Earlier today we saw that slightly hard to view Pebble smartwatch tear down. While much of the focus was on the actual tear down of the watch, there was a mention of Bluetooth. In reference to the Bluetooth LE support, iFixIt had said that they could not “find evidence of the hardware.” Needless to say, the folks at Pebble have since responded and offered some assurance on the matter.
Basically, those with and those still waiting on delivery of a Pebble can rest easy. The Pebble team has said the watch “most definitely has Bluetooth LE support.” Of course, as we had heard before, that support has yet to be enabled. What we have yet to learn is exactly when they plan to roll-out an update that enables the support. Needless to say, the cause for confusion seems to make sense.
That thought comes by way of the statement from Pebble (by way of Reddit) which goes into some detail. They have noted that the “Bluetooth chips TI sent to Panasonic were labeled CC2560 but have been flashed with the firmware (and BT LE support) of a CC2564.” It seem the decision to use this setup was done in an effort to speed things up.
Pebble further explains that chip makers will often make the silicon the same between product lines but flash different firmware for different features. In other words, despite the chip saying CC2560, they have been flashed with CC2564 with Bluetooth 4.0. Or in simpler terms, you should not worry — the smartwatch will eventually have Bluetooth 4.0 as promised.
