By Thomas Maxwell Published January 27, 2025 | Comments (0) | Pebble's founder is bringing the no-frills smartwatch back from the dead. Eric Limer/Gizmodo Theres some good news to share for Pebble fans: The no-frills smartwatch is making a comeback. The Verge spoke to Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky today, who says he was able to convince Google to open-source the smartwatchs operating system. Migicovsky is in the early stages of prototyping a new watch and spinning up a company again under a to-be-announced new name. Founded back in 2013, Pebble was initially funded on Kickstarter and created smartwatches with e-ink displays that nailed the basics. They could display notifications, let users control their music, and last 5-7 days on a charge thanks to their displays that are akin to what you find on a Kindle. The watches came in at affordable prices too, and they could work across both iOS and Android. Pebble was an underdog in a game against giants like Apple and Google. It made timepieces that were more like watches with smart features built-in, rather than gadgets that feature a watch. They were watches for people who wanted something close to an actual watch. And Pebble was early to the game too, but it fell into the trap of raising venture capital funding and got in over its skis trying to scale too fast, too quickly. It is a fate that has befallen many hardware startups. Venture capitalists seek to multiply their investment in a ten-year timeframe requiring startups to release new products at a rapid pace and try and gain market share as fast as possible. Pebble released iterations including the Pebble Steel, which was a dressier version that could be worn with a suit, and a version with a round screen instead of a squircle. When hardware startups overextend themselves by scaling up production and marketing and the sales do not materialize, however, they find themselves out of money and out of time. Releasing new hardware products is not as easy or fast as iterating on a web app until it starts to work. The small startup simply could not compete against the likes of Apple for mass market consumers. Pebble was eventually forced to sell itself to Fitbit for a reported $23 million, much less than the company raised in its lifetime. Fitbit itself was later acquired by Google as it struggled to compete against Apple in the mass market and Garmin on the niche end. Pebbles technology was essentially lost to time in the labyrinth of a large tech company with other prioritiesGoogles Pixel Watch 3 is good, but is integrated with Fitbit software and lacks the essence of what Pebble users appreciated most. The fact that Google listened to Migicovsky and agreed to open-source Pebbles software tells you how much it cares about the tech.Migicovsky says that he still yearns for a Pebble-like experience, and nothing has since satisfied him. For the things I want out of it, like a good e-paper screen, long battery life, good and simple user experience, hackable, theres just nothing, he told The Verge. Fans of Pebble will be happy to know that whatever new smartwatch Migicovsky releases, it will be almost identical to what came before. Were building a spiritual, not successor, but clone of Pebble, he says, because theres not that much I actually want to change. Migicovsky plans to keep the software open-source and allow anyone to customize it for their watches. Theres going to be the ability for anyone who wants to, to take Pebble source code, compile it, run it on their Pebbles, build new Pebbles, build new watches. They could even use it in random other hardware. Who knows what people can do with it now?And of course, this time around Migicovsky is using his own capital to grow the company in a sustainable way. After leaving Pebble, he started a messaging startup called Beeper, which was acquired by WordPress developer Automattic. Migicovsky has also served as an investor at Y-Combinator.Daily NewsletterYou May Also Like By Sherri L Smith Published August 1, 2024 By Florence Ion Published July 16, 2024 By Florence Ion Published July 10, 2024 By Florence Ion Published June 17, 2024 Gizmodo Staff Published May 4, 2024 By Florence Ion Published May 1, 2024