Fitbit acquired Pebble and essentially shut the company down in the process – at least in terms of making and selling Pebble hardware, but if you already have a Pebble watch the software should keep working for a while yet.
In a blog post, Jon Barlow, a developer at Pebble, has revealed that Fitbit is working to keep Pebble software and services running through 2017, and that for now the apps, app store, SDK, Timeline APIs, firmware availability and developer portal will all remain functional.
Reading between the lines it sounds like after 2017 some services may be shut down, but others will continue to work, and to achieve that the company is planning to update its mobile apps, loosening their dependency on cloud services so that they’ll continue to function even once those cloud services are discontinued.
This update will allow Pebble Health to continue working as normal, because health data isn’t dependent on the cloud and will instead feed directly into the Pebble mobile app, along with Google Fit and Apple HealthKit.
Sooner or later some features will be disabled
For features dependent on third-party services – such as messaging, weather and dictation - the future is less clear, with the company apparently evaluating if and for how long these functions can continue.
But even if Pebble and Fitbit stop supporting them there may be hope, as the blog notes that developers in the Pebble community are already teaming up to help keep the Pebble watch experience alive.
If you’re a developer you can join them, but even if you’re not you can still help, by engaging with Fitbit to demonstrate that Pebble is still important to you.
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