackable, everything can be hacked on with JS, even the launcher you're using for apps * 108 Euros shipped to the US * Fully supported by GadgetBridge (open source mobile app) https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2 https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2
- jazzyjackson 11mo ago
  Thanks for posting, I love getting gadgets with niche displays, a 3 bit color sun readable display, how peculiar!
- philistine 11mo ago
  Don't remove that little tape that prevents the watch from shocking you with 3 continuous volts of electricity!
  - m-p-3 11mo ago
    I got mine from the Kickstarter, and it didn't came with the little tape. Those connectors are now corroded as f..
- Groxx 11mo ago
  I'm mostly happy with mine as a replacement. But it is absolutely nowhere near as polished a user experience as Pebble was. I have had constant disconnects for months at a time with Gadgetbridge, loads of edge-case bug-like behavior that is in fact documented but in a weird location that nobody would look at or consider reasonable behavior, three hardware failures in three years (I'm still using one of them with a busted vibration motor), and on-device UX and tap accuracy and freezing that really only works out if you're sold on everything else about the device. I haven't found anything else I'd recommend for a Pebble fan though, it really is the closest. I'm begrudgingly happy with it because I have no better alternative, not because it's an actually-good product.
Animats 11mo ago
Pebble was a smart watch which was not tethered to a phone, talked to the cellular network directly, and had battery life problems, correct? Apple's smart watch was tethered to a phone, so it needed less power. It's going to be interesting to see what happens when solid state batteries become available and increase how much energy you can store in a watch. They're high cost, but if you're powering a watch, not a car, probably affordable. That could make standalone watches more effective. Maybe eliminate the need to carry a phone all the time.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- wlesieutre 11mo ago
  The opposite, Pebble is tethered to a phone, has Bluetooth but no cellular. Not even its own wifi connection, any data that a watch app needs is requested over bluetooth from the companion app on the phone, which fetches it from the internet. Battery life was great, upwards of a week between charges, because connectivity features were very limited. It gets notifications, but you're not taking phone calls or checking email through it.
- iamevn 11mo ago
  Pebble smart watches are tethered (to an android/ios device via bluetooth), do not talk to a cellular network, and have had an especially good battery life because of that and their low-power displays which are always on and visible with external light, only turning on the backlight when you are using it (e.g. hitting buttons or after giving the watch a little shake). afaik, every Pebble watch has had a significantly longer battery life than all of Apple's watches even though they're always displaying. The newer Pebbles do have a better battery life, lasting multiple weeks maybe thanks of better battery tech.
  - comfydragon 11mo ago
    I think most of the battery life improvement is the much more power-efficient SOCs available. The original Pebble used an STM32 processor and a TI Bluetooth chip, where nowadays having BLE integrated into the SOC is table stakes.
gmarull 11mo ago
Hi there, Gerard here. I work for Core as a firmware engineer, happy to answer questions as well. I personally understand Rebble fears, for example when we forked and kept development under Core Github. However, I think we tried to be as transparent as possible and explained the reasons behind. While Liam (ex-Pebble) did an excellent job integrating NimBLE, it is also true that we also offered to do the work. However he had more availability by then to do so. At the same time, we fixed quite a few bugs after integration, or implemented many missing non-trivial features to make it functional. If you also check Github statistics, you will see that as of today ~93% of commits are from Core employees or paid contractors. All development is happening in the open, and released under Apache-2.0 license. This is an exception in the industry, specially for core product components. It is also common for companies to fork when developing new products because you need to move fast (check our commit rate!). Think about Linux, can you use upstream Kernel on most new ARM SoCs? No. Core took a risk here because Rebble could have kept adding new features, adding overhead for us with upmerges. Reality is that Rebble repository has been dead since we forked. Nobody except Core, and Liam were contributing by then. Another fear I've heard is about PebbleOS being sold to another company. Well, the company doing that would be pretty dumb as they could clone it for 0$. And thanks to Apache-2.0, they could even add new proprietary features! Not only that, but if Core winds up, the IP will stay open forever! I think the best, fair long-term solution is to join a well established OSS organization. Rebble lacks many formalities that are common in many OSS projects: board elections, open and regular meetings, public accounts, voting rules, etc. This makes it a dysfunctional community to me. It is up to Rebble to fix these problems or join forces in a new OSS org. Core can't do much more than that. It is also not bad that the two parts have different views, e.g. Core may think a local voice-to-text model is better but Rebble may disagree because that could imply a revenue loss. That's unavoidable, in the end, people could choose at that point.
- Pfhortune 11mo ago
  Thank you for all your work on this! I know it's not your focus, but what's your take on the Core app frontend being closed source? I know libpebble3 is open and has the important bits, but it still feels bad to be unable to build an APK or grab that from F-Droid. I had initially assumed it was because of some kind of dependency redistribution issue, but I think I read somewhere it was to stymie clones being developed and using the app. But that's part of an open ecosystem, no? That anyone can integrate into it?
stevage 11mo ago
Seems like there is a commercial agreement between the two parties, but it somehow doesn't capture everything they need. They're relying on some kind of unspoken agreement but now they don't trust each other. they should make a new agreement.
- SuperNinKenDo 11mo ago
  Dunno if you saw the previous post about the situation, but seems that attempts to do so for months have not born fruit, and only led to more trust breakdown.
  - stevage 11mo ago
    Yep. I'm sure glad I'm not a current or aspiring Pebble owner..
Havoc 11mo ago
The scraping part seems very weak. You can't sign an agreement that says no scraping and then proceed to build a scraping bot and think it's ok because you only wanted to "look" at the data. I'd definitely have doubts about the partnership too
asadm 11mo ago
It seems Rebble has no moat here. The end devices are all controlled by Pebble which can point them to any store they want. That must be making Rebble upset?
- philipwhiuk 11mo ago
  Rebble’s moat is the content from pre 2018 that they are illegally redistributing.
- gr__or 11mo ago
  bit of a narrow focus point isn't it? this is a project that lives on despite the economics, throwing garden-wall-lingo in there feels a bit gross tbh
gortok 11mo ago
None of this looks good for either side. Eric wants the App Store data. Rebble doesn’t want all their work used to enrich a company that has already failed once at the expense of the work they have put in. It seems like both parties somehow feel like they’re holding the winning hand and can bend the other to their will. Neither party seems to realize they’re dependent on the other for their success. Both sides are slinging mud, and everyone is losing.
alessandru 11mo ago
mommie, daddie, i just got my watch please don't fight ... :*(
Pfhortune 11mo ago
This whole thing is presented a bit hyberbolically on both ends. Rebble has valid concerns about the ecosystem surviving beyond Core. Their concerns about the closed-source parts of what Core has developed is valid (WRT the Core app frontend) and Eric positioning himself as a "benevolent dictator" is a reasonable red flag to raise. The next dictator (in case of acquisition) may not be so benevolent. But while their stewardship of the app store and continuance of services is laudable, they can't really justifiably cry foul when someone "scrapes" their archive of mostly-scraped (from the original store) content. Hopefully this teaches both sides that an open ecosystem means operating in the open. Which means making all source available not hiding vital components, and also not squawking about someone scraping the store.
idle_zealot 11mo ago
I don't know if this addresses Rebble's concerns (which may involve more self-preservation), but as a customer, here's what I want: If Core sells or otherwise goes bad, I want it to be impossible, legally or technically, for them to take functionality away. I want them bound by an agreement such that their hardware can load third-party versions of PebbleOS, the app can be replaced with other compatible apps, any web services can be swapped out without reverse engineering effort, and uploaded apps/watchfaces/etc are shared between backends so no party can attempt to create walled garden. I think some of these are already addressed informally, but now that trust seems low I'd like to see something more formal. I do not want to see a world where Core pulls an Android and starts shipping a proprietary version of PebbleOS that apps start depending on a la Google Play Services. I do not want to see a world where Rebble or Core can restrict access to their app library. I also don't want to see a world where an overly restrictive deal means that Core can't ship on-device speech-to-text or weather services. I realize the big issue that blocks this sort of app sharing is probably the existence of commercial/proprietary apps. If all the backends share apps freely, how could payments be handled? It's probably technically possible but very difficult. Personally I don't think this little hobby watch ecosystem would be made much poorer if it went the F-Droid route and required all apps be open and free. We're already relying on hobbyists for pretty much all apps and faces, and having the whole thing be open seems to fit the general hackable community-driven ethos Pebble is built on. Not having paid apps and IAPs would also dodge the temptation to go the modern Apple route of becoming a broker/services company.
TechDebtDevin 11mo ago
Why would we trust Eric, he's a for profit goon.
diddid 11mo ago
Trying to read all these threads and perspectives is truly exhausting but I lean more on the Rebble side. The idea that someone steps away for 10 years and then expects to take the work of others to use them and throw them away is tech toxicity 101. I had owned two of the original pebbles, but I honestly think this looks bad on everyone and will gladly ignore every future article on either of these two groups.
- anon7000 11mo ago
  That’s not at all what the threads seem to suggest, where the new company is literally paying Rebble for API access and trying very hard to include them in a lot of ways. Reality is that after a decade+ with no hardware updates, there is really no future for the Rebble platform… without new hardware. So you’re suggesting the people trying to actually revive the ecosystem by building new hardware shouldn’t be able to continue working on the open source OS they founded, or play around with clients for an API they pay for? Come on.
whyenot 11mo ago
All I can say is I am very happy with my brand new Pebble. Thank you Eric and your team for providing new hardware. This is awesome! Thank you Rebble, for maintaining the legacy software.
ayaros 11mo ago
The tone of the original post was inflammatory for sure. And there are certainly some things that could be said about Eric's post; he probably shouldn't have posted those messages out of context. I'm not a Pebble user, so I don't know how the app install process works, but can't Core just create their own store from scratch, not based on the existing app catalogue, and have that coexist as an alternative option to Rebble? Then users who want access to that extensive back catalogue can use Rebble's store. Let developers and users pick the stores they want to publish to and download from, respectively. Given that Core is a commercial enterprise, it doesn't seem appropriate for them to rely on apps that were scraped from the original Pebble store. Core is a separate commercial entity from the original Pebble, and doesn't inherit the relationships between original Pebble and the developers which published to their store. By creating a store from scratch, Core can reestablish each of those relationships one by one. That would go a long way towards helping Core build back whatever trust they may have lost (it seems some users are still bitter about the original closure of Pebble, and I don't blame them). Otherwise, what you have is a commercial entity profiting off of a bunch of applications for which they don't own the right to distribute. As a developer myself, I might be ok with my app being archived due to an emergency situation... but having that app be republished by a commercial entity is a red line. I don't have an ethical problem with the back catalogue existing, but it should be hosted by a non-profit. Core can position it's store as an place for new, or updated apps that are being actively maintained by developers, which is definitely a selling point. Rebble can position it's store as a back catalogue of apps that existed on the original pebble, offered on an as-is basis. Which is also a selling point, because who knows what great gems you might find in there...
- 1shooner 11mo ago
  This was my conclusion after reading both sides. It seems that Rebble is inevitably going to be an archive, while new development will be distributed on Core's store. Core temporarily needs some of its (unlicensed) catalog to bootstrap its new products. Having the Core store populated with fresh development seems like good platform management anyway. Let the Rebble store be the 'classic apps' archive.
aag 11mo ago
I have owned at least one of every Pebble watch since the beginning, have written watch faces for myself (but never posted them on the store), have received my Pebble 2 Duo, and am looking forward to receiving my Pebble Time 2. I am thrilled that Eric Migicovsky and his team are bringing the Pebble back to life. It was amazing that the Rebble team kept the watches alive all this time. But it's all open source, and doing that shouldn't give Rebble any kind of special say. There's no reason that "there has to be a future for Rebble in there" or that Rebble has to be "the core of the community." That sounds like nothing more than bruised egos.
- ls-a 11mo ago
  Sounds like you're attempting to boost someones ego, nothing more.
meta-level 11mo ago
The reason why I pre-ordered a Time 2 for a money you can easily get better hardware and software for was the naive implication there is hardware meant to be hacked and community around that hardware with freedom in mind I want to be part of. The reason why I cancel my pre-order now is I a clear (to me) sign that we have a "it's only software, I'm building the the important part here" situation -the same reason why I won't by a boox product until they change their mind. The moment I'll come back will be the one when a significant part of the money you spend on a Pebble will automatically go into the software ecosystem (which makes Pebble for $200+ interesting in the first place) and it's easy to see how this money is spent. I'm also 'scraping' content for my personal projects when I just need the data, but Eric is building a business here, and there had been a valid and clearly communicated suspicion about Eric acting like "goodbye fools, and thanks for the fish". And he agreed not to do so and he lied. How can I know I'm not buying $225 brick supported only by a single person who ditched the community?
mmastrac 11mo ago
Publishing private correspondence with single board member(s) is super distasteful because the opinion of one member is not the opinion of the whole board. Sure, he got tacit agreement from one, but that's not agreement with the organization as a whole. That's putting aside how gross it is for your personal comms to leak in public when you might be a little more candid about what's going on. How can you trust someone who's willing to violate your privacy like that? The whole drama is interesting as an outsider, but I can't be left without feeling that newPebble is trying to jump start a commercial venture via shortcuts. Rebble was never going to change the world but they seemed to be very good at maintaining status quo + many small benefits and just reliably serving that.
- apparent 11mo ago
  > How can you trust someone who's willing to violate your privacy like that? Who's to say he didn't have permission to post from his conversation partner? He doesn't need permission from the people he's talking about (just like we don't need his permission to post about him here).
  - mmastrac 11mo ago
    > Who's to say https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/comment/npjj1u3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/comment/npj...
    - 4ggr0 11mo ago
      wow, that puts a pretty different light on Eric's blogpost, at least for me. putting screenshots of private messages in a public blogpost without asking the person is SUCH a HUGE dickmove. still happily waiting for my Core-Pebble to arrive, but i am getting so sick of people in general.
    - neumann 11mo ago
      Ouch. I think most people would assume he got permission, so this is a bit ugh
    - 11mo ago
danieltanfh95 11mo ago
This would generally just discourage open software in general. Rebble is a non-profit and should not pretend to "own" any software or content. Eric didn't do things the polite way, but either way there's nothing to discuss here. Claiming that someone can steal something that is open source implies that they own said open source code / content. that's not how any of this works. Reselling open source content is always going to be bad taste.
bronlund 11mo ago
It isn't really that complicated. Eric is an ass and that's how we ended up in this mess to begin with.
tobi_bsf 11mo ago
My goodness, these people are fighting as if it were about controlling the next Apple App Store. These are just a few watch faces for a watch that only a few thousand people will ever use—how can they lose perspective like that?
- 4ggr0 11mo ago
  some humans are just hungry for power and walled gardens, no matter if it's just power over one person sitting on a square meter patch of grass.
burnt-resistor 11mo ago
The tao of open source: never invest time/money/effort you aren't comfortable giving away, other people using, and someone else forking perhaps as a commercial offering. There are undoubtedly those preach GPL 3 and AGPL zealous control freakery but it's pretending to be "free" while dictating what can and can't be done with code. If the agreement attempts to discriminate against users selectively, it ain't free or open. GPL 2 is the line in the sand.
- poisonborz 11mo ago
  You confuse open source with free software, and all the shades of it. GPL/copyleft exist because some people make products because they want to help and improve a community. Not just to let the product go in the wind, "whatever happens to it" (meaning corporations using it for profit extraction and/or the exact opposite goals). Even if AI made this less defendable by legal means. This isn't because these people are "control freaks", but because of their beliefs and purposefully chosen legal framework.
nosrepa 11mo ago
New response from the maintainer of Rebble's developer docs: https://fedi.foxgirl.engineering/notes/af9hg38j9iwa221x https://fedi.foxgirl.engineering/notes/af9hg38j9iwa221x
theSuda 11mo ago
I have no bone in either pebble or rebble discussion. All I want to know is what is eric's website made with? I love the font and the whole setup and would love to copy it for another blog I will setup and never write anything on.
theodric 11mo ago
I'm glad I cancelled and refunded the three watches I ordered. I don't need another smartwatch from another dead company. I hope he can work this out.

468 points by phoronixrly 11mo ago

It's a followup on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960893 from a few hours ago

dang 11mo ago
Thanks! Macroexpanded: Core Devices keeps stealing our work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45960893 - Nov 2025 (110 comments)

dewey 11mo ago

The mentioned blog post (https://rebble.io/2025/11/17/core-devices-keeps-stealing-our-work.html https://rebble.io/2025/11/17/core-devices-keeps-stealing-our...) is a pretty great example why using Discord as your main communication tool for an open source project is the wrong choice. The only way to read about the decisions ("Shortly after, Core forked PebbleOS1 away from public maintainership. Back in June, they said that they would merge back periodically2;") is to read the manual transcript they added to the blog post.

michaelmior 11mo ago
There are solutions such as Answer Overflow[0] that allow public indexing and search of Discord content that solve this problem. [0] https://www.answeroverflow.com/ https://www.answeroverflow.com/
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]

bigstrat2003 11mo ago

This is a pretty predictable response. The problem is, this is a classic "he said, she said" situation. So it's pretty tough to tell whom you should believe, unless you are close enough to the situation to see it first-hand. Clearly someone is not playing nice, but it's not clear which party that is. Sucks for the user community though, either way.

tyre 11mo ago
Eric has been a pretty stand-up guy when it comes to Pebble. He could have been content with an exit (though sad to see it wither in the hands of Fitbit => Google), but instead kept the dream alive. He bought it back and made another refreshed attempt, despite being a YC partner and repeat founder. It’s clear he cares deeply about this product and its potential, far and above what the community could hope for. I think the default trust should be with him, or at least it is for me.
- radlad 11mo ago
  > It’s clear he cares deeply about this product and its potential, far and above what the community could hope for. I think the default trust should be with him, or at least it is for me. The default trust should be with him instead of _the community_ that built and maintained Rebble for a decade?
  - renewiltord 11mo ago
    It's not clear why the community refuses to make the app store archive public. It's an archive of other developers' work. Doesn't make any sense to say "you can only get these from the Rebble website". Just do requester-pays on the S3 bucket.
    - radlad 11mo ago
      The concern is that it will be imported into a separate app store owned by Pebble, which Pebble will lock Rebble out of (i.e. block scraping and refuse to release this data), and then if Pebble goes bust again, Rebble is left with less than they started with. As I understand it, they almost came to an agreement on this: > We want to give Core’s users access to the Rebble App Store. (We thought we agreed on that last month.) We’re happy to commit to maintaining the Web Services. We’d be happy to let them contribute and build new features. And what we want in return is simple: if we give Core access to our data, we want to make sure they’re not just going to build a walled garden app store around our hard work. To be clear, the Rebble app store includes more than just things uploaded to Pebble - many apps have been created and uploaded since Pebble OG shutdown.

BoredPositron 11mo ago

Now I am glad I didn't order a new one. Drama everywhere nowadays.

roughly 11mo ago
The difference between this product (and other open source-style projects) and every other product you purchase is all the drama’s happening out in the open. Google, Apple, and Amazon all have the kind of infighting that would embarrass the Sun King’s court, it’s just all kept inside the palace walls.
- its-summertime 11mo ago
  There is drama for Watchy, but I don't think there is any for BangleJS (other than being a bit iffy on iphones)
  - dbl000 11mo ago
    What's the drama with Watchy? I wasn't aware of any but I didn't play with mine that much either.
    - its-summertime 11mo ago
      https://github.com/Szybet/WatchySourcingHub/blob/main/Watchy%203.0%20review.md https://github.com/Szybet/WatchySourcingHub/blob/main/Watchy...
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
- BoredPositron 11mo ago
  Yes, and all I said is that I am glad I didn't order one so I have one less optional drama in my life.
diego_moita 11mo ago
> Drama everywhere nowadays. That's the way open source works. Do you think the Linux Kernel or Python communities are better? Btw, that's also the way democracy works. Dictatorships don't have drama because they repress it.

pokoleo 11mo ago

Summarizing the dispute, for anyone interested: Rebble's "one red line" is "there has to be a future for Rebble in there." They fear being replaced/made irrelevant after Core builds their own infrastructure using Rebble's work. They want guarantees that if they give Core access to the app store data, Core won't build a proprietary/walled garden that cuts Rebble out. There's also emphasis on "our work," "we built this," "we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars." They feel Eric isn't acknowledging where his infrastructure came from. Core Devices' thing is explicitly stating concern about relying on a third party (Rebble) for "critical services" his customers depend on. If "Rebble leadership changes their mind," they can't guarantee customer experience. They wants the app store archive to be "freely available" and "not controlled by one organization." They don't want to need "permission from Rebble" before building features (like free weather, voice-to-text) that might compete with Rebble's paid services. The fundamental fear seems to be business risk: being at the mercy of a nonprofit's decisions when his company has customers and obligations. Neither side seems to trust the other's long-term intentions, creating an impasse where both feel existentially threatened by the other's preferred arrangement. My take: I bought a watch in 2014. After the pebble 2 duo black fiasco (they ran out of stock, offered a white instead which I accepted 2 weeks ago, never shipped, and have ghosted my emails asking for shipping timelines.) I had high hopes, but given the messy interaction with the OSS world I'm considering cancelling my order for the duo and time two.

pokoleo 11mo ago
They sent an email a few minutes after I posted, saying that their fulfillment centre dropped the ball and they're escalating internally. I guess complaining on HN worked. Hope they can figure out the dispute with Rebble. Maybe they end up hosting apps on a package manager and create some binding contract?
- calgoo 11mo ago
  There are also a bunch of cancelled order right now, so maybe they suddenly had a surplus of available devices...
  - 11mo ago

xyzzy_plugh 11mo ago

I view this entire thing through an extremely simple, reductive lens: Rebble effectively had free reign on this ecosystem for years, and could have at any time decided to try and capitalize on it further. They still can! But instead they're apparently interested in rent seeking while Core makes real headway. It's clear that Eric and Core want to make something now. It's not clear what Rebble wants, but it's clear they are feeling left out. That obviously sucks but it's clear from what both sides are saying that Core has been trying to involve Rebble in their efforts. That's certainly noble and I'm not sure others would do the same. Would Eric be able to do this all without Rebble? Lots of commenters have been saying "no" but I'm skeptic. I was an early Pebble user. I stopped using it before they went bust, and while I was aware of Rebble, there was nothing compelling there for me. It's neat that they have maintained a copy of the original watchfaces but beyond that I don't perceive a ton of value. I don't like the subscription fee. I'm sad they never took a serious crack at making a Rebble watch. I hope everyone finds a way forward, together, but I'm not optimistic.

radlad 11mo ago
The subscription fee was what enabled them to host these services. From their blog post, they mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on infrastructure and software. I expect that the connections and skills involved in running the Rebble web services don't directly translate to creating a hardware product. That said, I think you are right that Rebble is feeling left out - and that it is hard to figure out exactly how they can fit into Core's vision. But I think there are a couple of primary and immediate issues: 1. Core wants Rebble's data - so clearly there is value here, but Core is framing this debacle like Rebble is irrelevant. Also, I don't know that Google would've ever released PebbleOS if Rebble didn't exist 2. Rebble wants to see the future of Pebble remain open-source or at least compatible with their services, so that if Pebble goes bust again, the community can continue on
- modeless 11mo ago
  Core doesn't want Rebble's data. They want the data from the original Pebble store, which is not owned by Rebble. It's the work of thousands of independent developers and it should be shared freely, not kept in a walled garden with "no scraping" terms added on. It's actually offensive that Rebble is using other developers' data (that they originally scraped from Pebble) as a bargaining chip in their contract negotiation that they made into a public squabble.

John-Tony 11mo ago

[flagged]

titaniumtown 11mo ago
AI slop comment.

micromacrofoot 11mo ago

Why is Rebble so set on protecting this code that would have an incredibly limited shelf life if not for the new Pebble devices? It seems like an incredibly short-sighted fight against someone who (legally) owes them 0 unless they can substantiate the allegation that Pebble stole their code (theirs not being code they themselves scraped after Pebble's initial failure).

jamesbelchamber 11mo ago

What an entirely avoidable lose-lose bust-up.

apparent 11mo ago
IDK that it was entirely avoidable, but it sure is a shame that they're spending cycles on this rather than getting the PT2s out the door. Looks like shipping has already slipped from Dec 25 to Jan 26: > We’re aiming to start shipping in January.

Defletter 11mo ago

This is a bit of a what-if, but I had a Pebble watch back then and was considering trying to make an app for it. The idea that, if I had succeeded and published the app, that Rebble would be claiming ownership over my binary and threatening legal action against the original Pebble creator, to be really quite ridiculous and affronting.

tomaskafka 11mo ago
I am one of the developers who did make Pebble apps - here's a screenshot with the Pebble version of Weathergraph on Eric's watch: https://x.com/weathergraph/status/1959253197664469246 https://x.com/weathergraph/status/1959253197664469246 Today is the day I found out Rebble is claiming the ownership of my app's binaries. All I can say is that they don't have it.
- Brian_K_White 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - philipwhiuk 11mo ago
    > Rebble does not claim to "own" your app, they only claim to have done a lot of work saving and patching abandoned apps and recreated a whole service for managing and distributing them, wrote new apps, published new apps along with the old, to support watch owners that Pebble abandoned. Because they never had the right to redistribute it. This is like YouTube shutting down and me offering a bunch of videos I download for free, claiming that setting up a portal was a lot of work so I get rights. I’d get sued to high heaven and the only reason Rebble is getting away with it is that the watch face developers aren’t big outfits with lawyers.
    - Brian_K_White 11mo ago
      Core doesn not have any rights to it. Pebble did, and Pebble threw it away. Rebble honors copyright by taking anything down that a rightsholder says to. That's all copyright grants, and they are doing it. If you own an app and don't want Rebble to redistribute it, they won't. Core has no claim to anything. This is CoreTube coming along years later "Hey I used to work for Youtube. Give me your copy of all those videos other people actaully made and own, that Youtube threw away years ago. Also give me your whole NewTube back end site you wrote from scratch because I want to make CoreTube now and I don't have my old Youtube stuff any more because I sold it." Like holy fucking are you kidding me?

Larrikin 11mo ago

As long as I can get my data from my watch into Home Assistant and maybe Google Health, I'll keep my preorder. Hopefully this drama gets resolved but I never used any of the apps on my soon to be replaced Fitbit.

cookiengineer 11mo ago

If nobody trusts either party to keep up their end of the bargain, why not solve it with licensing? Isn't this the exact point of copyleft licenses? Relicense PebbleOS as GPL, relicense Rebble as AGPL. Problem is then solved, no?

weinzierl 11mo ago
Almost. The excessive CLA had to go too (or be replaced by a DCO). CLAs may have a place, but as long as they hadn't planned on a bait and switch all along they wouldn't need a CLA literally copied from Oracle's playbook.
ergocoder 11mo ago
Not really. If both sides don't trust each other, no amount license nor contract would suffice. It would be a headache to prove the other side violate licenses. In fact, they are already fighting on whether Eric was scraping data illegally or not, and people's opinions are divided. This would be an expensive lawsuit for both sides. At the current level of trust, it's better not to do any business together at all.

mcny 11mo ago

> I disagree. I’m working hard to keep the Pebble ecosystem open source. I believe the contents of the Pebble Appstore should be freely available and not controlled by one organization. I hate to say this but I have to agree with Eric. I want to side with Rebble But they are clearly misguided. The goal should not be to have an ongoing revenue stream for Rebble. The goals should be If and when Eric sells out again, there is a way for 1. all pebble and core devices to continue to get updates somehow (Rebble or otherwise) 2. all apps and metadata will continue to be available somehow (Rebble or otherwise) The otherwise is key here. If someone wants to not use Rebble, they should be able to do that. Rebble is not the end goal. Core is not the end goal. The users are.

abhorrence 11mo ago
I think your points 1 and 2 are exactly spot on. And, assuming that both Rebble's and Eric's are being relatively forthright, that Eric is the one that is actually trying to come to an agreement that accomplishes that. Whereas Rebble is taking the position of "only we can be trusted". And with all the people replying to the original Rebble post with "I'm canceling my preorder", I'm pretty worried that Rebble has created a self-fulfilling prophecy situation. :(
- girvo 11mo ago
  On the other hand when you have the person Eric quoted saying this like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/comment/npjj1u3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/comment/npj... It makes me incredibly suspicious of Eric's motivations for some of this, and makes me less inclined to trust him.
  - micromacrofoot 11mo ago
    aren't they publicly accusing him of theft at this point though? trust is out once that happens

apparent 11mo ago

> My goal this time round is to make it sustainable. Was I the only one to get excited when I saw "time round" in a sentence written on Eric's blog? It took a second for me to realize this had nothing to do with the amazing PTR.

wlesieutre 11mo ago
You and me both. I have a Pebble Time 2 on order (said I'd buy one if they made it less ugly, and they did!) but what I really want is a Round. The downside of the old one was the battery life, on the order of 2 days when the battery is new compared to a week with the larger models. But they've been talking about how the new bluetooth hardware is more efficient and should let them get the Pebble Time battery life up to 30 days this time. One imagines that efficiency would get a new PTR up to a week which is plenty. Frankly with monthly charging I'm a little worried I'll lose the charger between uses. One thing I'm worried about is the thickness of the heart rate sensor, which could be even trickier with how small a Round should be. And that feels like table stakes for a wearable today, I'd buy one without it but I might be in the minority.

amatecha 11mo ago

Ignoring all else, did private conversation participants consent to their messages being posted publicly in this post?

quantumwoke 11mo ago
Nope: https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/pebble_rebble_and_a_path_forward/npjj1u3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/pebble_rebb...
jwise0 11mo ago
As someone else posted a link to the Reddit thread, I posted there to say, roughly, 'no, I'm pretty unhappy about it'.
- skylurk 11mo ago
  I felt pretty uncomfortable reading those screenshots myself. Messages obviously sent in confidence.

Andrew-Tate 11mo ago

[flagged]

827a 11mo ago

The amount of internet drama a smartwatch that stopped being produced ten years ago generates even to this day is truly incredible. Nothing that's happening here is so important as to make enemies, and the fact that Core Devices even wants to use the open source app store and is willing to pay for it should have been an immediate "Yes, that's incredible, lets make it work" from Rebble. So what if they get bought by Fitbit or go closed source? Rebble will just be back to where they were before. That's the beauty of open source; it doesn't need them, it just needs people who are interested in the project.

lopis 11mo ago
Exactly. The fact that Rebble is against trying to make Pebble completely open made me lose trust in them. I thought that was the whole point of Rebble.
lenkite 11mo ago
> So what if they get bought by Fitbit or go closed source? Rebble will just be back to where they were before How can they be back to where they are if it goes closed source ?
postexitus 11mo ago
Reminds me of Genesi / Hyperion wars in late Amiga days.

quantumwoke 11mo ago

For some additional context, the screenshotted Rebble board member has commented here: https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/pebble_rebble_and_a_path_forward/npjj1u3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/pebble_rebb... Looks like they were not consulted by Eric before this post.

protocolture 11mo ago
Yeah thats kinda bad. Look, I am a bit of a hypocrite on this, I had a fun time when OpenAI dropped the musk emails. But this is not a great look for pebble.

evil-olive 11mo ago

this part of the response doesn't pass the smell test for me: > Accusation 4: ‘[Eric] scraped our app store, in violation of the agreement that we reached with him previously’ > Here’s what happened. I wanted to highlight some of my favourite watchfaces on the Pebble Appstore. Last Monday Nov 10, after I put my kids to sleep and between long calls with factories in Asia, I started building a webapp to help me quickly go through Pebble Appstore and decide which were my top picks. > Let me be crystal clear - my little webapp did not download apps or ‘scrape’ anything from Rebble. The webapp displayed the name of each watchface and screenshots and let me click on my favs. I used it to manually look through 6000 watchfaces with my own eyes. I still have 7,000 to go. Post your server logs, they will match up identically to the app I (well…Claude) wrote (source code here) so it wasn't "scraping"...it was just a vibe-coded webapp that made at least 6,000 requests to Rebble's servers in a short period of time? possibly more, depending on how many intermediate versions of the app he tested, and possibly many more, if one of those intermediate versions had a vibe-coded "feature" like prefetching a bunch of data for performance reasons? he agreed not to scrape their services. and then scraped their services. and his excuse seems to boil down to "but I was doing it for a cool reason" and he tosses in completely unrelated details about putting his kids to bed and having long calls with factories in Asia. those seem calculated to make him sound more relatable - an honest, hardworking, humble family man. this seems like a relatively minor point in the overall dispute, but if he's unwilling or unable to take any responsibility there, it doesn't boost my confidence that he's being honest about the rest of it.

apparent 11mo ago
I think the key question is whether the automated actions resulted in information being retained by Pebble. If it was just going through a motion and pulling some data (or pulling all data but only keeping some of it), then that would be consistent with Eric's story and not be the kind of scraping that Rebble is worried about. They're worried about the content being archived somewhere else, and they seem to think that happened. But did it?
- AlotOfReading 11mo ago
  It might not be the kind of scraping rebble is worried about, but a bunch of requests to extract data into another form is very plainly scraping and the contract doesn't differentiate based on intent or whether the process is entirely automated. The entire contract is similarly loose and informal, which contributes to these sorts of misunderstandings. The most reasonable solution would have been for Eric to send an email first, but few contract disputes start with everyone doing the most reasonable thing.

Zetaphor 11mo ago

If you're looking for an alternative to all of this, the BangleJS v2 is both cheaper and more hackable than the Pebble watches. It doesn't tick all of the same boxes, but it's performed well for me over the last 6 months. Here's what it offers: * Screen is fully visible under direct sunlight * With the screen always on the battery lasts me well over a week * Heart rate monitor * EXTREMELY hackable, everything can be hacked on with JS, even the launcher you're using for apps * 108 Euros shipped to the US * Fully supported by GadgetBridge (open source mobile app) https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2 https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2

jazzyjackson 11mo ago
Thanks for posting, I love getting gadgets with niche displays, a 3 bit color sun readable display, how peculiar!
philistine 11mo ago
Don't remove that little tape that prevents the watch from shocking you with 3 continuous volts of electricity!
- m-p-3 11mo ago
  I got mine from the Kickstarter, and it didn't came with the little tape. Those connectors are now corroded as f..
Groxx 11mo ago
I'm mostly happy with mine as a replacement. But it is absolutely nowhere near as polished a user experience as Pebble was. I have had constant disconnects for months at a time with Gadgetbridge, loads of edge-case bug-like behavior that is in fact documented but in a weird location that nobody would look at or consider reasonable behavior, three hardware failures in three years (I'm still using one of them with a busted vibration motor), and on-device UX and tap accuracy and freezing that really only works out if you're sold on everything else about the device. I haven't found anything else I'd recommend for a Pebble fan though, it really is the closest. I'm begrudgingly happy with it because I have no better alternative, not because it's an actually-good product.

Animats 11mo ago

Pebble was a smart watch which was not tethered to a phone, talked to the cellular network directly, and had battery life problems, correct? Apple's smart watch was tethered to a phone, so it needed less power. It's going to be interesting to see what happens when solid state batteries become available and increase how much energy you can store in a watch. They're high cost, but if you're powering a watch, not a car, probably affordable. That could make standalone watches more effective. Maybe eliminate the need to carry a phone all the time.

deleted 11mo ago
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wlesieutre 11mo ago
The opposite, Pebble is tethered to a phone, has Bluetooth but no cellular. Not even its own wifi connection, any data that a watch app needs is requested over bluetooth from the companion app on the phone, which fetches it from the internet. Battery life was great, upwards of a week between charges, because connectivity features were very limited. It gets notifications, but you're not taking phone calls or checking email through it.
iamevn 11mo ago
Pebble smart watches are tethered (to an android/ios device via bluetooth), do not talk to a cellular network, and have had an especially good battery life because of that and their low-power displays which are always on and visible with external light, only turning on the backlight when you are using it (e.g. hitting buttons or after giving the watch a little shake). afaik, every Pebble watch has had a significantly longer battery life than all of Apple's watches even though they're always displaying. The newer Pebbles do have a better battery life, lasting multiple weeks maybe thanks of better battery tech.
- comfydragon 11mo ago
  I think most of the battery life improvement is the much more power-efficient SOCs available. The original Pebble used an STM32 processor and a TI Bluetooth chip, where nowadays having BLE integrated into the SOC is table stakes.

gmarull 11mo ago

Hi there, Gerard here. I work for Core as a firmware engineer, happy to answer questions as well. I personally understand Rebble fears, for example when we forked and kept development under Core Github. However, I think we tried to be as transparent as possible and explained the reasons behind. While Liam (ex-Pebble) did an excellent job integrating NimBLE, it is also true that we also offered to do the work. However he had more availability by then to do so. At the same time, we fixed quite a few bugs after integration, or implemented many missing non-trivial features to make it functional. If you also check Github statistics, you will see that as of today ~93% of commits are from Core employees or paid contractors. All development is happening in the open, and released under Apache-2.0 license. This is an exception in the industry, specially for core product components. It is also common for companies to fork when developing new products because you need to move fast (check our commit rate!). Think about Linux, can you use upstream Kernel on most new ARM SoCs? No. Core took a risk here because Rebble could have kept adding new features, adding overhead for us with upmerges. Reality is that Rebble repository has been dead since we forked. Nobody except Core, and Liam were contributing by then. Another fear I've heard is about PebbleOS being sold to another company. Well, the company doing that would be pretty dumb as they could clone it for 0$. And thanks to Apache-2.0, they could even add new proprietary features! Not only that, but if Core winds up, the IP will stay open forever! I think the best, fair long-term solution is to join a well established OSS organization. Rebble lacks many formalities that are common in many OSS projects: board elections, open and regular meetings, public accounts, voting rules, etc. This makes it a dysfunctional community to me. It is up to Rebble to fix these problems or join forces in a new OSS org. Core can't do much more than that. It is also not bad that the two parts have different views, e.g. Core may think a local voice-to-text model is better but Rebble may disagree because that could imply a revenue loss. That's unavoidable, in the end, people could choose at that point.

Pfhortune 11mo ago
Thank you for all your work on this! I know it's not your focus, but what's your take on the Core app frontend being closed source? I know libpebble3 is open and has the important bits, but it still feels bad to be unable to build an APK or grab that from F-Droid. I had initially assumed it was because of some kind of dependency redistribution issue, but I think I read somewhere it was to stymie clones being developed and using the app. But that's part of an open ecosystem, no? That anyone can integrate into it?

stevage 11mo ago

Seems like there is a commercial agreement between the two parties, but it somehow doesn't capture everything they need. They're relying on some kind of unspoken agreement but now they don't trust each other. they should make a new agreement.

SuperNinKenDo 11mo ago
Dunno if you saw the previous post about the situation, but seems that attempts to do so for months have not born fruit, and only led to more trust breakdown.
- stevage 11mo ago
  Yep. I'm sure glad I'm not a current or aspiring Pebble owner..

Havoc 11mo ago

The scraping part seems very weak. You can't sign an agreement that says no scraping and then proceed to build a scraping bot and think it's ok because you only wanted to "look" at the data. I'd definitely have doubts about the partnership too

asadm 11mo ago

It seems Rebble has no moat here. The end devices are all controlled by Pebble which can point them to any store they want. That must be making Rebble upset?

philipwhiuk 11mo ago
Rebble’s moat is the content from pre 2018 that they are illegally redistributing.
gr__or 11mo ago
bit of a narrow focus point isn't it? this is a project that lives on despite the economics, throwing garden-wall-lingo in there feels a bit gross tbh

gortok 11mo ago

None of this looks good for either side. Eric wants the App Store data. Rebble doesn’t want all their work used to enrich a company that has already failed once at the expense of the work they have put in. It seems like both parties somehow feel like they’re holding the winning hand and can bend the other to their will. Neither party seems to realize they’re dependent on the other for their success. Both sides are slinging mud, and everyone is losing.

alessandru 11mo ago

mommie, daddie, i just got my watch please don't fight ... :*(

Pfhortune 11mo ago

This whole thing is presented a bit hyberbolically on both ends. Rebble has valid concerns about the ecosystem surviving beyond Core. Their concerns about the closed-source parts of what Core has developed is valid (WRT the Core app frontend) and Eric positioning himself as a "benevolent dictator" is a reasonable red flag to raise. The next dictator (in case of acquisition) may not be so benevolent. But while their stewardship of the app store and continuance of services is laudable, they can't really justifiably cry foul when someone "scrapes" their archive of mostly-scraped (from the original store) content. Hopefully this teaches both sides that an open ecosystem means operating in the open. Which means making all source available not hiding vital components, and also not squawking about someone scraping the store.

idle_zealot 11mo ago

I don't know if this addresses Rebble's concerns (which may involve more self-preservation), but as a customer, here's what I want: If Core sells or otherwise goes bad, I want it to be impossible, legally or technically, for them to take functionality away. I want them bound by an agreement such that their hardware can load third-party versions of PebbleOS, the app can be replaced with other compatible apps, any web services can be swapped out without reverse engineering effort, and uploaded apps/watchfaces/etc are shared between backends so no party can attempt to create walled garden. I think some of these are already addressed informally, but now that trust seems low I'd like to see something more formal. I do not want to see a world where Core pulls an Android and starts shipping a proprietary version of PebbleOS that apps start depending on a la Google Play Services. I do not want to see a world where Rebble or Core can restrict access to their app library. I also don't want to see a world where an overly restrictive deal means that Core can't ship on-device speech-to-text or weather services. I realize the big issue that blocks this sort of app sharing is probably the existence of commercial/proprietary apps. If all the backends share apps freely, how could payments be handled? It's probably technically possible but very difficult. Personally I don't think this little hobby watch ecosystem would be made much poorer if it went the F-Droid route and required all apps be open and free. We're already relying on hobbyists for pretty much all apps and faces, and having the whole thing be open seems to fit the general hackable community-driven ethos Pebble is built on. Not having paid apps and IAPs would also dodge the temptation to go the modern Apple route of becoming a broker/services company.

TechDebtDevin 11mo ago

Why would we trust Eric, he's a for profit goon.

diddid 11mo ago

Trying to read all these threads and perspectives is truly exhausting but I lean more on the Rebble side. The idea that someone steps away for 10 years and then expects to take the work of others to use them and throw them away is tech toxicity 101. I had owned two of the original pebbles, but I honestly think this looks bad on everyone and will gladly ignore every future article on either of these two groups.

anon7000 11mo ago
That’s not at all what the threads seem to suggest, where the new company is literally paying Rebble for API access and trying very hard to include them in a lot of ways. Reality is that after a decade+ with no hardware updates, there is really no future for the Rebble platform… without new hardware. So you’re suggesting the people trying to actually revive the ecosystem by building new hardware shouldn’t be able to continue working on the open source OS they founded, or play around with clients for an API they pay for? Come on.

whyenot 11mo ago

All I can say is I am very happy with my brand new Pebble. Thank you Eric and your team for providing new hardware. This is awesome! Thank you Rebble, for maintaining the legacy software.

ayaros 11mo ago

The tone of the original post was inflammatory for sure. And there are certainly some things that could be said about Eric's post; he probably shouldn't have posted those messages out of context. I'm not a Pebble user, so I don't know how the app install process works, but can't Core just create their own store from scratch, not based on the existing app catalogue, and have that coexist as an alternative option to Rebble? Then users who want access to that extensive back catalogue can use Rebble's store. Let developers and users pick the stores they want to publish to and download from, respectively. Given that Core is a commercial enterprise, it doesn't seem appropriate for them to rely on apps that were scraped from the original Pebble store. Core is a separate commercial entity from the original Pebble, and doesn't inherit the relationships between original Pebble and the developers which published to their store. By creating a store from scratch, Core can reestablish each of those relationships one by one. That would go a long way towards helping Core build back whatever trust they may have lost (it seems some users are still bitter about the original closure of Pebble, and I don't blame them). Otherwise, what you have is a commercial entity profiting off of a bunch of applications for which they don't own the right to distribute. As a developer myself, I might be ok with my app being archived due to an emergency situation... but having that app be republished by a commercial entity is a red line. I don't have an ethical problem with the back catalogue existing, but it should be hosted by a non-profit. Core can position it's store as an place for new, or updated apps that are being actively maintained by developers, which is definitely a selling point. Rebble can position it's store as a back catalogue of apps that existed on the original pebble, offered on an as-is basis. Which is also a selling point, because who knows what great gems you might find in there...

1shooner 11mo ago
This was my conclusion after reading both sides. It seems that Rebble is inevitably going to be an archive, while new development will be distributed on Core's store. Core temporarily needs some of its (unlicensed) catalog to bootstrap its new products. Having the Core store populated with fresh development seems like good platform management anyway. Let the Rebble store be the 'classic apps' archive.

aag 11mo ago

I have owned at least one of every Pebble watch since the beginning, have written watch faces for myself (but never posted them on the store), have received my Pebble 2 Duo, and am looking forward to receiving my Pebble Time 2. I am thrilled that Eric Migicovsky and his team are bringing the Pebble back to life. It was amazing that the Rebble team kept the watches alive all this time. But it's all open source, and doing that shouldn't give Rebble any kind of special say. There's no reason that "there has to be a future for Rebble in there" or that Rebble has to be "the core of the community." That sounds like nothing more than bruised egos.

ls-a 11mo ago
Sounds like you're attempting to boost someones ego, nothing more.

meta-level 11mo ago

The reason why I pre-ordered a Time 2 for a money you can easily get better hardware and software for was the naive implication there is hardware meant to be hacked and community around that hardware with freedom in mind I want to be part of. The reason why I cancel my pre-order now is I a clear (to me) sign that we have a "it's only software, I'm building the the important part here" situation -the same reason why I won't by a boox product until they change their mind. The moment I'll come back will be the one when a significant part of the money you spend on a Pebble will automatically go into the software ecosystem (which makes Pebble for $200+ interesting in the first place) and it's easy to see how this money is spent. I'm also 'scraping' content for my personal projects when I just need the data, but Eric is building a business here, and there had been a valid and clearly communicated suspicion about Eric acting like "goodbye fools, and thanks for the fish". And he agreed not to do so and he lied. How can I know I'm not buying $225 brick supported only by a single person who ditched the community?

mmastrac 11mo ago

Publishing private correspondence with single board member(s) is super distasteful because the opinion of one member is not the opinion of the whole board. Sure, he got tacit agreement from one, but that's not agreement with the organization as a whole. That's putting aside how gross it is for your personal comms to leak in public when you might be a little more candid about what's going on. How can you trust someone who's willing to violate your privacy like that? The whole drama is interesting as an outsider, but I can't be left without feeling that newPebble is trying to jump start a commercial venture via shortcuts. Rebble was never going to change the world but they seemed to be very good at maintaining status quo + many small benefits and just reliably serving that.

apparent 11mo ago
> How can you trust someone who's willing to violate your privacy like that? Who's to say he didn't have permission to post from his conversation partner? He doesn't need permission from the people he's talking about (just like we don't need his permission to post about him here).
- mmastrac 11mo ago
  > Who's to say https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/comment/npjj1u3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/1p0huk5/comment/npj...
  - 4ggr0 11mo ago
    wow, that puts a pretty different light on Eric's blogpost, at least for me. putting screenshots of private messages in a public blogpost without asking the person is SUCH a HUGE dickmove. still happily waiting for my Core-Pebble to arrive, but i am getting so sick of people in general.
  - neumann 11mo ago
    Ouch. I think most people would assume he got permission, so this is a bit ugh
  - 11mo ago

danieltanfh95 11mo ago

This would generally just discourage open software in general. Rebble is a non-profit and should not pretend to "own" any software or content. Eric didn't do things the polite way, but either way there's nothing to discuss here. Claiming that someone can steal something that is open source implies that they own said open source code / content. that's not how any of this works. Reselling open source content is always going to be bad taste.

bronlund 11mo ago

It isn't really that complicated. Eric is an ass and that's how we ended up in this mess to begin with.

tobi_bsf 11mo ago

My goodness, these people are fighting as if it were about controlling the next Apple App Store. These are just a few watch faces for a watch that only a few thousand people will ever use—how can they lose perspective like that?

4ggr0 11mo ago
some humans are just hungry for power and walled gardens, no matter if it's just power over one person sitting on a square meter patch of grass.

burnt-resistor 11mo ago

The tao of open source: never invest time/money/effort you aren't comfortable giving away, other people using, and someone else forking perhaps as a commercial offering. There are undoubtedly those preach GPL 3 and AGPL zealous control freakery but it's pretending to be "free" while dictating what can and can't be done with code. If the agreement attempts to discriminate against users selectively, it ain't free or open. GPL 2 is the line in the sand.

poisonborz 11mo ago
You confuse open source with free software, and all the shades of it. GPL/copyleft exist because some people make products because they want to help and improve a community. Not just to let the product go in the wind, "whatever happens to it" (meaning corporations using it for profit extraction and/or the exact opposite goals). Even if AI made this less defendable by legal means. This isn't because these people are "control freaks", but because of their beliefs and purposefully chosen legal framework.

nosrepa 11mo ago

New response from the maintainer of Rebble's developer docs: https://fedi.foxgirl.engineering/notes/af9hg38j9iwa221x https://fedi.foxgirl.engineering/notes/af9hg38j9iwa221x

theSuda 11mo ago

I have no bone in either pebble or rebble discussion. All I want to know is what is eric's website made with? I love the font and the whole setup and would love to copy it for another blog I will setup and never write anything on.

theodric 11mo ago

I'm glad I cancelled and refunded the three watches I ordered. I don't need another smartwatch from another dead company. I hope he can work this out.