image/svg+xml Rebble · blog

Rebble, Rebble Everywhere!

…and now a blog to link (?!)

It seems almost beyond belief that nearly three years have passed since Pebble ceased operations and early members of the Rebble Alliance announced our intention to create a new hope! And while so much has happened during this time, it feels almost like we’re back where we started with the news that Fitbit, who rescued portions of Pebble from the ashes, are themselves being acquired by Google! But this isn’t the only recent wearables headline of note: Rebble has been in the news numerous times of late! :grinning:

Wareable

Our perennial publishing pals at Wearable can always be counted on for coverage and were the first to report on our re-opening of appstore submissions!

iFixit

Kevin Purdy interviewed Katharine, Joshua, myself (ishotjr) and others for an absolutely fantastic piece on the history of Pebble (see also my Thingscon Salon talk, which I provided to help with background/research), the rise of Rebble from Pebble’s “rubble” :joy:, and the plethora of hacks being used to keep Pebbles alive now and in the future. One of the best articles I have ever read on the subject, and a catalyst for countless outpourings from Pebblers past and present, as well as reblogging all over the world!

Motherboard (VICE)

It seems the force was working its way across the entire blogosphere, since right on the heels of the iFixit interviews, Jared Newman reached out to the Pebble community, hoping to derive the source of our enduring enamourment with these elite exemplars of horology. The result was a rollicking recap of the rise of Rebble, from the day I registered the domain right up to the first new appstore submission!

The Extra Dimension (The Nexus)

And because omne trium perfectum - as I’m sure we have all uttered frequently - a third interview that week from podcasting pro Ian Buck at The Nexus’s The Extra Dimension yielded an auditory exploration of the environmental impact of product perservation projects like Rebble!

Hi, Hello, Help!

Hopefully all of these press pixels have meant even more Pebble-y people have peeped our project - so now seems like a good time to say not only “Hi!” but also…“Help!”. As each of these fantastic pieces of journalism mention, there are many challenges we face in attempting to keep (the STM32 oscillator in…) our beloved smartwatches ticking - and while we’ve many dedicated developers and sympathetic support specialists, we can always use more help with our myriad efforts! I’d intended to do an entire blog post detailing our projects, their status, and opportunities to contribute, but in order to capitalize on our current celebrity, wanted to include a brief request here: if you’re interested in helping with firmware, back end, appstore - or perhaps most urgent of all, given the uncertainty of our friends at Fitbits’ ability to help keep the originals online post-acquisition, replacement Android and iOS app - development please look for ishotjr#4319 on our Discord server, or send me a Tweet if that’s more your cup of :tea:.

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