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Pebble Lays Off 25% of Its Staff, Smartwatch Bubble Set To Burst? (computerworld.com)
tripleevenfall writes: Pebble is laying off 25% of its employees -- that's 40 pink slips -- taking it down to just 80 people. It seems indicative of the smartwatch market's terrible state. Previously the darling of the crowdfunding fraternity -- it raised over $30 million on Kickstarter -- Pebble is finding it hard to keep the plates spinning in 2016.
The layoffs were confirmed by Pebble's CEO Eric Migicovsky, who implied that venture capitalists are now less keen on funding the smartwatch category.
The layoffs were confirmed by Pebble's CEO Eric Migicovsky, who implied that venture capitalists are now less keen on funding the smartwatch category.
I'm not sure how a product that hasn't received widespread adoption and hasn't been promoted that much could be considered a bubble...
Wouldn't that necessarily take it down to 120 people from 160?
80+40=120
40/120=33.33%
So they are laying off 33.33% of their staff, not 25%.
I would certainly expect Pebble to be less insulated from any downturn/loss of confidence than the internal teams doing 'smartwatch' at Apple, Google, or any of the Android OEMs, since they neither have a large host organism to quietly hide losses in, nor any claims to some sort of 'product synergy' nonsense; but my impression(if anyone has actual data, either for or against this, I'd be interested to know) was that Pebble had been atypically successful given the rather narrow appeal of the 'smartwatch' concept with their size and battery life friendly keep-it-simple-stupid design and relatively broad compatibility.
Is my impression wrong; and Pebble is actually starting to suffer as competing products with tighter 'ecosystem' tie-ins have gotten vaguely more competent and less in need of being nearly cellphone sized to get even a day's battery life? Is my impression correct; but either Pebble or their backers, or both, can't really think of too many additional incremental improvements to the KISS-based design that would be worth the cost of keeping the extra staff? Was the market simply so tiny that the few people who wanted one are already saturated and everybody is having issues moving product?
It wasn't a very big bubble; but the hype-to-substance ratio was arguably large enough to qualify as a small one. It didn't survive contact with reality for long; but there was a brief period of delusional hope among the manufacturers and some of the talking heads that 'smartwatch' was going to be the must-have accessory and temporary reprieve from the pressure on profits caused by the fact that everyone who wants a smartphone and a tablet either already has one or is poor enough that their desire for one isn't too helpful.
Definitely not at the level of "zOMG 3D TV! It will surely cause everyone to re-buy their television!"; but same basic hopeful delusion that a new gimmick could save them from an increasingly saturated and commodified market.
Smartwatches are in between handheld and augmented reality glasses. There is going to be a very significant rise in that, and that niche isn't going to go away even after AR becomes mainstream because walking around with glasses on is not a desirable in the way that a fashion accessory is. A watch is something that you *want* to wear. My Smartwatch has lowered my stress level immensely because I can finally know at a glance if somethings needs my attention, and I can reply super quickly. I love my Pebble. I would enjoy an Apple Watch just as much. My wife has one, and she had only wanted it as a fashion accessory until she started using it, and now she talks about all the cool things she is still doing with it that are brand new, and it has been almost 4 months now, so definitely past the honeymoon stage.
# make clean sig
No, that's the problem- it isn't. The number of people who want to wear a watch is incredibly small. You have a small number who have to due to job (nurses, for example)- but they don't need a smartwatch, they just need a hands free second hand. You have a small set who wear it as a fashion statement, but they want metals and gems and fancy that will last a long time, not an electronic screen that will last 2 years.
The number of people who actually want a smartwatch is ridiculously small- single digit percents of the population, possibly less. Everyone else is ok taking their phone out of their pocket.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
When it comes to battery life, NOTHING on the market can beat Pebble's first generation Pebble Watch and Pebble Watch Steel. Both of them are actually pretty light, and the Steel is sort of a watch you can wear to a dinner. Both can go a week on a full charge. Even Pebble's own second generation Time and Time Steel run time took a hit when they introduced the color screen.
While I love my Pebble Steel, I do fear Pebble will eventually go down the way of Palm Inc, Walkman, Blueberry and others.
...Is a pretty strong sign that there's zero interest in digital wearables.
It's been pretty definitively proven that you can't reliably use a smartphone (or smart-device) with a screen smaller than 480 x 360 and about 2.4" (the screen on the most popular Blackberry, the "Curve" in the 2007-2010 era).
Everyone who absolutely needed a smart watch bought one with the initial roll out of the Pebbl and iWatch. People buying it now are simply either just now able to afford one, or...?
Even Apple themselves have said that 4" is about the ideal size for a portable smart device screen. Given that 27-45mm is the ideal size for a watch face, that's way, WAY too small to do what people think it can do.
I can see smart bracelets monitoring heartbeat and miles walked, but it's been pretty conclusively proven that average citizens will never wear a screen of any significant usefulness on their arm.
moox. for a new generation.
I will stick by my original statements when they released this crop of smart watches. Until the battery life is measured in months (preferably at least 6) then you can keep em. A watch isn't even needed by most people nowadays and those that actually benefit from a smartwatch are an even smaller audience.
Well, I don't believe most people apply this type of standard. More than a week of run time is plenty for most people. We charge our smartphones and many other devices every day, but you can't connect a watch to a charger at the same time?
Anyways, the smartwatch does provide pretty decent utility. Yes, the phone does everything you need, but you need to reach out for it into your pocket. Instead of pulling the smartphone every time it beeps, you can glance first at the smartwatch to see what's up. Once you see the first few lines of the message, email, or other notice, you can then decide if you need to get the smartphone or not.
I can see them being useful.
They're not as must-have as the hype makes them out to be, but they're fairly useful for things many people would want once they know they're there. I would, however, ditch the color screen in favor of monochrome or an e-ink display. Cheaper and consumes less power.
Well it's 3 months to the day since my neighbour received an expensive fitness tracker from his well meaning daughter for Christmas.
He grumbled something about having troubles pairing it with his digital devices and hasn't worn it yet.
A niche for the health conscious but hardly a guaranteed motivator for the inactive. Maybe I'll offer him $20 for it...
Pebble is this generation's Palm. A great product which did what it did well.
Destroyed by inferior products from bigger companies with color screens and more integration.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Not true unless you wait until its completely dead (and even not as long as it takes to charge an Android watch)... I charge it while in the shower each day (10 minutes) and have never run out of battery... All they really need is either wireless charging and/or a watch band with a battery in it to make it even better.
But I hate wearing a wristwatch. Really and truly hate it. Plastic bands make me rash up, leather ones rot rapidly (I am sweaty) and metal ones pull out my hair. One of the best things about cellphones is going back to pocketwatches. I'm not looking to put shit on my wrist again.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't think Slashdot is the right target audience for fitness trackers
There, I'd have to disagree (unless you meant we already tend to have toys that can serve the same purpose, in which case I guess I'd agree with that).
The supreme irony of fitness trackers, think about who you see wearing them - Not buff athletes pushing themselves to the limit, but overweight middle class desk-jockeys trying desperately to shed a few pounds.
Of course, these trackers don't actually inspire people to exercise - Instead, trackers either make people feel better about how many steps they passive take every day, or, people quickly learn to game the tracker as though a logged "step" equals actual exercise.
"See, if I rock my hand just the right way while moving the Cheeto from the bag to my mouth, it counts it as two steps! Two family-size bags and four hours of TV gives me my 10,000 steps for the day! Size 0, here I come!"
I take my watch off to go through security at the airport and when I have sex. I'm married and I seldom travel.
In my opinion, battery life should be measured against quartz watches -- years. Or compared to my self-winding Tag or my Seiko solar quartz -- never, bounded by my lifetime.
Until then I don't see the utility. I've learned to ignore my smartphone -- I have all but the narrowest list of VIPs set to provide any notifications and keep it muted and on vibrate all the time, so I'm not interested in glancing at my watch to find out what the latest distraction is.
Plus, cost versus obsolescence? My Tag was an expensive gift, but it will also last my lifetime and never stop working because battery or vendor or software. Same with my Seiko. Any "smart watch" will be obsolete in a couple of years, which seems like a lot to spend for something you just know will be unsupported and unusable.
The number of people who want to wear a watch is extremely high. And those people like to switch watches often. It's a fashion product. No, the problem for the smartwatch industry is not that people buy few watches. The problem is that most people buy many watches in the $20-$150 range.
A smartwatch maker will have to create a $149 smartwatch that is fashionable by current trends and works great with both Android and iOS, then make a profit before the year is up and then start over again with a new fashion design for the next year.
The market for expensive luxury watches is big in terms of money, but there you are correct. The people who pay $200+ for a watch tend to want an heirloom product that will last for many years and have a value on the used market. Apple might perhaps be able to break into that market.
"The number of people who want to wear a watch is extremely high"
LMAO. Really. Thanks for the laugh. I work for a university and get to interact with many people on a daily basis, and I use public transportation for most of my commute. I can count on one hand (and have fingers left over) the number of people wearing a watch.
Sounds like a local cultural thing where you live.
The wristwatch is currently a multi-billion dollar industry and (perhaps surprisingly) shows no sign of declining.
Let me get this right:
1. Company A makes gadget that is an answer to a question nobody asked.
2. Company A gets press for selling said gadget to early adopters who buy it just to have it, but it still doesn't solve a problem that anyone has.
3. Massive consumer electronics companies (Samsung, Apple, LG, Motorola) get in on the action, creating massive competition for a small market, growing it marginally and creating new features that make the product marginally more useful.
4. Company A now has a product that is less featured, and is not as quick to replace with a more full featured product due to resource constraints, and sales plummet.
5. Company A is forced to lay people off due to the inevitable economics of their situation.
6. "The smartwatch bubble set to burst" doom and gloom story.
Slashdot editors are fucking amazing.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Really? [Citation needed]
Here's my citation to the contrary: http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/...
If Apple sold >50% of the smart watches that shifted in 2015, how is Pebble outselling that combined with all the Android Wear 2:1? Are you counting total sales since the absolute first unit left the factory? Even that doesn't pass the sniff test.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
"The number of people who want to wear a watch is extremely high"
LMAO. Really. Thanks for the laugh. I work for a university and get to interact with many people on a daily basis, and I use public transportation for most of my commute. I can count on one hand (and have fingers left over) the number of people wearing a watch.
Sounds like a local cultural thing where you live.
The wristwatch is currently a multi-billion dollar industry and (perhaps surprisingly) shows no sign of declining.
Sure, but the legal marijuana industry is also several billion annually and I don't think that means the number of people who smoke pot is very high (pun partially intended).
Yeah, but a pot habit will cost you a lot more than a wrist watch "habit", unless you're into really expensive watches or grow the pot yourself or something...
The wrist watch industry is so big that nobody knows how many they ship each year, but it is in the 1B-2B range. Most of those are dirt-cheap watches sold in the third world, but many are more expensive and sold in the first world.
My Apple Watch goes 2-3 days between charges. If it went longer I would probably forget to charge it.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
When it comes to battery life, NOTHING on the market can beat Pebble's first generation Pebble Watch and Pebble Watch Steel. Even Pebble's own second generation Time and Time Steel run time took a hit when they introduced the color screen.
No, it really didn't. The second generation beats it pretty handily. My Pebble Time Steel lasts 10 days on a charge.
You're probably using a watchface that updates seconds. Those faces killed battery life on the first generation too. Pick something that doesn't display every second, and just displays the minutes, and you get the improved battery life they claim in their marketing.
Apparently, people don't replace their watches every 12-24 months like they do with phones.
Who would have thought?
I use my phone paired with a set of bluetooth headphones and the 5x5 app when I work out. Hardly just walking to and from the fridge.
https://play.google.com/store/...
I do the 5x5 workout then 15 minutes on the cardio setting on a treadmill. It seems to be working as I am sore all the time for now, I expect it will pass soon though.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
You are quick to see the faults of the smartwatch, and yet you keep ignoring the real advantages it brings to the table.
Battery life of one week should be adequate for most people, because most people who wear a watch tend to take it off in the shower or in their sleep (or doing dishes, whatever). Connecting the watch to the charging cable is not as much of trouble as you make it.
On the other hand, one killer feature of the smartwatch is that the time is network synced, so you don't ever need to readjust or check its time accuracy. And second, you get the notifications, so you don't need to pull the smartphone every time it vibrates.