PINE64 has built a reputation for delivering open source hardware to people who actually care about what runs on their devices. From single-board computers like the ROCKPro64 and the RISC-V powered STAR64 to Linux smartphones like the PinePhone, the company has been pretty consistent.

One of their offerings is the PineTime, which is a compact, inexpensive open source smartwatch that has been around since 2019. It started as a community side project, inspired partly by the simplicity of the old Pebble, and is priced at around $26.99.

Years later, PINE64 has revealed what comes next. Announced at FOSDEM 2026 and detailed in a new blog post, the PineTime Pro is the open source smartwatch's next step up.

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Pics courtesy of the PINE64 team.

The PineTime Pro is a significant hardware upgrade over the original, and the spec sheet makes that known right away.

At its core is a dual-core Cortex-M33 SoC, with an application core running at up to 200 MHz and a separate dedicated Bluetooth core. RAM goes up from the original's 64 KB of SRAM to 800 KB of SRAM plus 8 MB of PSRAM. The display jumps from a 240x240 pixel 1.3-inch LCD to a 410x502 pixel 2.13-inch AMOLED panel with touch support.

Beyond that, the Pro comes with GPS, a heart rate sensor with blood oxygen measurement, a 6D IMU, Bluetooth 5.2 with both Classic and Low Energy support, a microphone, a speaker, and a vibration motor. It also has a digital crown that doubles as a button.

External storage is delivered via 8 MB of QSPI flash, and there is a 4-pin connector for power, debugging, and programming purposes.

Additionally, PINE64 is calling this one the PineTime Pro and not the PineTime 2 for a deliberate reason. The original is not being discontinued as it is still doing well.

The Pro is meant to sit alongside it as a more capable option, not replace it. If the original PineTime was built to be approachable, the Pro is built for those who want to push things further.

On the software side, developers from both InfiniTime and Wasp-OS are involved, with the groundwork for it already being laid. The extra hardware headroom also means features that were never realistic on the original could actually happen here. When to expect?

As for where things stand right now, it is early. The first two watch prototypes arrived toward the end of 2025, but a non-functional SWD port made loading and debugging software harder than expected.

A second batch showed up just before FOSDEM 2026 but ran into a flash memory issue, which meant the demo at the event had to run on a development board rather than the actual watch hardware.

A third hardware revision is expected in early April, and the team is optimistic this one will finally clear the remaining hurdles.

There is no release date yet, and PINE64 is not claiming otherwise. But after years of hardware iteration, the PineTime Pro is finally starting to feel like something we might actually one day wear on our wrists.

Spurred by popular discussion of systemd's odd decision to immediately integrate a framework for OS-level age-verification law compliancy, Devuan was mentioned and I began looking into it, as it seemed a fun idea to return my systems to a traditional init system.

Here are my observations, though. I noticed that on Youtube, someone named Brian Lunduke has made many videos on Devuan as well as Debian and other projects, bizzarely calling it the "anti-woke" distro. Disturbed, I wanted to know if this view was endorsed by the project.

I found the Devuan forum and someone who wanted to know the same. "Does anyone watch Bryan Lunduke?" https://web.archive.org/web/20260322044859/https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=6818

In that thread, one user called Bryan fascist while another sung his praises before the thread got locked.

This is the one that really gives me pause: "Idle chatter nonsense" https://web.archive.org/web/20260322045120/https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=5530

It's just some user ranting about socialism and trans people working at Disneyland, ah as it turns out not just any user according to two admins who defend their presence on the forum and eventually lock the thread:

"MiyoLinux is responsible for one of Devuan's most popular derivatives. If you knew anything at all about Devuan you would know that . . . https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=9 https://sourceforge.net/projects/miyolinux/ IOW MiyoLinux might be going through something so acting out but on his worst day he has more value to Devuan than the paltry commentaries made by an occasional visitor. So yeah . . . I cut him some slack . . ."

My cursory judgement is that the project is at best tolerant of the presence of, as one so well put it, "right wing nutters" and at worst the project belongs to them.

I've seen enough that I cannot consider putting this software on my system, open source or no. Some snakes need trodding on first.