Pebble Time 2 and Round 2 get flexible plugins for watch faces and apps

Pebble is in the midst of a comeback. After its bankruptcy in 2016, the company's founder, Eric Migicovsky, brought the iconic smartwatch brand back, including with the Pebble Time 2 and the Pebble Round 2. Alongside the power-efficient MiP displays and long battery life, Pebble OS is arguably the most exciting aspect of the smartwatches, as the system not only offers a huge selection of apps and watch faces, but is also being rapidly developed as open-source software.

Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky has now announced what may be the most significant update to Pebble OS yet, as the operating system and its associated developer kit are being expanded to support plugins. These can provide data or perform actions. Among other things, plugins can provide information on weather, stock prices, reminders and notes, or calendar entries, as well as control music playback and smart home devices. The JavaScript code required for this runs on the smartphone rather than the smartwatch, so plugins should not affect a Pebble's battery life.

The main advantage for developers is that they can simply use a plugin instead of programming the corresponding feature from scratch, saving time. Eric also compares plugins to Apple Watch complications, except that plugins are far more flexible, as watch face developers have significantly more options for changing the look or displaying data graphically. To ensure that plugins are not misused, users will have to grant permissions to access sensitive data separately for each app and each watch face.