Pixel 7 Compatible Pebble Smartwatch, the OG of Smartwatches

Fitbit purchased Pebble, an early, eccentric smartwatch that was crowdfunded, in a fire sale in December 2016 and indicated that while the current watches will continue to function for the time being, "functionality or service quality may be degraded in the future." The ground-breaking e-ink wearables might get some bug repairs, but no software updates or new functionality will be released. The Rebble Alliance, a group that has kept Pebble alive for its customers since Fitbit shut down Pebble's servers in mid-2018, has now published a new Pebble app for Android, some six years after Pebble first went on sale. In order to continue working on the largely 64-bit Pixel 7 and other Android phones in the future, Pebble version 4.4.3 makes the app 64-bit. Additionally, it fixes a caller ID issue that affected current Android versions. The app's "signed using the official Pebble keys," continued Google Fit connectivity, and lack of availability through Google's Play Store are its most notable features. With the $2.1 billion purchase of Fitbit, Google became the curator of Pebble's remaining intellectual property and software assets. One of the first people to tweet about the new upgrade, "four years after 4.4.2," was Katharine Berry, an important Rebble engineer, and leader who works on Wear OS at Google. That was the final Play Store update released by the Pebble app's creators, and it allowed for the replacement of many of the app's features with external servers. Rebble continued exactly where Pebble left off by offering web services to Pebble watches, including voice dictation (for paying users). But in order to connect the smartwatch and smartphone, those services continued to rely on the main Pebble app. Users of the Pebble/Rebble could have been left in the dark if Android had transitioned to a 64-bit-only OS.