Rebble accuses Core Devices of stealing years of community work

The volunteer team at Rebble fired off a pointed blog post yesterday, claiming Core Devices has been taking their decade-long efforts to keep Pebble smartwatches running and trying to claim it all for commercial gain. They say the founder of Core, Eric Migicovsky, who started the original Pebble company, wants full control over the app store database the community built from scratch after Pebble shut down in 2016.

Things started out friendly enough. Just last month, Rebble and Core announced they were joining forces. Core would focus on building new hardware, like the recently shipped Pebble 2 Duo and the upcoming Time 2 models. Rebble would keep providing the backend services that power the app store, timeline features, and more. Even today, the store in Core’s new phone app runs entirely on Rebble’s servers.

That partnership has crumbled, according to the Rebble team. They claim Core demanded unrestricted access to the full app database, which includes salvaged legacy apps, hundreds of patched versions, and new creations from community hackathons. Rebble spent big money on storage and endless volunteer hours maintaining it all. Their fear is that Core could copy everything, build a private store, and shut the community out, turning it into a closed system.

Rebble says they offered compromises, like shared access and ongoing contributions, but only if Core put in writing that Rebble would stay involved long-term. Verbal nods came during talks, but nothing signed. Then, while postponing a key meeting, Core allegedly scraped the servers directly, going against prior agreements.

This echoes older gripes. After Google open-sourced Pebble’s firmware code earlier this year, Rebble funded work to support classic watches, only for Core to fork the project and stop merging changes back. They also built on community code for their phone app but added restrictive licenses.

The team admits they’d rather collaborate. Core makes great hardware, and Rebble excels at community support. But without firm protections, they worry history repeats: Pebble died once, and if Core gets acquired or pivots, users get left behind again.

They’re turning to fans for guidance, polling on Reddit and Discord about whether to lawyer up and lock things down or let it go. A post on the r/pebble subreddit exploded with support for Rebble, full of longtime users canceling preorders and vowing to stick with open community options.

At the time of this writing, Core Devices and Eric Migicovsky have not issued any public response to the accusations. The Pebble faithful are watching closely, hoping for a fix that keeps the quirky, button-filled watches alive for everyone, not just one company’s customers.