If you owned a Pebble smartwatch back in the day (by that we mean 8 years ago), you may know that there are still some loyalists and former employees that are keeping it alive to this day. We’ve had several advances when it comes to wearables but they still believe in the somewhat analog-looking powers of this particular smartwatch line. The so-called Rebble Alliance has been working hard to still make it functional and now they’re introducing Rebble Grants to still keep that going.
Pebble watches were a pretty big deal when they first came out back in 2012 but four years later, the company behind it stopped all operations. It was eventually bought by Fitbit in 2018 but they eventually killed it off. But there were some former employees of the original Pebble and some diehard fans who formed the Rebble Alliance in order to keep the hardware operational and also the Rebble web services.
They have now just recently announced the formation of Rebble Grants to fund developers to create new features for those still existing and running Pebble watches. The funding here comes from the savings they have made from running Pebble web services. They’ll be investing $25,000 into several projects and they’re looking into getting new features for the aforementioned web services.
The grants will also hopefully create a new Pebble mobile app replacement and also boost development for the RebbleOS firmware replacement. While it will not have a huge market of course given that they have stopped making Pebble watches years ago, it is a challenge for developers to create firmware and web services for something that has been pretty stagnant but functional these past years.
If you’re interested, you can now submit your application for the Rebble Grant. It may also not be that much money compared to creating apps for newer devices but if you have free time and you’re up to the challenge, it would be interesting to take this on.