The Pebble developer team wrote about SDK releases, app development, and community updates for Pebble smartwatches.
HN links it in threads about Pebble's end and its move to Fitbit, the SDK, FreeRTOS changes, and the de-tethering update.
I note this from Pebble's developer blog, suggesting that a Fitbit-targeting successor to Pebble's app SDK may be a big part of the plan:
"Although this chapter in Pebble’s developer story is closing, our team and ethos have found a new, welcoming home at Fitbit. We can’t wait to have you alongside us for this next adventure. Third-party Pebble developers have a massive opportunity to drive how a Fitbit developer ecosystem will take shape. We hope you’re as excited about seizing this opportunity as we are.
Over the coming months we will be working closely with our new friends at Fitbit, building the foundation for the next great wearable experiences. We want you—our fantastic developer community—to keep playing a crucial role in our success. More information will follow soon, so stay tuned!"
https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2016/12/06/developer-community-update/
I recall them having quite a good SDK ( https://developer.pebble.com ) to write your own apps and run basically whatever you wanted on the thing. I hope you can use the SDK to load apps directly, but I'm not sure.
Hopefully the community can run with this and set something up so people can distribute and install apps outside of the official services.
It sounds like the developers at Pebble are hopeful that Fitbit will allow the community to step in where Fitbit can't (or won't): https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2016/12/06/developer-community-update/
"Further down the road, we’ll be working to phase out cloud services, providing the ability for the community to take over, where possible."
Technically it is still usable, with an update that allows the watch to be de-tethered from the old Pebble servers[0], and there is an open-sourced version in active development as of this Spring[1].
[0]https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2017/04/04/transitioning-update/
[1]https://rebble.io/
Offtopic:
[photo]
Me at Angelhack Mumbai 2016
That was fun. 40 people, only one Caucasian. It's like an edgy version of [2].
[1] https://developer.pebble.com/assets/images/blog/2016-12-14-mumbai.jpg
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Three_Children_puzzle
This could be interesting for things like Pebble which is based on FreeRTOS, would be great to do some modifications on that level
https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2014/05/23/FreeRTOS-Modifications-From-Pebble/