Community vs. Corporate: The Pebble Fight

Few products can claim to have the passionate, dedicated following that Pebble Watches enjoy.

Though it was on the market for less than 4 years, the company sold over 2 million smartwatches and launched two of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns of all time. 

When the company shuttered in December 2016, the community stepped in to keep their watches alive. This included creating a community version of the device’s app store named Rebble, which restored and maintained much of the watch’s functionality.

However, in 2025, Pebble is making its grand return. Through a series of acquisitions and releases, Pebble’s creator, Eric Migicovsky, is now re-releasing the smartwatch, with many units currently shipping.

But all is not well in the land of Pebble. This return has brought Migicovsky into conflict with the very community that kept the Pebble candle burning for the past nine years.

But, like many such stories, what’s actually going on is complicated. It addresses many issues around open source software, online services, crowdfunding, and data ownership. 

There are no easy answers here. No matter what happens, there’s a very real risk that it could fracture or even destroy the very community that has kept the Pebble name alive and made its return possible.

A Brief History of (Pebble) Time

Disclosure: My partner has preordered (but not received) a Pebble Time 2, and I previously owned a Pebble Watch.

In April 2012, Migicovsky launched a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund the initial release of the Pebble watch. The campaign turned out to be one of the most successful on Kickstarter, and the watches began shipping to backers in January 2013.

Over the next four years, the company would sell an estimated 2 million watches, creating a deeply passionate fanbase along the way. Known for its e-ink display and focused feature set, users loved the watches’ long battery life and simplicity.

The watches also drew in a dedicated developer community, attracting some 13,000 apps and watchfaces to the Pebble app store.

However, that run would be short-lived. In December 2016, Pebble announced that it was shutting down. The company was sold to Fitbit, which continued to support Pebble services and the app store until June 2018. 

In January 2021, Google acquired Fitbit. Four years later, in January 2025, Google announced it would release the Pebble operating system, PebbleOS, as open source. At the same time, Migicovsky announced the launch of Core Devices, a new company that would use that open source code as the basis for new Pebble Devices.

However, there was a problem. Another group had already established itself as the keeper of the Pebble flame. Rebble, an unofficial group of developers, had launched in December 2016 following the initial shutdown announcement.

They created an alternative app store and web services platform to restore Pebble features lost in the shutdown. Those included features such as dictation and weather, which Rebble charged $3 per month for to cover server costs.

They have maintained those services for 9 years, twice as long as Pebble itself lasted, and they were a lifeline for those who wanted to continue using their Pebbles.

Initially, it seemed as if the two sides were on the same page, even signing an agreement to cooperate in October. However, earlier this week, the Rebble published a blog post entitled “Core Devices Keeps Stealing Our Work” leading Migicovsky to publish his own blog post entitled “Pebble, Rebble, and a Path Forward.”

But what makes this dispute difficult is that both sides seem to want the same thing. They just sharply disagree on how it should be done.

An Issue of Trust and Direction

To risk greatly simplifying both sides’ arguments, they both claim to want the same thing: An open and stable future for Pebble devices.

Rebble, for its part, claims that Core Devices has not maintained its open-source obligations since forking PebbleOS and that the company is demanding “unrestricted” access to the data they have curated over the past 9 years. They worry about being shut out of future Pebble development and about ending up back where they were in 2016.

However, Migicovsky alleges that Rebble is trying to create its own closed ecosystem and shut out or restrict how Core Devices interacts with their app store and services. They further argue that the apps and watchfaces in Rebble’s app store are not owned by them but instead belong to the thousands of developers who created them.

Migicovsky said that they are currently rewriting the app store. It will use a native (non-web) interface but will access its data via Rebble’s APIs. However, Rebble claims that Core Devices scraped its data with the intent of creating its own, more restrictive app store.

At the center (or core) of this is a simple problem: There is a great deal of mistrust around Migicovsky.

Fairly or unfairly, he is widely viewed as the reason that Rebble was necessary in the first place. He’s been accused of abandoning Pebble and its customers. Rebble is the organization that kept the flame alive after this turn of events.

Rebble is also 100% correct that there wouldn’t be a Pebble for Migicovsky to revive without their efforts. The only reason Pebble has retained any relevance over the past few years is Rebble’s effort.

However, Migicovsky has some points too. When Rebble says, “Whatever we agree on, there has to be a future for Rebble in there,” that is a significant issue. Much of what it distributes, it doesn’t own. The features it charges for on classic Pebbles can now be offered for free through other means.

Furthermore, open source software means that others can build new software that goes in a totally different direction. Though there are always battles over how much one should contribute and what qualifies as compliance, see the recent fight over WordPress for an example, there have been many times a new open source project resulted in another being left behind (see WordPress and b2).

There’s no easy answer here, but both sides need to find one, or the new Pebbles may be dead before they even get out of the gate.

Bottom Line 

Would this story have played out any differently if someone other than Migicovsky had been in charge of Core Devices? That’s a difficult question. 

One thing that is clear is that there is a great deal of community mistrust of him. Reading the comments and posts, most seem to anticipate that Core Devices will shutter in a matter of years and leave Pebble users in the same place they were in 2016.

That is a big part of why passions run so strongly here. For Pebble users, the abrupt closure felt like a betrayal. That betrayal was only soothed by Rebble’s effort to keep the watches going. Even as the first watches are being shipped out, many are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I can’t blame them.

But if the new Pebbles are going to have a shot, both sides will have to work together. Rebble needs the money and IP that Migicovsky holds, and Migicovsky will need the community that Rebble represents. If you lose either one, there’s no reason for New Pebbles to exist at all.

Both sides are passionate and rightly so. But Pebble can’t survive a schism of this size and depth. 

In a moment of irony, both sides, trying to protect Pebble, may ultimately destroy it before it has a chance to thrive.