Google recently open sourced Pebble and today, Repebble has put some of the watches up for preorder.

  • Ulrich@feddit.org
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    14 hours ago

    Yeah, I get that. My question is why Eric (or literally anyone else) didn’t just re-make the Pebble (or similar) under a different name at any time in the last 10 years? Why did they wait for the OS to be open sourced instead of just making a new one?

    • Synestine@sh.itjust.works
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      13 hours ago

      Methinks you underestimate the complexity.

      And all the other watch makers I’ve looked at are not doing, or even considering, what Pebble did.

      • TiggerYumYum@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 hours ago

        That guy is intentionally obtuse and acts in bad faith. Pebble’s IP and software were sold to Fitbit. Then Google bought Fitbit. Then Google made PebbleOS open source this year. It couldn’t be made until now.

      • Ulrich@feddit.org
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        13 hours ago

        Methinks you underestimate the complexity.

        Maybe I do. But there are dozens of Chinese no-name companies who developed entire smartwatch ecosystems.

        • Synestine@sh.itjust.works
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          7 hours ago

          Dozens? Name three, and be sure to include number of aps in each ecosystem.

          I’m sure there are dozens of Chinese smart watches, but most that I’ve seen are white-labels and sorely missing an ecosystem.

    • Abnorc@lemm.ee
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      13 hours ago

      Making a new OS isn’t easy as others have said, but it’s also helpful that Pebble OS has a bit of a following. There are still people who are very vocal about how much they love/loved their pebble watches. Making a new OS that’s inspired by PebbleOS would be met with more skepticism than just releasing a watch with an OS that people already know that they like.

      Assuming that he made no major changes to the software, pebble fans almost already know what they’ll be getting out of this product. You couldn’t say the same for a watch with a new OS.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      13 hours ago

      Some reasons:

      • It’s a lot of work no one wants to do given there are half-decent proprietary alternatives
      • Eric wasn’t sitting twiddling his thumbs
      • The corporate landscape wasn’t nearly as hostile to users until the last few years