This is about technology, time and community

Everyone who is interested in smartwatches knows that nearly all of the models that are available right now struggle with the problem of having a too short battery life. There is a gap between the power needed for the technology inside the watches, particularly the display, and the capacity of the included batteries. What this means for the users is that, most of the times, they have to recharge the watch each day or have a not functional beauty accessory on their wrist. This is not what you anticipate.

Enter Pebble

For everyone who is not familiar with Pebble - take a look at this first (epicness incoming):

Pebble was a company that built smartwatches that, apart from all other customization possibilities and developer friendliness, primarily had one key feature: e-Ink displays! This is awesome because, as you may well know from ebook readers, this kind of display only draws power if content changes. For all of you interested in how these displays work, there are great explanations around, but in short: In a fluid are colored particles (ink) which can be charged by electrodes and float to the top/to the bottom according to the respective polarity.

In 2012, Pebble launched their first Kickstarter campaign offering a smartwatch using this technology. In the following years, they came up with revisions of their product, the last of which being the Pebble 2 HR.

Exit Pebble

In december 2016, Pebble announced the end of their company, noting their acquisition by Fitbit. So, suddenly, Pebble's ecosystem, servers, market place etc. seemed to go down the drain, leaving all of their hardware worthless.

Rebble - Pebble Reborn

But why throw away a perfectly fine piece of hardware just because there are potential issues with the software? Don't do it, help is on the way: Meet Rebble. This is where the community steps up to create a new ecosystem from ground up, offering a new home to all Pebble users.

Since this is a big challenge at numerous parts of the software, there is still no firmware ready yet. You can stay up-to-date about this by subscribing on rebble.io or visiting #rebirth on the Rebble Discord Server.. or if you're a developer of some kind, I'm sure there is some part where improvements or support is welcome.