Time to Expand Our Core Business!!

You might have noticed a bit of a buzz around Pebble today - we have officially launched our third Kickstarter campaign, and it is jam packed with exciting new products and features for developers to explore and hack on. We have been hard at work not only creating the next generation of health-focused smartwatches, but also refining what great wearable user and developer experiences look like. We are introducing an entirely new class of wearable device, and adding a modern JavaScript SDK that takes advantage of the Web APIs JavaScript developers around the world know and love.

There is a lot to take in, so we’re here to help break down what’s new and exciting for our favorite developer community!

The Smartwatches

We are introducing two new smartwatches designed to track and improve your health, and simplify your life.

Pebble 2, and Time 2

Pebble 2 is a take on our classic Pebble that launched the smartwatch market in 2012. It includes updated hardware with a high contrast black and white display, microphone, up to seven days battery life, plus activity, sleep and heart rate tracking.

Time 2 takes everything our users love about the Pebble Time Steel, and builds upon it. It offers the same ten day battery life, activity and sleep tracking you’re used to, and adds a larger color display, a smaller bezel, and heart rate tracking!

If you are looking to dive a bit deeper, we encourage you to check out our updated Hardware Information Guide below, and our Pebble-3D GitHub repository that includes 3D drawings of all our smartwatches!

Pebble Core

A lot of people like to call Pebble a ‘smartwatch’ company, but we’ve decided it’s Time to prove them wrong, and expand our Core business with an entirely new ultra-wearable!

Pebble Core

Pebble Core is an entirely new class of wearable device - it features 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, an accelerometer, two programmable buttons, a headphone jack, and a hardware expansion port accessible to developers.

Oh yeah, and it’s an open platform.

Pebble Core is built on top of Android, but has the familiar Pebble developer experience you’re used to. Pebble Core will be able to run the PebbleKit JS component of watchapps, to ensure apps continue functioning when a user leaves their mobile device at home. Additionally, developers will be able to write standalone Pebble Core applications using an extended version of PebbleKit JS, allowing you to customize the user experience depending on whether or not the user has an attached Pebble smartwatch.

With Internet connectivity on the go, and programmatic access to GPS and Bluetooth Low Energy, the possibilities are endless.

• Create an app to open your Internet-connected garage door with the click of a button, or order pizza to your current location.
• Use geofencing to automatically notify your loved ones when you leave work or school.
• Hook it up to your drone and send real time sensor and location information to your phone.

We have a million ideas for Pebble Core, and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on it and start hacking! We will be providing more information and news around Pebble Core soon, so stay tuned!

SDK 4.0 (The C Part)

With the launch of Pebble 2 and Time 2 we will be releasing our next revision to the operating system with Pebble OS 4.0. The new operating system includes an updated user experience aimed at helping the user have access to the information they need at a glance, and take quick, simple actions.

Let’s look at some of the new features in Pebble OS 4.0, and how you can take advantage of them as a developer.

The most obvious change is that we have replaced timeline past with an updated Launcher capable of displaying glanceable information through a new AppGlances API. To help accommodate the removal of timeline past, we’ve updated the behaviour of “Now” pins to allow them to persist into the future.

Preview version of updated launcher with AppGlances

Along with the updated launcher, we’re also helping users gain better insight into what’s going on right now through a new feature called timeline quick view. Timeline Quick View is a small notification displayed on the user’s watchface to let them know what’s happening right now, or coming up soon.

Preview version of timeline quick view

The default behaviour for timeline quick view is to simply draw over the bottom of the watchface, however, developers will have access to a new set of APIs to manage how their watchface responds to timeline quick view events. SDK 4.0 will include APIs to find the “unobstructed area” of the display, and to react to timeline quick view being displayed, and hidden. Using these APIs, developers can create watchfaces that respond to timeline quick view, and programmatically adjust!

And of course, you’ll have programmatic access to the heart rate monitor through an updated HealthService, capable of providing both real time, and historical heart rate information.

SDK 4.0 (The Embedded JavaScript Part)

We’ve been hard at work enabling developers to write JavaScript applications that run directly on our smartwatches. In a recent firmware release, we hit a major milestone - we shipped a JavaScript version of the default watchface, TicToc, and a Pebble-specific port of an embedded JavaScript runtime to power it.

We believe that providing an embedded JavaScript SDK will make our platform more accessible, powerful, and collaborative. Our JavaScript SDK will be based on existing Standard Web APIs wherever possible - your display will be a Canvas, your watch and mobile device will communicate through a message-passing API similar to Web Worker, and you’ll access the compass and accelerometer through the Device Orientation API.

This is Real (Really!)

We’ll be shipping an early preview version of the 4.0 C SDK near the conclusion of the Kickstarter campaign. The 4.0 C SDK will include preview APIs for managing what information your watchapps display in the launcher, how your watchfaces respond to timeline quick view events, and more.

Support for building and testing Pebble 2 and Time 2 watchapps and watchfaces will be included in the first official SDK 4 release, tentatively scheduled for July 2016.

Finally, the embedded JavaScript SDK is scheduled to ship later this summer. We want to ensure that you have access to it before the first Pebble 2 smartwatches make it onto users’ wrists, so you have time to write the first wave of Pebble 2 watchfaces in JavaScript!

Let’s Meetup IRL

If you’re local to San Francisco, we welcome you to join us at SF Geekdom on June 15 at 6:00pm (more details to follow) to checkout our new hardware, and learn more about what’s new, and how to best use it. If you are like the majority of the world and don’t live in San Francisco, you’ll be able to access a recording of our Meetup after the event so you can join in the fun and learn what’s new!

If you run a Pebble Meetup, or are interested in running an event to bring together Pebble Developers, let us know - we’d love to call-in, talk about what’s new in SDK 4.0, and answer questions from your local community!

We Need You to Make This Happen

We have worked hard to pack this Kickstarter with as many developer friendly features and products as possible, and we hope you are as excited as we are! We’re counting on your support to make all of this happen - so go treat yourself to some awesome new Pebble products, and help us show the world what wearables should look like!

https://pebble.com/kickstarter