Fitbit Is Buying Smartwatch Maker Pebble For Around $40 Million, Says Report (techcrunch.com)

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Fitbit Is Buying Smartwatch Maker Pebble For Around $40 Million, Says Report (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday December 1, 2016 @01:00AM from the kicked-in-the-gut dept.

According to a report from The Information, Fitbit is buying smartwatch maker Pebble for a "small amount" of money. One source says Fitbit is paying between $34 and $40 million for the company and is "barely covering their debts." TechCrunch reports: A source close to the company told TechCrunch that watch maker Citizen was interested in purchasing Pebble for $740 million in 2015. This deal failed and before the launch of the Pebble 2 Intel made an offer for $70 million. The CEO, Eric Migicovsky refused both offers. Pebble released the newest version of its smartwatch in October, but the past year or so has been a challenging period. It laid off 25 percent of its staff in March, while we reported last year that it was in some trouble and had turned to debt funding and loans, as well as traditional investor cash, "in order to stay afloat." Earlier this year, Pebble CEO Migicovsky confirmed that his company had raised $28 million in debt and venture financing. He blamed a more cautious outlook from VCs focused on tech as the primary reason for letting 40 of Pebble's staff go.

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Realistic by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 01:05 · Score: 0

He blamed a more cautious outlook from VCs focused on tech as the primary reason for letting 40 of Pebble's staff go.

It looks like they woke up and smelled the coffee and we're getting valuations that are closer to being realistic.
I also question the purchase. Fitness bands and smartwatch sales are tanking. It looks like it's just a fad.
1. Re:Realistic by 0100010001010011 · 2016-12-01 01:42 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Fitness bands and smartwatch sales are tanking. It looks like it's just a fad.
  Or the technology isn't there yet.
  Remember the 'fad' of the Palm Pilot and Apple Newton? The technology wasn't there yet and now smartphones.
2. Re:Realistic by TodPunk · 2016-12-01 01:52 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Or the technology isn't there yet.
  Remember the 'fad' of the Palm Pilot and Apple Newton? The technology wasn't there yet and now smartphones.
  I disagree with this sentiment strongly. Palm Pilots were fantastic. The lack of popularity wasn't anything to do with tech. The tech was there, it just wasn't sexy. You need to make it stupid and give it a selfie app before it's popular, but that has nothing to do with the tech being there. It's not even a matter of viability. Niche markets exist, and Palms were largely marketed to business users anyway, who loved them.
  The only reason smartphones are popular is because they have been made sexy to a mass market who uses them largely to waste time. There's nothing wrong with that choice, but we should acknowledge that demographic as the primary. Palm users were running businesses and managing teams off of them. Your average smartphone user is using instagram or the ilk.
  
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3. Re:Realistic by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 02:00 · Score: 1
  
  The butthurt is strong in this one.
4. Re:Realistic by rockmuelle · 2016-12-01 02:00 · Score: 2
  
  Probably true for smartwatches - battery life being the main technology issue that needs to be resolved. Once batteries are better (or power consumption is lower), you'll be able to pack more processing power and radios into a watch form factor and eliminate the need to carry a phone. Or, for those of us who don't like wearing jewelry, we can carry Zoolander size phones. Win win either way.
  Fitness bands, on the other hand, are most likely a fad. People are always looking for silver bullets for weight loss and exercise. There's always a small market for products for athletes who find the gear improves their training, but the vast majority of these devices sell to consumers who really aren't using them as anything other than a feel good product. Plus, the science behind fitness bands is mostly bogus. Beyond GPS tracking for pacing, there's not much they can do accurately enough at their form factor. Biology, not technology, gets in the way of that. (e.g., for heart rate monitoring, we already know that straps are the most accurate way, but most people won't wear those, regardless of what they're tethered to)
  -Chris
5. Re:Realistic by CastrTroy · 2016-12-01 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  That is a very big possibility. Personally, I think the problem with smart watches and fitness devices is that while they are useful, most people don't actually need the features they offer. For a smartwatch to be useful, you already have to have a phone along side it. But everything you can do on your smart watch can already be done by your phones. That is, apart from the heart rate and movement tracking, which I'm sure only a small number of people are actually interested in.
  Everybody used to carry around paper agendas and briefcases with their important files. Now you can completely replace that entire thing with your smartphone. Rarely do I see people carrying around briefcases anymore. Even laptops seem to be losing their purpose as many people just plug them into full sized peripherals and use them as a stationary computer at home or work. In 5 years, you'll probably see that becoming common with a phone using something like Continuum. A tablet could simply be a dumb screen that you dock your phone to.
  Looking at things like the Surface book, it's definitely possible to even give your phone extra processing and memory capability when you plug it into the dock. All your important stuff can still come with you, but if you want to do some photoshop work or other intensive work, you're going to need more resources than you can get out of a phone, at least in the near future.
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
6. Re:Realistic by known_coward_69 · 2016-12-01 02:14 · Score: 0
  
  the original iphone had less features than some of the early 2001 era PDA's. Just the ones it did have were better and as they added features those were better as well.
  problem with smartwatches is that you're paying $400 for something that tells you the time like my phone already does.
  or saves me one whole second in not having to look at my phone if i'm one of those people who absolutely has to look at every text and email the second it comes in. most people are not idiots like this, so that's that.
  or it's only useful for idiots who absolutely must know their pulse or blood pressure 24x7 and have a chart of it going back the last year to share on social media. i try to run at least once a week and i could care less what my pulse is when i run and after. and i'm already taking my phone with me when i run so no point in a GPS watch or tracker
7. Re: Realistic by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 02:15 · Score: 0
  
  If they were still selling Palm PDA/phones, is still be buying them.
  I still think the text entry method was better than anything that came after it. Not only could I enter text faster,I could do so while looking away from the screen.
  Palm offered the exact feature set I want. I've thought of writing an emulator for use on a modern smartphone, but I'm a lazy, lazy man.
8. Re:Realistic by The-Ixian · 2016-12-01 02:35 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Palm Pilots *may* have been fantastic but they were not a product for the masses. At the time, these devices were known as PDA's because they were niche, focused products that addressed a specific need. They were not general purpose computers that smartphones are now. GP is right, the hardware just wasn't there yet.
  
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9. Re:Realistic by quenda · 2016-12-01 02:57 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Fad?
  Palm sold tens of millions of units over more than a decade. They were eventually killed by the smartphone.
  The Apple ][ sold 6 million. The Newton somewhat fewer.
10. Re:Realistic by cheesybagel · 2016-12-01 03:16 · Score: 1
  
  Actually I think it makes a lot of sense to have a bunch of bio-sensors on something you can place on your arm. It doesn't have to be on the wrist, it could be a bracer or something. I bought one of the heart monitoring devices, but like you said it, doesn't work that well doesn't mean this will always be the case though.
  If someone could make a non-invasive heart meter, glucose meter, or lipid profile meter it would sell quite a lot.
11. Re:Realistic by cheesybagel · 2016-12-01 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  Everybody used to carry around paper agendas and briefcases with their important files. Now you can completely replace that entire thing with your smartphone.
  Curiously the Android phone I bought has no buit-in text editor facilities at all, there is Google Drive, but you need to be connected to the network. Lame.
12. Re:Realistic by rockmuelle · 2016-12-01 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  That's where biology becomes problematic. From a convenience perspective, it'd be great to have a small pack of sensors somewhere that let you monitor vitals, especially for people who are sick. The problem is, there's no one place we can put a range of sensors and have them all be accurate enough to be useful. The body is a distributed system and different parts let you measure some things and not others.
  Theranos ran into this problem recently by attempting to perform a wide array of tests on a single drop of blood while ignoring the basic biology behind blood-based measurements. Many of the measurements they claimed to be able to make are for things that occur in low copy-numbers in blood, which is why large draws are required to accurately measure them. If something only occurs once for every 10M blood cells and you need at least 10 copies to accurately detect it, you'll need at least 100M cells to have a chance at detection. The same is true for most other biological measurements. Sample size and location both matter.
  -Chris
13. Re:Realistic by soft_guy · 2016-12-01 03:37 · Score: 1
  
  PDAs like the Newton and Palm were great. They had two very obvious barriers that held them back. The first one was they weren't merged with a smart phone. I was a Newton developer and had conversations with people inside and outside of Apple about the need to merge the Newton with a smartphone. The second was lack of internet connectivity. I worked on some projects that involved using a cellular modem with the Newton. At the time it was very slow and very expensive. Just running our (brief) demo cost about $5 worth of data. In the case of the Newton specifically, I think there were looming security problems that would have been a nightmare if it had moved forward and had internet connectivity widely merged with it. The programming model made it easy to access any data on the device and even the internals of other applications. My main point, though, is that it was pretty obvious the kinds of super cool things you could do with PDAs if they had ubiquitous network access and integration with a phone. It isn't clear what technical limitations are in Smart Watches that prevent them from being significantly more useful. Perhaps the Apple Watch will be more useful if Siri becomes more useful and AirPods ever ship? I don't know. Its not that the watch isn't good, it is just that we haven't figured out what compelling use cases exist yet.
  
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14. Re:Realistic by ribuck · 2016-12-01 03:54 · Score: 2
  
  ...the Android phone I bought has no buit-in text editor facilities at all ... Lame...
  Fortunately, there are app stores. On my Android phone I have a text editor app called Ted, which meets my needs nicely. There's no reason why a text editor should be be pre-installed on each phone.
  
  --
  Paid Q&A/Research
15. Re:Realistic by mu51c10rd · 2016-12-01 04:00 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  That's a shame...I enjoy my Pebble. Battery life goes for days, and I can check who is calling/emailing/texting without pulling the phone out. It also works as a great phone finder, and has a decent alarm. I hope Fitbit doesn't kill the brand.
16. Re:Realistic by cant_get_a_good_nick · 2016-12-01 04:04 · Score: 1
  
  Our company was a bunch of geeks. we had an original pilot (before Palm bought them). It was a tool for geeks. the whole Graffiti thing made it hard for people to just pick one up and use them. the sync software was a bear to use and felt like an infestation on your system. Whether you like social media or not, people use it to communicate how they wish to. You couldn't do that on a Pilot. Most didn't have any way at all to network. Even the Handspring with the cell module (I had a handspring, not the cell module though) didn't allow you to network much because there was no real OS support for it. Email sucked until the Treos came out.
  And hell, i liked these things. So even someone who liked them, hated how clunky they were. There's no comparison to a smart phone. a lot of computing power goes into putting things into the cloud. a lot of computing power makes things easier
17. Re:Realistic by cant_get_a_good_nick · 2016-12-01 04:05 · Score: 1
  
  Newton - ARM based computer in your pocket with a touch sensitized screen
  iOS - ARM based computer in your pocket with a touch sensitized screen, that actually does somehting
18. Re:Realistic by hey! · 2016-12-01 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  I developed for the Newton. Then I developed for the Palm Pilot. Then I developed for PocketPC. Then I got out of the business when the iPhone came along:)
  I did come back to help out a team of scientists who'd just returned from a three year expedition in the tropical rainforest. I'd equipped them with PocketPCs before they left, which was just before the iPhone came out. When they returned they felt like Rip Van Winkle.
  You have to build products around the limitations of the technology, and that means the appeal of every product you build is constrained in some way. The Newton was a product of genius, but the combination of size, weight, and limited capabilities meant the market for the device was limited. The Palm Pilot desigers, with similar technology available to them, made the definition to trade everything off for form factor -- and that was a great choice. They sold a lot of them to people who wanted to replace their daytimers and Franklin Covey planners.
  The limitations of pre-iPhone converged devices (I tested a number of them) wasn't technological; it was marketing. The carriers dictated limitations to devices used on their networks to protect various added-charge services they made a lot of money from. They used to make you pay to get your pictures off your phone! That's why Apple introduced the iPhone as an AT&T exclusive. AT&T was an unpopular carrier that badly needed a hit product. It was in no position to say "no".
  The essential property of a true smartphone is net neutrality. It's not tied to a particular carrier's services.
  
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  Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
19. Re:Realistic by DrXym · 2016-12-01 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  The Palm Pilot sold extremely well, in part because it was significantly cheaper than the Newton but also because as a PDA it was a very good device. If this is in doubt, look how many models came out over more than a decade.
  It might not have been as mass market as smart phones but it still sold well enough to sustain a line of devices until 2011. It might even have made the leap to mainstream with smart phone devices powered by Palm's replacement OS, webOS, but HP (who acquired Palm) made a hash of the platform and it flopped. Yet I should add that an open sourced webOS still lives on in a number of smart TVs and other devices.
20. Re:Realistic by HornWumpus · 2016-12-01 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  I owned a palm and continued to use a paper day planner, the office I worked in at the time never bought into palm, so the benefits didn't outweigh the hassle.
  Who's to say how it would have worked out if they had gotten a ubiquitous cell/data module instead of their old crawling wireless network and made use of touch better.
  The technology was there, palm just didn't put it together. At the time even with full palm buyin, you were carrying a phone and a palm.
  The cell addon was buggy, late, huge and worked on one network at edge speeds IIRC.
  Making it work would have been ninja, but it was just possible IMHO. Palm blew it.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
21. Re:Realistic by aaarrrgggh · 2016-12-01 05:40 · Score: 2
  
  Aaawe, c'mon! I maintained my website* with my Palm devices, was able to store contacts that I still have records of just shy of 20 years later, and so much more...
  
  *OK... so that was the most convoluted process I can imagine and did require manual PHP scripting with a folding keyboard and a whole lot of external workflow, but I was able to do it with a device that I could haul around in my backpack for two years and use in a sala looking out on the beach and ocean...
  
  Maybe the Blackberry was an improvement after all...
  
  Back OT though, when I read the summary it sounds more like FitBit bought Pebble out of bankruptcy. Shame; I think Pebble had more value than that, ESPECIALLY to FitBit. This is an opportunity for them to make their products support the next round of innovation with dedicated user base... and something that isn't as fugly as their current smart watch kind of thing...
22. Re:Realistic by 0100010001010011 · 2016-12-01 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  Cross compile nano/vim/emacs.
  Open a terminal.
23. Re: Realistic by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  The thing I liked a lot about my Palm was it's highly focused limitations. It has a memopad, a calendar, a contact list, a todo list. They all synched flawlessly to an 'data island' on my PC. Nothing went anywhere else, it was all compartmented, and when I got a new computer I could zip up the whole palm desktop folder with my data and relocate it, OR just install the Palm desktop on the new PC and sync my Palm to move all my data to the new PC.
  There were not 100 todo apps to choose from, not 1000 memo apps that put your text in weird directories on either a real SD card or what calls 'the SD card' due to legacy issues.
  I didn't have to synch my life to big brother Google to assure my data landed somewhere accessable.
  All rhis stuff can be done with a modern smartphone, but the focus is dissipated.
  If there was a strong Palm emulator that could sync to a strong Palm desktop emulator on my PC a part of me would want to rip everything else off my smartphone and just use that.
24. Re: Realistic by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 06:46 · Score: 0
  
  Since David Packard departed, HP has just been a force released on the world to fuck other entities up.
25. Re: Realistic by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 08:00 · Score: 0
  
  On a tiny screen like on the pebble nano would be entirely too big.
26. Re:Realistic by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  Wrong. Fitness tracker sales are still increasing, as they have done since they were first introduced.
27. Re:Realistic by AvitarX · 2016-12-01 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  I could send faxes from my Newton.
  
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  Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
28. Re:Realistic by tehcyder · 2016-12-02 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  I could send faxes from my Newton.
  But receiving them must have been tricky.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
29. Re:Realistic by AvitarX · 2016-12-02 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  I think it could actually do that too.
  and email.
  it could barely internet though, even though there was a modem (I never had it on a proper network, so I don't know how it did with that, and I don't think there was any wifi back then.
  
  --
  Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
30. Re: Realistic by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-02 10:47 · Score: 0
  
  Blackberry keyboard users would disagree.
31. Re:Realistic by Coren22 · 2016-12-08 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  FYI, Pebble 2 that was Kickstarted was $99.
  https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
  I unfortunately lost my warranty on mine because Fitbit didn't take over the warranties of Pebble.
  As far as the HR monitor, it is useful when running to make sure you are above the fat burning level of heart rate, but don't go into VO2 max territory. It is useful for those of us that don't run on a regular basis, and don't know well enough what pace to run at as it gives a goal and range to shoot for.
  
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  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Pebble had the Style, but not the Tech by RobotRunAmok · 2016-12-01 01:20 · Score: 1

Pebble has always been the best looking of among all the others in the niche, while offering the least functionality. Fitbit could have saved even more money by just hiring away Pebble's design team at triple their salaries. Pebble is set to tank in moments as is, and Fitbit would have grabbed all their users on the upgrade cycle (which for gadgets like this is every 18-24 months).
1. Re:Pebble had the Style, but not the Tech by known_coward_69 · 2016-12-01 01:28 · Score: 2
  
  now they get their design patents as well
2. Re:Pebble had the Style, but not the Tech by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 01:40 · Score: 1
  
  are you kidding? the pebbles were ugly as sin and at least the early versions were plagued by display problems that the company tried to sweep under the rug.
3. Re:Pebble had the Style, but not the Tech by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 02:04 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, Pebble's USP was that the battery didn't die after about ten minutes like most smartwatches, although some of the later models looked ok. But the writing's been on the wall for anyone who's sole product is a smartwatch; they've got to compete with a whole bunch of other smartwatch manufacturers now, many of whom can afford to make a loss while they test the market, as well as against all the more focused activity trackers, in a market that never expanded like they hoped anyway.
Sounds like Pebble missed the boat by DrXym · 2016-12-01 01:27 · Score: 1

Should have sold themselves in 2015 when the hype for smart watches was at its greatest and the buyers remorse was at its lowest.
That quote says it all by goose-incarnated · 2016-12-01 01:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

He blamed a more cautious outlook from VCs focused on tech as the primary reason for letting 40 of Pebble's staff go.
In what universe is this quote acceptable?
This man appears to believe that businesses get money from VCs and pays money to employees+suppliers. Last I checked, businesses got money from customers. They'd get /loans/ from banks (but that has to be paid back).
The problem with a lot of SV/Tech startups is that the people involved appear to believe that their income comes from VCs. Their business plan is effectively "Get VC Money, Then Sell Company!"
A depressed market would soon separate the wheat from the chaff.

--
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
1. Re:That quote says it all by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 02:06 · Score: 0
  
  Reminds me of when the economic stimulus/profligate spending bills came out a few years ago, which included some loan incentives for business, the President displayed a total misunderstanding of how a business works when he said these businesses needed to "take out loans to expand their payroll".
  I guess if you've never had a job in the real world that might make sense, but in the real world people scale for how much they are selling, not just to be nice and issue paychecks to lots of people.
2. Re:That quote says it all by Dragonslicer · 2016-12-01 02:40 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  The problem with a lot of SV/Tech startups is that the people involved appear to believe that their income comes from VCs. Their business plan is effectively "Get VC Money, Then Sell Company!"
  It's hard to tell for sure, but you seem kind of surprised by this. If so, you must be pretty young, since this has been true for almost 20 years now.
3. Re:That quote says it all by 110010001000 · 2016-12-01 02:40 · Score: 0
  
  Companies don't scale based on sales. Companies scale for the ego of the management. There is no reason that Microsoft needs 118,000 employees. But the problem is that managers like to hire people "under them". It makes them more important. Managers compare how many people report to them, and that is how they get promoted. Fitbit has 1200 employees. Why? Who knows? It doesn't take 1200 people to design, sell and market watches.
4. Re:That quote says it all by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 02:55 · Score: 0
  
  The problem with a lot of SV/Tech startups is that the people involved appear to believe that their income comes from VCs. Their business plan is effectively "Get VC Money, Then Sell Company!"
  It's hard to tell for sure, but you seem kind of surprised by this. If so, you must be pretty young, since this has been true for almost 20 years now.
  I'm surprised it is still viable. After 20 years I guess that these VCS are fresh suckers, and not the same suckers from the nineties.
5. Re:That quote says it all by cant_get_a_good_nick · 2016-12-01 04:12 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Umm, facebook?
  the whole thing is a roll of the dice for them. Much like the music scene, you throw money at 50 people, 45 will fail miserably, 4 will come close to even, and 1 will be a rock star and finance all of the 50. It's been that way since the web came out.
  The Internet doesn't even things out. By making location irrelevant for delivery reasons, it makes concentration of people/money for other reasons more relevant. So, we can Facebook corner the market for socail. we can have amazon corner the market for selling. Then any VC that bets on one of these has their rockstar and gets very rich. their roll of the roulette wheel paid off not 30-1 but 3000-1
6. Re:That quote says it all by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 05:04 · Score: 0
  
  The problem with a lot of SV/Tech startups is that the people involved appear to believe that their income comes from VCs. Their business plan is effectively "Get VC Money, Then Sell Company!"
  Except in this case he forgot the last part by turning down a $740 million deal and now has to settle for a $40 million deal.
  Was this a case of a giant ego, or just being a collossal twat?
7. Re:That quote says it all by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  What are you basing your assumptions on? How do you know what the 1200 employees at Fitbit do? Rolex has almost 3000 employees. Is that too many as well? BMW has over 120,000 employees, how can that be? It doesn't take over 100,000 people to design and sell cars, does it? The US Armed Forces have almost 1.5 million active service men and women. That's WAY too many. It doesn't take over a million people to win wars!
  Ignoramus
8. Re:That quote says it all by 110010001000 · 2016-12-01 06:28 · Score: 1
  
  You are right. Rolex doesn't need 3,000 employees and it doesn't take 120,000 to build cars either. That is why there are these massive layoffs when the business goes bad. Example: Cisco and every other company ever.
9. Re: That quote says it all by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 06:52 · Score: 0
  
  I almost thought that was a typo. The question should be: how many employees does Rolodex have?
10. Re:That quote says it all by LightningBolt! · 2016-12-01 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  > It doesn't take 1200 people to design, sell and market watches.
  I'm sure you could run the whole operation alone from your mom's basement.
  
  --
  Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
11. Re:That quote says it all by LightningBolt! · 2016-12-01 08:17 · Score: 2
  
  Shh, you're ruining someone's narrative about how VCs are just big pools of dumb money.
  
  --
  Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
12. Re:That quote says it all by LightningBolt! · 2016-12-01 08:28 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  > the President displayed a total misunderstanding of how a business works when he said these businesses needed to "take out loans to expand their payroll"... in the real world people scale for how much they are selling
  People scale for how much they project to sell. Hence loans. Very very basic stuff here.
  
  --
  Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Aww... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 01:38 · Score: 1

I really like both of my Pebbles. Don't really want a fitness band, do want a watch.
1. Re:Aww... by fuzzywig · 2016-12-01 01:59 · Score: 1
  
  Me and you both mate.
2. Re:Aww... by wonkey_monkey · 2016-12-01 03:13 · Score: 0
  
  Me and you both mate.
  Well it's a free world, but don't expect me to watch.
  
  --
  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
3. Re: Aww... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 03:15 · Score: 0
  
  l bought my Pebble because my Fitbit died. I looked at the word online, and discovered how poor a reliability record Fitbit hardware has, and bought a Pebble instead. Now this. I hope Fitbit's shit quality record doesn't infiltrate Pebble.
  Maybe it will go the other way and Fitbits will now have Pebble's quality.
  Who am I kidding??
4. Re: Aww... by cant_get_a_good_nick · 2016-12-01 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  I gave up on fitbit. I had a charge HR that fell apart, and the warranty replacement fall apart.
  They're not particularly cheap. about 130 or so, and the apple watch is on sale now for 199. Yet the apple watch feels 3 or 4x as solid and does 5x the things. I may get one.
5. Re:Aww... by wwphx · 2016-12-01 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  I absolutely love my Time Steel, I just hope I get my Time Steel 2 at some point! I was concerned with the Kickstarter when I learned that the 2 wasn't fully developed yet, now I'm VERY concerned.
  
  I bought the Time Steel via the Kickstarter after I had cataract surgery and was sick and tired of pulling my iPhone out to see what time it was. My Steel is awesome: alarm clock with vibrating alarm, count-down timer, AND I CAN READ IT WITHOUT MY GLASSES. The Time 2 series: my interest was the larger display, the heart rate monitor is of minor interest. And the stainless steel casing is fantastic!
  
  Well, off to Kickstarter to see if I can find out if my 2 will be completed or not.
  
  --
  When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Sue the CEO by ghoul · 2016-12-01 01:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

CEOs justify their huge salaries saying that their decisions have multi-million dollar affects on a company. Well in this case the CEO gave up a 740 million deal and has to settle for a 40 million dollar deal so he lost 700 million for the company. The employees should sue him in a personal capacity for everything's hes got.

--
**Life is too short to be serious**
1. Re:Sue the CEO by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 01:53 · Score: 0
  
  The 740 deal fell through. Maybe they should sue you for defamation.
2. Re:Sue the CEO by rockmuelle · 2016-12-01 02:05 · Score: 2
  
  Not sure about Pebble specifically, but CEOs at VC funded companies typically don't have high salaries. Usually the top engineers and salespeople make more than the CEO. The CEO's compensation is delayed in the form of equity, which only turns into cash after an acquisition or other liquidity event. In this case, taking the $740MM would have resulted in a nice payday for the CEO. $40MM probably didn't even get the investors/debtors their money back.
  Public company and profitable private company CEOs are almost always overpaid, but startup CEOs rarely are.
  -Chris
3. Re:Sue the CEO by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 02:05 · Score: 0
  
  They "fell through" because the CEO was being greedy and declined the offers.
4. Re:Sue the CEO by Tx · 2016-12-01 02:09 · Score: 1
  
  The summary said the deal failed, it didn't say that was down to Pebble's CEO. It may be that Citizen realised Pebble was way overvalued and backed out. Unless you have information from elsewhere of course, I'm only going on what's written here.
  
  --
  Oh no... it's the future.
5. Re:Sue the CEO by Desler · 2016-12-01 02:11 · Score: 2
  
  The full story says the CEO declined the offers.
  
  The CEO, Eric Migicovsky refused both offers.
6. Re:Sue the CEO by Tx · 2016-12-01 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  Lol, I read TFA literally to the sentence before that bit, doh. Well, hopefully Eric Migicovsky will be feeling even dumber than I do.
  
  --
  Oh no... it's the future.
7. Re:Sue the CEO by Desler · 2016-12-01 04:20 · Score: 1
  
  At least he's no Jerry Yang!
8. Re:Sue the CEO by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 04:35 · Score: 0
  
  ...so he lost 700 million for the company.
  Looks like someone failed business school. Did he actually have $700 million in his hand or was it some maybe/maybe not thing? If he didn't have it free and clear, then he could not have "lost" it.
9. Re:Sue the CEO by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 04:49 · Score: 0
  
  ...so he lost 700 million for the company.
  Looks like someone failed business school. Did he actually have $700 million in his hand or was it some maybe/maybe not thing? If he didn't have it free and clear, then he could not have "lost" it.
  Oh stop quibbling. Hillary had 30 years to get that deal done and she didn't do it.
10. Re:Sue the CEO by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 04:55 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah guys. We all better listen to the AC business school scholar. He must be right because of his long and storied business career. Oh wait...
11. Re:Sue the CEO by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 08:52 · Score: 0
  
  Or just listen to common sense. Today I realized that I "lost" $100,000.000.00. I didn't actually ever have that amount, but I lost it anyway due to some bad choices. If we think that it is possible to lose something you never really had, then you probably "lost" the same amount or more (well, unless you really have a hundred million). That's just not right! How about saying "by mistiming the market, he didn't maximize the potential return on his company's investment"? Sure it's a bit pedantic but doesn't accuracy count in financial matters, and computer programming, ,..and generally?.
12. Re:Sue the CEO by Desler · 2016-12-01 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  You're trying really hard to be overly pedantic. Everyone who isn't suffering from Aspergers knows what was meant by the statement.
13. Re:Sue the CEO by ghoul · 2016-12-02 10:37 · Score: 1
  
  So the people whose decisions can actually make or break a company are not and the folks who got the post because they are buddies with the board and couldnt screw up even if they tried get paid the big bucks. Ah Crony Capitalism. It smells like fresh fields in the morning - full of manure.
  
  --
  **Life is too short to be serious**
14. Re: Sue the CEO by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-02 10:56 · Score: 0
  
  "The CEO, Eric Migicovsky refused both offers."
  Reading fail.
Is the pebble vegan friendly? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 02:07 · Score: 0

I'm a vegan and want to know if these watches are free from animal cruelty. As a vegan this is very important to me. Vegans and vegetarians are about 8% of the population and their vegan ways must be accommodated.
Did I mention I'm vegan?
1. Re: Is the pebble vegan friendly? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 02:59 · Score: 0
  
  I'm sure the lives of many vegans were sacrificed to make Pebble watches. There are many vegans in silly-valley and many vegans contributed to their kickstarter campaigns.
  Also the poor chinese folks that made Pebble watches probably couldn't afford to eat meat.
  Does that help you?
2. Re:Is the pebble vegan friendly? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 03:09 · Score: 0
  
  They are anal friendly.
3. Re:Is the pebble vegan friendly? by LynnwoodRooster · 2016-12-01 05:00 · Score: 1
  
  They are 100% vegan compliant. Right down to the use of whale oil for lubrication of the buttons. Zero use of vegetable matter in the entire product!
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
4. Re:Is the pebble vegan friendly? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 05:18 · Score: 0
  
  Whatever you say, just don't post any poetry.
mixed emotions by epine · 2016-12-01 02:44 · Score: 3, Informative

I purchased two Pebble watches as part of the original Kickstarter. One failed within a year (we were too distracted at the time to pursue a warranty claim), the other one is still "ticking".
Custom programming my own non-24-hour sleep-wake calendar was a big step for me in finding a cure. It finally put my metabolic reality on equal footing with the world around me, so that I could properly track each on its own terms.
I will always remember my Pebble watch as a life-changing event.
That said, I had doubts about Eric Migicovsky as a venture capitalist right from the beginning. When the original watch was delayed (I've done electronics fabrication before, it's far from easy with so much at stake on a new product) Eric obviously got some advice to keep reality close to the vest, and thus his public comments fell far short of the mark, given the situation. It's actually a flaw in the Kickstarter program that your promised delivery date is locked in stone prior to discovering you've got a landslide on your hands. (How to manage around that, I've never quite figured out. Kickstarter mainly appeals to flighty dreamers—too much honesty could seriously damp the lemming effect.) For my money, Eric failed the test of knowing when and where to draw the line on taking good advice. Any damn fool can advise you to keep your PR powder dry. Actual VC talent is required to know when to blow these damn fools off and venture out into the dangerous territory of actual honesty, while your users still care.
As for the watch itself, I'm still actually using my Pebble watch, for a single reason. Cure now in hand, in bottle form, I continue to wear my watch because its vibrate alarm is harder for me to ignore or forget than any other watch/phone I've had before, so I really do take my sustained-release melatonin at exactly the right time of day, each and every day, without fail.
I turned off BT completely after Fitness App Runkeeper Secretly Tracks Users At All Times, Sends Data to Advertisers because at this level of vigilance investment, extra battery life on both sides was more important than e-mail notification (and I hate pulling out my phone just to check a quick message).
Sad.
1. Re:mixed emotions by painandgreed · 2016-12-01 12:50 · Score: 2
  
  It's actually a flaw in the Kickstarter program that your promised delivery date is locked in stone prior to discovering you've got a landslide on your hands. (How to manage around that, I've never quite figured out. Kickstarter mainly appeals to flighty dreamers—too much honesty could seriously damp the lemming effect.)
  In KSs that I have gone in on, it was done by having the rewards in "waves". Wave 1 is the basic reward shipping on Jan 1 with 1000 offered. Wave 2 is the basic reward shipping on Feb 1 with 1000 offered. Wave 3 ships on Mar 1, etc. They can always add more "waves" as more people sign up and they can always ship early if they can manage it. People that have backed can manage to change their pledge to an earlier wave if they keep and eye out for vacancies as people change pledges or drop out. Of course, you still have to have a good idea of how long it will take to scale production if you get really successful.
2. Re:mixed emotions by bongey · 2016-12-01 13:23 · Score: 1
  
  Pebble Time 2 is still available for pre-order https://www.pebble.com/new . Seems this might be FUD by fitbit or trying to lower the price of buying pebble out.
Sad, as a pebble owner by Coopjust · 2016-12-01 03:20 · Score: 2

Numerous articles are now reporting that the Pebble brand will be phased out. Given Fitbit's history of buyouts (e.g. their acquisition of Coin earlier this year was a technology buyout, and they left everyone who bought the Coin 2.0 payment hardware SOL) I believe that Fitbit is going to drop support/development of the Pebble hardware. And my Pebble Time 2 (bought earlier this year via Kickstarter) is late, and probably deprecated before I receive it.

My Pebble Time Steel - other than the giant bezel - is my ideal smartwatch. Great battery life, intuitive controls, looks nice, price was right, battery life means I don't have to charge it daily (sometimes as little as once a week, with a lot of notifications). I thought that Pebble Time 2 would solve my main gripe. But with the buyout, I'm probably going to cancel my order. Why buy into something that's going to be dead from a development perspective before I get it?
1. Re:Sad, as a pebble owner by kwalker · 2016-12-01 07:08 · Score: 1
  
  I'm upset by this news as well, but considering the other stories about the bottom falling out of the smart-watch market, I'm not surprised.
  I backed the Pebble Time KS and I've worn it daily since I got it. I even wear it at night after the release of Pebble Health for the sleep tracking. I love it. I love the screen (Even though it's only 64-colors, it can be read in bright sun and complete darkness with the backlight). I love that it's waterproof (I've had it in pools and the ocean). I love that with my normal level of usage (over a hundred alerts per day, sometimes several hundred) I still get 4 days of use between charges. I love the few apps that I have installed on it and use them all the time.
  I backed a PT2. I want the bigger screen, bigger battery, and the HRM. Its ship date has slipped, with no notice, and now the company is being bought by a company that likes to kill its purchases. I'm not happy, but I'm holding out hope that the PT2 will ship and the software will stabilize. If nothing else I'll keep using my existing watch apps, and hopefully the developer community won't dry up too quickly.
  
  --
  Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
2. Re:Sad, as a pebble owner by phorm · 2016-12-01 21:29 · Score: 1
  
  now the company is being bought by a company that likes to kill its purchases.
  I'm wondering what (if any) their obligations are towards existing backers of the PT2 if they're buying out Pebble...
3. Re:Sad, as a pebble owner by kwalker · 2016-12-02 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt the deal would close before the PT2 is supposed to ship (Last week), so I don't think they (Fitbit) have any obligation. However Pebble should still fulfill their KS backers' orders. But there's no guarantee with KS orders, so they may just refund orders. I'm hoping not though. I still want the watch.
  
  --
  Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
4. Re:Sad, as a pebble owner by phorm · 2016-12-05 00:17 · Score: 1
  
  There's no guarantee, indeed, but a company can still be in trouble if it's found they were deceptive or mis-used funds. In this case though they also promised refunds to anyone who asks before shipping, so I guess we'll see.
  There's a lot of hate on the Pebble KS right now, with people ranting about how they "ruined Xmas", which IMHO is pretty extreme and overall quite pathetic. I'd say even without the acquisition or other issues, expecting a KS to ship out fully by an exact date is pretty wishful thinking. It may be that they won't fulfil the Time2 at all, which would be a black eye for both Pebble/FitBit, but realistically it's pretty up-in-the-air right now. Certainly a few weeks or even a month delay aren't exactly unusual in the world of crowdfunding.
Says it all about Silicon Valley by SuperKendall · 2016-12-01 04:46 · Score: 1

This man appears to believe that businesses get money from VCs and pays money to employees+suppliers. Last I checked, businesses got money from customers.
In Silicon Valley, VC's are your customers. :-)

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Can you tell us what you did? by Okian+Warrior · 2016-12-01 06:21 · Score: 1

Can you give a brief description of what you did to solve your sleep-wake cycle?
I'm very interested in this sort of thing, as it borders on some of my areas of research.
1. Re:Can you tell us what you did? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 07:36 · Score: 0
  
  As someone who also suffers from N24, I too would value more info from the GP.
2. Re:Can you tell us what you did? by Hognoxious · 2016-12-01 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  By the power of arcane magic I can reveal that he used it to schedule his medication.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Is this a hoax? by orgelspieler · 2016-12-01 06:59 · Score: 1

I don't see an actual press release from either company. Is this just more fake news, like "renaming" Alpha Centauri?
Couldn't happen to a nicer company by Anonymous Coward · 2016-12-01 07:17 · Score: 0

As a Pebble owner, who's had their watch fail from a flaky update Pebble pushed, only to get zero response on the resulting support ticket before I shamed them publicly on social media (which seems to be the only way to ensure a response, and is used as the standard tactic by anyone that needs to communicate with them)....GOOD.
Maybe if they didn't treat their customers like shit, or if their more affordable model wasn't the ugliest watch since the Transformers watch in the 80s, they would've made enough money to stay in business. Their battery life, and app landscape were a recipe for a far more successful product, especially after they added heart rate sensors. Just goes to show your reputation really DOES precede you, and all publicity is NOT good publicity.
Palm apps eco-system by DrYak · 2016-12-01 08:36 · Score: 3, Informative

focused products that addressed a specific need.
They were *marketed* for specific needs...

They were not general purpose computers that smartphones are now.
They were the exact precursor of smartphones now :
they were general purpose computers, on which you could install tons of additional apps to extend functionality.
(with SDK and documentation provided by Palm).
After PSION with their EPOC OS (ancestror of Nokia's SymbianOS),
Palm's PalmOS was the next big eco-system that saw big development of 3rd party apps.
It is dwarfed by the current Android and iOS apps ecosystems, but back then it was quite an achievement.
You could find and install game, web browser, email client, GPS/Nav software, console emulators, some very domain-specific apps (Epocrate, a medical drug database started its life on PalmOS), etc.

--
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
A rumor at this point. by bongey · 2016-12-01 11:03 · Score: 1

No one has confirmed this, I wouldn't be surprised if it is FUD from Fitbit to hurt Pebble sales. There is no real reason for pebble to sell at this point in time.