#003: Pebble's Code Is Free: Three Former Pebble Engineers Discuss Why It's Important (PART 1/2) Coredump Sessions podcast

#003: Pebble's Code is Free: Three Former Pebble Engineers Discuss Why It's Important (PART 1/2)

7M ago 49:16

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In this episode of Coredump, three former Pebble engineers reunite to dive deep into the technical quirks, philosophies, and brilliant hacks behind Pebble OS. From crashing on purpose to building a single codebase that powered every watch, they share war stories, bugs, and what made Pebble’s firmware both rare and remarkable. If you love embedded systems, software-forward thinking, or startup grit— this one’s for you.

Key topics:

Pebble intentionally crashed devices to collect core dumps and improve reliability.
All Pebble devices ran on a single codebase, which simplified development and updates.
The open-sourcing of Pebble OS is a rare opportunity to study real, commercial firmware.
A platform mindset—supporting all devices and apps consistently—shaped major engineering decisions.
Pebble’s app sandbox isolated bad code without crashing the OS, improving developer experience.
The team built a custom NOR flash file system to overcome constraints in size and endurance.
Core dumps and analytics were essential for tracking bugs, deadlocks, and field issues.
Collaborations between hardware and firmware engineers led to better debugging tools and smoother development.

Chapters:

00:00 Episode Teasers & Intro01:10 Meet the Team: Pebble Engineers Reunite01:13 Meet the Hosts + Why Pebble Still Matters03:47 Why Open-Sourcing Pebble OS Is a Big Deal06:20 The Startup Firmware Mentality08:44 One OS, All Devices: Pebble’s Platform Bet12:30 App Compatibility and the KEMU Emulator14:51 Sandboxing, Syscalls, and Crashing with Grace20:25 Pebble File System: Built from Scratch (and Why)23:32 From Dumb to Smart: The Iterative Codebase Ethos26:09 Core Dumps: Crashing Is a Feature30:45 How Firmware Shaped Hardware Decisions33:56 Rust, Easter Eggs, and Favorite Bugs36:09 Wear-Level Failures, Security Exploits & Font Hacks39:42 Why We Chose WAF (and Regret Nothing?)42:41 What We’d Do Differently Next Time47:00 Final Q&A: Open Hardware, Protocols, and Part Two?

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