Fitness Wearable Maker Fitbit To Cut Six-Percent of Its Staff Following a Disappointing Q4 (techcrunch.com)

As anticipated, wearable leader Fitbit kicked off the week by announcing a six-percent reduction in global work force, following disappointing fourth quarter financials. From a report: A preliminary statement issued this morning details the loss of 110 jobs, as part of a "reorganization of its business" designed to "creat[e] a more focused and efficient operating model." The news follows what has been a disappointing several months for the wearable space at large, impacting even Fitbit, the dominant player in the space. As rivals like Jawbone grapple with the future and the smartwatch space looks dismal, however, the Fitbit has been making acquisitions, including the once promising smartwatch pioneer Pebble, which met with its own struggles as the year drew to a close. The financials detail 6.5 million devices sold for the fourth quarter of last year, with quarterly revenue and annual revenue growth both falling below the company's guidance range.

Comments

How many employees

[Anonymous Coward]

6% = 110, how many employees do they need?

Re:How many employees

[Anonymous Coward]

1100100

Re:How many employees

[K. S. Kyosuke]

More than you ever historically needed to build a complete computer ecosystem from scratch, apparently.

Re:How many employees

[Luthair]

1833, shocking number really for what seems to be a bit player in a pretty minor product category.

Re:How many employees

[thinkwaitfast]

how many employees do they need?

Apparently not all of them

Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

FitBits are cheap, shoddy Chinese junk that falls apart after only a few months. Sounds like the market is finally realizing this.

Re:Good riddance.

[MightyMartian]

My experience with digital fitness devices is that they suck. I run the same route about three to four times a week, and usually in roughly the same amount of time (give or take a minute or two). I get bizarre differences in distance and pace that could only be accounted for by either the earth beneath my feet expanding or contracting, and possibly entering some sort of temporal distortion field.

Re:Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

I never even got as far as buying one? I took one look at them when the company I worked for started offering them as part of a get fit incentive program. The kicker for me was that the requirement that I had to grant them access to the data the thing collected. I immediately lost interest (yet another way for them to try and intrude on my personal life, beyond the "mandatory health screening" we have to go through each year, which I also find incredibly intrusive)? Bottom line, this thing struck me as another data collection device that I have no control over in terms of who gets to see the data.

Re:Good riddance.

[ripvlan]

But do you need the device? One needs to get on a treadmill, run around the block, ride a bike, attend aerobics, or whatever your favorite exercise is on a regular basis. Does a Fitbit help you with that?

Sure - for those motivated by the Gaming of Exercise (level up each day) it's a fabulous device. Serious runners want pacing help..okay (level beyond my ability). Those few who need/want/understand-why they want it must already have them. Saturated market.

The rest of the population though is asking "why do I need this?" -- you either work out or you don't and the "scale" gives you the only feedback you really need. You go for a run. Done. Fitbit tells you that you ran? I already know that. If I'm suffering from pantstootightist then I run more often and skip the pizza & beer. Fitbit isn't helping with how much goes In. It's a pretty bracelet that blinks the time.

I gave one to my wife recently and she has yet to take it out of the packing. But she still works out. I have an iWatch and love email/text integration and iPay. Oh - yeah it monitors my workouts. Sure it's fun to have this thing say "Good job - you worked out every day this week!!" Not that I get notification every week - the watch doesn't help me achieve the goal - rather notifies me when I do. But I see it as just an extravagant watch.

All told though - the notification that I've been sitting on my butt all day makes it worth it. Reminds me that there are more important things in the world and I should go home and play with the kids.

Re:Good riddance.

[known_coward_69]

i use strava on iphone and galaxy phones and it's usually OK but sometimes the distance changes by .1 of a mile depending how you make your turns

Re:Good riddance.

[known_coward_69]

it's for the data idiots who think they need months of data to analyze their workouts to get better. no, just push yourself

Re:Good riddance.

[TheRaven64]

But every hour I spend analysing my health data is an hour I can avoid exercising!

Re:Good riddance.

[MightyMartian]

Early on I felt like I needed some motivation. As it turns out it actually seemed to make exercise more of a chore, so I dispensed with it. If I really want to know things like pace and distance, I can sort that out without a device. As to things like heart rate, does that matter? It's the kind of thing that can turn exercise into a obsessive fixation, as opposed to what it should be, a way to get and stay fit.

Re:Good riddance.

[hey!]

These two facts are not inconsistent with each other:

(1) You have to measure something to take control of it.

(2) Measurement is a waste of time for most people.

What this means is most people fail at change, because they don't hold themselves accountable to themselves. But if you want to be the exception, you'd better find ways of taking control. Of course using this particular device isn't necessary; it's just a convenience. The problem is that inconvenience isn't really most peoples' problem. Wishful thinking is.

Re:Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know more than dozen people using it for more than a year and not a single person complains. In general, I noted that women use it more faithfully than men.

Re:Good riddance.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

and possibly entering some sort of temporal distortion field.

Make sure you aren't passing any runners with Apple Watches.

that could only be accounted for by either the earth beneath my feet expanding or contracting

Also, make sure you aren't accidentally running in J. P. Hogan's Entoverse.

Re:Good riddance.

[FFOMelchior]

I feel like many fad technologies, most of it's market isn't people buying them for themselves, but as gifts. With birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, Valentine's, Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc etc etc, it's a huge pain to get a gift that the average adult: doesn't already have, hasn't already received, and haven't bought for themselves by spending 5 seconds on Amazon. With fad technologies, at least there's less of a chance they already one. (Or even if they do, it's OK, because you're buying them the newest, shiniest one!!!)

Re:Good riddance.

[gosand]

I agree. I think that people want to get fit, and honestly that they wear one to show people that they are working out. I see people wearing them that either don't work out, or clearly aren't doing it right. They don't need a fitbit to give them that info. I work on the 6th floor. I see people with fitbits, and they take the elevator. I take the stairs every day.

When the fad started catching on, I looked into them out of curiosity. $100+ ballpark. Wow. It seems to be that with advances in technology, practicality has gone out the window. In the information age, people don't seem to know any more than they did 20 years ago. It's all just chasing fads. When I was recently at a family gathering I was questioned why I don't eat carbs. (I have been paleoish for 4 years now) I was asked "Do you eat eggs?" I answered it with a simple, "yes, I eat about a dozen a week". What I wanted to say was "Do you even know what a carb is?!" The person who asked me is a nurse.

It boggles my mind sometimes about how we are so directionally off course. Gadgets to help you refine your exercise plan? Sure, I suppose. Gadgets to pretend you have such a well established exercise plan that you need to make minor refinements to fine-tune your performance, so you can monitor your step count on the way to Taco Bell? I don't know where to start.

Re:Good riddance.

[MightyMartian]

For myself, I find basically just holding myself to a certain amount of time and distance per day. I can do that with a stop watch. Things like the calorie counting that most devices have are just voodoo fiction that I've found don't even match the very generalized calorie burning tables out there.

Re:Good riddance.

[hey!]

Consistency counts more than accuracy. For example, it's pretty clear that fitness band calorie estimates are inaccurate. What's more even if you measure and log everything you eat, chances are those numbers are off quite a bit too.

Now suppose the numbers tell you you should be losing weight, but in fact you're gaining weight. What should you do? Well eat less and exercise more. But how do you know you're actually doing this?

There's more than one way. You can take big, hard to misconstrue steps, like intermittent fasting, or massive increases in exercise. Or you can use numbers to tweak you calorie balance downward; it doesn't really matter if the balance measurement is accurate as long as the direction you move in is accurate.

I've done both ways, and they both work. In fact I'd say they both have their own distinct value. If you've never really been hungry, voluntarily fasting can train you realize that a little hunger pang, or even the mindless impulse to eat something, is not a life-threatening emergency. I know plenty of people who have what amount to a phobia about being hungry.

In the long run what you want to do is establish sustainable better habits. The measurement approach is useful, for example in recalibrating what you perceive as "a lot of food to eat".

Re:Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would almost argue that these fitness bands hurt the average lazy person. People can easily walk like 5 miles throughout the day without working out. When you see this from your band - along with the supposed calories you burned - these lazy idiots believe they "walked 5 miles today". Add on a real lazy workout of one or two miles and then they can go tell their friends they completed 7 miles.

As you said - you are either going to work out (and you know it) or you are not. The band "precisely" tracking what you did is nonsense. If you are an elite athlete these are not accurate enough to do much good and if you are a regular joe... you know what you did. Putting (additional) numbers to it is so silly.

I own an apple watch and while the fitness functions work perfectly, I don't see what people can really do with the data besides use it to pat them self's on the back (most likely unjustifiably). If the data were hyper-accurate I could see athletes using it to make training easier but the most accurate way would still be using a stop watch / chronograph to measure time between points.

I think the idea of tracking this shit goes all the way back to the same phenomenon as people sharing food pictures on facebook. People want to record and share their lives with "proof" of how awesome they are (without realizing how fucking average they really are). Most people have been to that "indie" bar/restaurant/band/place and everyone has been to the high end restaurant in town once and nearly everyone has tried to get fit for the beach with some nice results. Everyone is having these experiences but I guess now that we CAN document it - we MUST document it. Now that we can share it immediately we MUST share it immediately because what is life but an attempt to make everyone else feel jealous and inferior and now you have proof of how awesome (a moment of) your life is.

Re: Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

I use my Fitbit to get general ideas of calorie burn and as a reminder to log my calories each day. Could I use other tools for the same goal? Sure. Why, though? $70 that I spent and even got a free replacement when a manufacturing flaw showed up past warranty expiration. I lost 16 lbs this winter and 20 last winter. The worst way to look at it is I spent 70 dollars for a reminder I was fat on my wrist. It worked.

Re:Good riddance.

[thomn8r]

But do you need the device

No: https://www.theguardian.com/te...

Re:Good riddance.

[93 Escort Wagon]

Sure - for those motivated by the Gaming of Exercise (level up each day) it's a fabulous device.

Speaking from personal experience - this can work. But, after a month or so, you've successfully changed your habits... and at that point the device is superfluous.

I had a Garmin VivoSmart, and it did help get me walking. But I found that the "extra" features where what I really found useful - notifications, alarm clock on my wrist, stuff like that. Problem was, the Garmin (and the FitBits I've seen) don't do any of that particularly well... which is why I eventually bought an Apple Watch.

But, even though I really like the watch, it's still an experiment. If this thing ends up having a useful lifetime of 3-4 years, then I'll consider it a success and will buy another (or whatever like gadget is available at that point). But if the thing only lasts a year or two, that'll be it - it's too expensive for what it does.

 

Re:Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

it doesn't really matter if the balance measurement is accurate as long as the direction you move in is accurate.

These chintzy wearables are not accurate. That is their main problem.

I don't need any motivation to be sufficiently active. However, I could use the data in plenty of interesting (to me) ways if it were accurate.

Fitbit-class devices overstate their capabilities and deliver nothing more than a haze of data that is only worthwhile in the sense of "better something than nothing". Except they probably don't even meet that standard.

Re:Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, superfluous items are fertile soil for things you can use for "properly gifting someone", a middle-class sport that, beneath the surface, hasn't actually changed all that much for centuries.

Shiny junk is slightly more "thoughtful" than a gift card. Normally when you double the price tag on something, it loses appeal - but it means your $10-30 item is actually a slightly luxurious $80 show of your generosity. Slam dunk on that gift pick, friend. Suck it gift-carders, I prove I really care, buying you that Pitendo. I mean NES Classic.

Re:Good riddance.

[MightyMartian]

Short of wearing full diagnostic gear to test oxygenation levels, blood sugar levels and the like, no calorie counter is ever going to be accurate. As it stands, I consider the calorie counts in fitness devices and apps to basically be voodoo. They don't even really jive to the average calorie tables which are themselves simply averages based on certain kinds of activity and weight of the individual. Frankly, I think the whole thing really is just a load of horseshit. If a device with a GPS can't even get distance within a few hundred feet on identical runs, then so far as I'm concerned it's largely useless, save perhaps as a chronometer.

Re:Good riddance.

[rally2xs]

Yep, they suck. They are NOT waterproof as initially advertised, and go tits up when wearing in the wet. The bands suck because they fall off your arm randomly, and 2 of them I had simply stopped working after a few months. I finally got a Garmin Vivofit 3 and so far, so good. It is 6 months or so old, and has worked fine. Like the Fitbit software a bit better, but not enough to put up with having to keep buying new ones all the time.

Re:Good riddance.

[rally2xs]

It helps me get motivated when I get to the health club and make the final decision between "let's do it" and "too tired." Being 69 years old, "too tired" wins too often. But stringing consecutive days of blue-colored bars on the graph of my Vivofit 3 software, that signify my goal of 10,000 steps is motivation enough most of the time - I want to see 7 straight achievements of "goal" each week. If I get it, I might just lose an ounce or 2. Goal requires about 1200 calories on the elliptical, done in about an hour and 20 minutes. 9 hrs and 20 minutes of exercise a week makes my heart really strong, too, enough to survive dual pulmonary emboli a couple years ago that 3 medical people told me would have killed me except for my heart being as strong as it was. So far, my strategy of living forever thru exercise is working, and I've won round 1.

Now to get out of the car and go into Sport and Health and get on the elliptical...

Re:Good riddance.

[thesupraman]

This.

I have had two so far, the first made it 3 months before the strap delaminated, and the second lasted 6 months before
the surround at the back that goes over the button broke. The first one I had replaced under warrantee, the second I
didnt even bother. I have the replacement sitting on the shelf, I havnt even bothered opening it.
(I had bought two, one for myself, one for the other half..)

Overpriced, moderately useful, but hardly revolutionary. The price to lifetime is just a joke.

Re:Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the kind of thing that can turn exercise into a obsessive fixation, as opposed to what it should be, a way to get and stay fit.

I'd go further and say that fitness itself is too often an obsessive fixation, whereas it should be a naturally occurring side effect of a truly enjoyed life.

Re:Good riddance.

[unrtst]

As to things like heart rate, does that matter?

I'd argue that is one of the only valuable items it adds. Reach and stay in a target heartrate and you can be fairly confident you're having an effective workout. The rest is just bells and whistles.
In a similar way, the more important bike computer to have for training is the cadence (as opposed to speedometer). Just push as much as you can at a target cadence and adjust gears as needed to get up hills/etc and you'll keep improving.

The only problem with both of those techniques is that it's really boring to try to keep one number at the same value (heartrate or cadence), so we're back to all the fitness games.

Re:Good riddance.

[kencurry]

It's more like: people tend to do the same workout routine. Measurement once is kinda fun/interesting, but after that is pretty useless. So when your friends ask you about it you're all "meh"

Re:Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy knows what's up.

Re:Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cadence meters are expensive as hell compared to speedometers. I just memorize which speeds correspond to 90/105/120 rpm for every gear. (Not nearly as hard as you'd think.)

Re:Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

As to things like heart rate, does that matter?

I'd argue that is one of the only valuable items it adds. Reach and stay in a target heartrate and you can be fairly confident you're having an effective workout.

Agree. The HRM provides the only metrics that may be relevant to improving fitness.

Re:Good riddance.

[ripvlan]

Yes - that's the same way I feel about my iWatch. Too expensive for what I use it for - so it will last a long time, and if not I'll go back to my $30 Timex which is still ticking on the same battery in the drawer 8 years after I bought it. Geez - buying a $200 watch used to be an extravagant dress watch - a wedding or PhD graduation present. Bullet proof - dive features - diamond plating - solar charging - never needs a battery. Now $200 gives you a plastic wrist band and 11 hours of battery.

BUT - the first digital watch I saw had an LED screen which you pressed a button to see the time - because it used so much power the battery would be dead soon. A friend of my Dad had one and I remember him preventing us from pressing the button all the time - it was very cool to see this thing. And it was expensive and it was "first." You pay for "first"

Re:Good riddance.

[unrtst]

Cadence meters are expensive as hell compared to speedometers.

I guess that is a relative judgement, they seem reasonably priced to me. A couple examples:
* $40 Wahoo Cadence Sensor, which talks to your phone or other bike computers - https://www.amazon.com/Wahoo-C...
* $32 Cateye Strada speed + cadence, a traditional wired bike computer - https://www.amazon.com/CatEye-...

It's about the same price (or more) for similar quality items (ex. from same company even).
I'm pretty sure the cadence ones are more expensive only because they include both speed and cadence (there are very few dedicated cadence meters - in most cases, you either get speed, or speed+cadence). But it's not *that* much more expensive.

Fitness devices as useful as MSFT at NFL

[WillAffleckUW]

Nobody except n00bZ use either

Studies have even shown that devices like Fit bit discourage you from exercise, by setting limits on what you do.

Real exercise is a matter of just adding a little more each day, and realizing pain is there to tell you to cut back or stop.

Basic Income Now

[Anonymous Coward]

Just stop with the obvious bullshit companies to keep people occupied with busy work and pay a basic income because the economy doesn't have enough jobs that need to be done.

Re:Basic Income Now

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up and get busy building a wall!

Re:Basic Income Now

[Anonymous Coward]

yes sir please grab my pussy

Re:Basic Income Now

[ErichTheRed]

Actually I find myself agreeing with this, having been through two tech startup bubbles in my working life now. There's plenty of "real work" out there if we could just reallocate the resources that get flushed down the toilet in startup-land. One of the best things we could do is something similar to what the Chinese did around 2008 -- pump massive amounts of money into infrastructure. We'd be able to rebuild a lot of the stuff that's been slowly rotting away since our last golden age of the postwar era, and we'd have something to show for it rather than BS marketing-driven tech bubble companies.

At the same time, yes, give people who aren't doing anything useful money to stay out of the workforce. It's a lot cheaper than paying for the increased crime that comes with poverty that comes with unemployment. It's sad, but as even knowledge worker jobs get automated away, there will only be a subset of the population that is capable of doing the level of work that remains. Think about your average big company -- what percent of the staff could you get rid of today with minimal impact? That percent has been creeping up pretty high in recent years and it's only going to get worse. Does an IT services company need thousands of "account executives" whose sole job is to take customers to lunch and get them to buy more BS services contracts? How about all the people in marketing? Most could go with no impact. Once you do that, however, you have the problem of what to do with everyone. So, either we incentivize busy work in the private sector, create make-work jobs in the public sector, or just pay people to stay away. Anything else will lead to a complete breakdown in society; look what happened when unemployment got around 10% in 2008-2009 -- now triple or quadruple that.

Re:Basic Income Now

[Anonymous Coward]

I support the idea of an employer of last resort because I'm an impractical dreamer, I don't know or care what people want, and I'm not at all interested in selling anything to anyone ever. During the Great Depression of the 1930s the New Deal infrastructure projects "made the federal government by far the largest single employer in the nation" and I want to see that situation occur again.

Re:Basic Income Now

[Pinky's Brain]

The problem is that there are a metric shit ton of necessary shitty minimum wage jobs left, we ain't at the AI singularity just yet. How do you keep them filled if life long comfortable security can be had for no work at all?

Especially with immigration providing a sheer infinite pool of people who wouldn't mind to get basic income at western levels. The welfare state is utterly incompatible with mass immigration.

Re:Basic Income Now

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that there are a metric shit ton of necessary shitty minimum wage jobs left,

There are not. Self-checkout registers eliminated 75% of cashier jobs and "self-driving" stores already exist to eliminate the remaining 25% real soon. Think you can get a job just stocking stores? Robots can stock shelves easily, no one needs to do it by hand. Think you can get a job as a janitor instead? Mopping robots already exist, a self-driving mop is simpler than a self-driving car.

Re:Basic Income Now

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to see that situation occur again

The great depression?

Re:Basic Income Now

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the Great Recession which has been ongoing for a decade? Everywhere I go I see abandoned stores, some have been abandoned since 2012 when it became undeniably clear Obummer wasn't going to change. I know folks who have been unemployed since 2008, it's hard to find any job when there aren't any. Still waiting for Trump Trump Trump to MAGA, maybe by next month.

Re:Basic Income Now

[rally2xs]

No one's interested in your cat.

Re:Basic Income Now

[rally2xs]

The best thing we could do is to pass the Fair Tax, which completely abolishes ALL the income taxes. Income taxes are ALL, even in the tiniest amounts, harmful to prosperity. Income taxes are the 2nd worst mistake this country has ever made, 2nd only to slavery. Hopefully it won't take another war to get rid of them too. We could be the manufacturing center of the world under the Fair Tax.

Re:Basic Income Now

[epine]

Income taxes are ALL, even in the tiniest amounts, harmful to prosperity.

There's never been a useful idea in the history of the world couched in such language.

And pretty soon we'll have the black-box neural networks to prove it.

personal data snoopers

[Anonymous Coward]

They lost me when I realized that my fitness/activity data was going to their servers even to just display on my own phone.
NO , I just need my data to go from fitbit to my phone and no further. I own it , I control it.
There is plenty of room and enough mips to do everything right on my phone.

If I choose to share with friends, ok then goto the cloud or share p2p some selected data.

They are not the only vendor with this problem...

maybe they could have a new business model..all your data is yourz - really !

Re:personal data snoopers

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing with the iFit thing on my treadmill. It came with a year free of my data zooming up to the clouds just so I could view it on my computer. It was meh. I'm not as privacy-oriented as I should be, but the idea of needing to pay a subscription fee to get at my own data was irritating. The damned thing shows on the front display how far I've gone, how many vertical feet I've climbed, and how long it took me. That's good enough; the clouds weren't even a consideration when I picked out my treadmill, just a hey neat gee wiz thing. Sticking to it on a daily basis is the hard part for me, iGizmos or no, and the iGizmos don't make that part any easier. Just gotta do it because I want this damned beer belly gone.

That reminds me. The thing exports all kinds of stuff as a USB mass storage device. It transmits the data (and receives different exercise programs with cheesy recordings of various fitness instructors) wirelessly though. USB is only needed for configuring the access point credentials, but there's way more there than just that. I'm guessing the entire filesystem along with my exercise data must be sitting there. I need to remember to pull it out after I get done with my afternoon jog and see if I can throw something together in PERL or something to extract it.

Or hell, even if it doesn't cache my data on that filesystem, I doubt it's DRMed or anything. I could just intercept the traffic at my router and see if I can throw together a local "cloud."

A quick DuckDuck doesn't really yield anything promising, various forums and some VB6 freeware utility, bleh. What do the kids use these days, GitHub? Maybe I'll throw what I come up with over there.

Re:personal data snoopers

[Anonymous Coward]

yes great thought,

I would load up local cloud code to my bbone or rpi that has all the snoop traffic redirected to it from my outgoing firewall.
I would need to develop different code for various sorts of phone-home IOT stuff.... lighting control, security, thermostat/nest, pool control, sprinklers... the list goes on..
This "IOT cloud - all your data is ours" bubble might then deflate a bit..

I was tempted to return my fitbit since it was not clear how intrusive it was when I bought it..
Sales dude technical expert said the data was secure and stored on the phone.
ROFL he must have never read Slashdot !!!

Snoopy fitbit app sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Access to contact list? Fuck off, fitbit.

Re:Snoopy fitbit app sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

You use the contact list? Well la-de-da look a social butterfly. I don't have any contacts because I don't talk to people not even in real life.

Re:Snoopy fitbit app sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

It is how mobile OSes are. If a device wants contact access for any of its optional function, it should still request to OS and the OS will ask you. Prior to Android 6, it was not even possible to deny specific access and install the app. Android 6+ and all iOS currently supported allows you to install apps without granting access. There are many apps which do nothing (e.g. calculator) and still ask contact access. Fitbit allows you to challenge your friends (feature used by a large fraction of fitbit users) which uses your contact info.

Re:Snoopy fitbit app sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah fuck you buddy. When'd this become some trendy socialite hipster hangout. I don't even post comments to websites!

Bad strategy

[Archfeld]

It seems the business strategy of buying up and shutting down their competition while failing to produce a decent product themselves has not been successful.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

After buying out 2 other companies that weren't quite so shit now they have no money left. Lol. Shame about Vector and Pebble though.

Re: but but but.....

[frootcakeuk]

No pain go gain?

I wonder how many steps it takes

[JoeyRox]

To go from your cubicle at Fitbit to the front door security escorts you to.

Re:I wonder how many steps it takes

[Anonymous Coward]

Front door? You're dreaming. The garbage goes out the back door. Always.

Re:I wonder how many steps it takes

[Anonymous Coward]

YES!

New hall of fame inductee.

Re:I wonder how many steps it takes

[Notabadguy]

You sir, win the internet today.

Pebble killers

[Anonymous Coward]

you killed pebble, now you will burn

Building Crappy Devices...

[Anonymous Coward]

...leads to crappy results.

Build a watch like device intended for exercise that can't get wet? Who the fuck would do that?

It's just another bubble popping

[ErichTheRed]

The wearable device bubble is ending, mainly because manufacturers are finding that they're not Apple. Even Apple is having trouble convincing the true believers to buy their first Apple Watches, let alone upgrade them. Fitbit and friends probably saw the following:
- A lot of the purchases are gifts or corporate giveaways from a company's health insurance plan. They get used for a while, then thrown in a drawer.
- Even among the hardcore users, there's very little reason to upgrade unless new must-have features, so you're not going to get the once-every-18-months cash infusions that Apple had recently been getting for iPhones.
- It's expensive to build and maintain the apps that attach the devices to the users' phones, and the data can't really be monetized the same way Google search history can.

Microsoft even dumped the Microsoft Band, probably realizing very similar things Fitbit did. The question is, are they hoping for an acquisition from a watch maker or something, and just trying to hold out long enough to get the founders their exit money? Also, why so many employees to design a hardware specification once, then build a simple phone app? Did they just get pumped full of startup money and go on a hiring spree?

Wearables are neat - I have one of the Garmin ones and it works well. But I'm not buying a new one every year.

Re: It's just another bubble popping

[Anonymous Coward]

There wouldn't be bubbles if people didn't fall for Silicom Valley hype.

There are several overhyped companies that are going to end badly - two of them by Slashdots current God.

Re:It's just another bubble popping

[adosch]

Wearables are neat - I have one of the Garmin ones and it works well. But I'm not buying a new one every year.

You couldn't have said it better. I was an early Kickstarter adopter of the Pebble, bought a Pebble Steel a few years back and now look where I am? For a while, it got to be too many re-invention releases of watch types to do so many confounded things to compete in these little niche areas where some wearable companies didn't even start in OR belong, period. It was this ultimate 6-month production race to maybe this-or-that differently, or maybe do a calender-calorie-tracker angle or maybe a sms-notification-swimming combo. Case in point: It got annoying as hell with all the breeds and I sure as hell wasn't going to go get another one --- and I was on the cheaper end of wearables. I didn't even mention the world iWatch....

Re:It's just another bubble popping

[thegarbz]

The wearable device bubble is ending, mainly because manufacturers are finding that they're not Apple.

This has nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with target market / market saturation. Fitbit, Garmin, Tomtom, and a myriad of other companies are competing in this market each with more amazing products than the last ultimately targetting nothing more than a handful of elite fitness nuts or people who like the game of sport. The end result is that fitbit are EXACTLY like Apple. They've managed to get their device and devices like it into the hands of everyone who wants one and just like iPad sales are down 4 straight quarters there really isn't any battle for better features or products anymore. The devices suit their purpose and beyond replacing failing ones there's little more to sustain the bubble.

Re:It's just another bubble popping

[sdinfoserv]

I only disagree with you're classifying wearables as a "bubble". Google Glass was DOA. After the first round of Apple fanboys ditched the Iwatch, sales crashed. I don't believe it was ever popular enough in mainstream to classify as a bubble.

Re:It's just another bubble popping

[phantomfive]

A number of articles like this one in the last quarter, saying that activity trackers don't improve health, could also have had an impact.

Re:It's just another bubble popping

[thegarbz]

Well anyone who did think that it would is just stupid. Tracking something without making any change to your regime will surprise surprise not result in any change to your body.

These always seemed "gimmicky" to me?

[Mahldcat]

Two things, if you "need" such a device to get you motivated, then you are approaching the whole exercise thing incorrectly, and I would give it 2-3 weeks before said device starts gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. Secondly if you are serious about exercising, then why not keep a physical exercise journal? The gym that I belong to gives them out for free--or even easier, buy a spiral notebook for a couple of bucks?

Re:These always seemed "gimmicky" to me?

[adosch]

So totally true. If anything, companies like Fitbit tried to rally around lazy-ass people who needed a gadget and really poor apps to hold them accountable. Isn't that how gimmicky diets that pop up around the turn of every calendar new year work, as well? Sell you this unrealistic grand idea/plan when all you need is some humble pie, self worth, bit of dedication and don't cave on the day old donuts Carol from 'Accounting' brought in to share? Genetics aside, shit people, if staying in shape, having a six-pack, eating like a rabbit and looking like the gender of your type celebrity-of-the-day was so easy, we'd all be doing it already.

I'm glad I was in the camp of buying the time keeping and notification wearable as an attempt to re-wear a wrist watch in my life again instead of jerking that phone out of my pocket every 3 seconds...

Re:These always seemed "gimmicky" to me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a fitbit. I am not the exercise type. It does help motivate me to move more. I get in weekly challenges. The last thing i want to do is come in last place. There are some weeks i say who cares and end last. But some weeks I strive to be in the top 5 if not 1/2 place.

Re:These always seemed "gimmicky" to me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a Fitbit as a gift and I like it. It's usefulness isn't so much about monitoring my runs, but how active I am throughout the day. It turns out that a few differences in my routine can make differences that amount to several thousand calories a week, or more. That's useful info when you're trying to maintain a certain figure.

That said, I would only buy a Fitbit myself if it was dirt cheap. I enjoy it, but I recognize that it's not an essential product.

Women like Fitbit more than men

[Anonymous Coward]

Most ./ folks are men and they hate fitbit or any other wearable fitness trackers. But ladies love them. Almost all fitbit buyers are women. Few men that you see might be those whose SO insisted to them in getting one or gifted one.

Unlike phones, there is not a convincing upgrade value and hence people use these devices longer causing faster saturation and that is what is happening with fitbit. Note that it sold 6.5 million devices in Q4, which is higher than iphone was selling when it was 2 years old.

I found a great thing about these devices.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I used to use the freebie Google Fit. Then I bought this Fitbit. And I was struggling to meet my daily goal of 10K steps. Then about eight weeks in, I found that I had not turned off the Google Fit. It had been faithfully giving me some 7K or 8K steps every day, which I did not even know about! Man, what an epiphany!! I immediately bought a jawbone device and a misfit. Now I am getting about 8K steps from each and doing 32 K steps like gangbusters without breaking a sweat.

Oh, this was supposed to go on the *wrist*?

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder it felt so small, and kept telling me I was running at 500 miles an hour.

no clear future direction

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a big problem for Fitbit is that although they look like the leaders in the market other than Apple, they don' t have a clear plan for next quarter let alone next year or 5 years from now. They have aquired some other wearable companies and they merged their products with the existing fitbit line while introducting a few new models. Now, there are a crazy mismash of fitbit bands to choose from at all different price points. It's not clear which one is the new one or which one will be around in a year.

Apple sells one watch that comes in sizes. They don't have 6 different models of their health tracker hardware.

six-percent?

[Hognoxious]

That's-terrible. If-I was-one of-them I-might go-out and-drink ten-beers.

Smartwatches are winning

[trevc]

More people are realizing that a smartwatch is a better investment; it can do a lot more than just fitness tracking. Plus, the fitbit bands break so easily...

Re:Smartwatches are winning

[ruir]

And is way overpriced. 140 euros vs 10-20 for a MiBand, or 50 if you are being robbed blind by some Spanish scumbag.

Re: but but but.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Or as the Greeks used to say

Per aspera ad astra

TheWearableFailure

[sdinfoserv]

There is no wearable market - it's all hype. Just look at the landscape, Google Glass - dead. Iwatch sales crashed July '16. now the market leader FitBit fumbles. Battery life on wearables suck, you can't read them if you're over 40 (aka - people with money) , and really... what does it provide? You get show off how hip you are, but then the newness wears off and you realize so too does the usefulness. Does the trend line resemble "must have" 3D tvs?

"wearables" is all but dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

at least the single purpose bullshit like this.

come on. this was *the* market leader.. DURING the holiday season.. and they tanked hard and fast.

good riddance.

Watch first, smart second, fit third

[phorm]

Honestly, I like the idea of a heart-rate monitor, but when I'm looking for a wearable, the first thing I want is
a) A watch. I like the idea of a good looking watch (stainless steel etc etc), and something that I can just quickly glance at my wrist and check time, and it doesn't need to be charged every day. I had a Pebble - good battery life but a bit plasticy looking - and was *REALLY* looking forward to their Time 2.0 for this.

b) Second is of course smartwatch features. Stuff like getting messages, and at least some basic others like controlling music and denying calls, etc

c) Finally, a fitness tracker would be nice to have, with the basic functionality of a heart-rate monitor. Again the newer Pebble would have had this. Alas, 'twas not to be.

It really seems we're trying to tag smart functionality onto health devices, or watch functionality onto a smart device. It should be the other way around.

Re: but but but.....

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps they said that after being conquered by Rome, but likely not as usually local language was retained for the common folk. The folks in Rome might have said it though

fitbit? oh, hell no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a fat ass. I am offended that these "tools" share my personal information, and I am offended that I am considered a persona to judge when I am offended by hooligans like this.

Screw you. Let me be fat on my own time. I pay the price. I'll die before the rest of you thin fuckers that drink cancer-causing substances to stay thin. At least I admit it. Fuck you.