Thursday, January 30, 2014

How to manually update the OS on your Pebble

Bigger is always better, and when it come to software nobody likes to wait

You have a finely-tooled Android smartphone, which you keep on the bleeding edge of all things software. It's nothing for you to grab a USB cable and start flashing things on a moments notice. You will have the most up-to-date Android device possible, no matter what hoops are needing jumped through. You're among friends here.

What if you also have a Pebble to go along with your sleek Android sex machine? Did you know it's just as easy to keep things updated to the latest and greatest there, too? There are even beta builds to flash! Follow along.

You need to install the beat version of the Pebble app on your Android. Grab it from Pebble right here.
Install it as normal. It will overwrite the Google Play store version so you only have one instance installed.
Next, you need to download the 2.0 release candidate firmware for your Pebble. To do this, you'll need an account at the Pebble Developer site. I find it easiest to do this from a computer and put the file in Dropbox or Google Drive.
Once you're registered and signed in, you can start downloading. If your Pebble serial number starts with a Q, download this file. If your Pebble serial number starts with a numeral, download this file. If you have a Pebble Steel, download this file.
Make sure your Pebble app can see your Pebble, and open the firmware you downloaded to your phone. It will open with the Pebble app and the rest is pretty magical.

If you get stuck, or things break, going back is easy. Uninstall the beta Pebble app from your phone. Put the Pebble in a recovery mode by pressing back, up and select for 30 seconds (you'll see "loading ...") and go through the regular setup to go back to the latest stable build.

While this is mostly for folks developing Pebble apps to worry about, the new firmware seems stable and it's so easy to flash that you almost have to try it.

Source: Pebble Developers