Fitbit's New Smartwatch Has Been Plagued By Production Mishaps (yahoo.com)

JP Mangalindan, reporting for Yahoo Finance: Fitbit's first "proper" smartwatch and first-ever pair of bluetooth headphones are due out this fall after a series of production mishaps delayed the project, Yahoo Finance has learned. The fitness tracker company's smartwatch project has been a troubled one. Production problems have forced Fitbit to push an original spring launch to this fall, according to two sources familiar with the matter. "In one of the more final prototypes, the GPS wasn't working because the antennae wasn't in the right place," one of those sources told Yahoo Finance. "They had to go back to the drawing board to redesign the product so the GPS got a strong signal." Fitbit's design team also ran into problems making its smartwatch fully waterproof, even though that's a key design element for the Apple Watch Series 2. Indeed, it's still unclear as of the publication of this article whether the device will launch with the waterproof feature.

Comments

There are people still working at "Yahoo Finance"?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Yahoo Finance has learned

I didn't know that was still a thing.

Junk

[Anonymous Coward]

Fitbit can't design reliable hardware for toffee. Got burnt, never going there again.

Pebble

[Anonymous Coward]

They bought Pebble, so what's the problem producing a working smartwatch ?

Re:Pebble

[ElectraFlarefire]

They managed to take a smart watch that would last 10 days.. And dragged it down to four..
Then wreck it! Oh yes... I'm keeping my Pebble Classic... It'll be more useful as just a watch even when all the smart stuff stops working than this thing.

Re: Pebble

[Anonymous Coward]

I upgraded to a Time, but I still relate. This kind of story was my initial fear when Fitbit bought Pebble.

Re:Pebble

[SmilingBoy]

No, they did not buy Pebble. They bought certain assets of Pebble. Pebble itself was closed. At the moment Fitbit still seems to be running some of Pebble's servers out of goodwill but that's about it.

Re:Pebble

[Anonymous Coward]

Pebble managed to release 6+ different Smartwatches (EG original, Steel, Time, Time Round, Time Steel, 2) - all waterproof. No GPS - but then phone the it spends most of it's time paired with has one... AND Fitbit also bought Vector Watch.

Here's an idea. Release the Pebble Time 2, branded as FItbit Smartwatch-HR. Sorted.

Even better, sell a "non-HR" edition without the PPG heart rate monitor for those of us that'd just like a new Pebble.

Sounds like they need an ergonomics initiative.

[Anonymous Coward]

When other projects run into design problems like this, they usually have what's called an "ergonomics initiative". For example, the Rust programming language project has started an ergonomics initiative recently. In the case of Rust, their goal is "to improve productivity and bring down the learning curve by streamlining features and glossing over irrelevant details." Maybe Fitbit needs to do something similar when it comes to their devices.

I had one

[religionofpeas]

I had a fitbit for a few months, but the heart rate monitor was bad (too high, too low, or not displaying at all), and the band started to come loose from the actual watch part. Total piece of crap.

Re:I had one

[110010001000]

Go to the emergency room immediately.

Re:I had one

[Anonymous Coward]

We got a fitbit but the app wants access to contacts, location, etc., etc. Dick move, fitbit. Needless to say, it sits in a drawer and we will never get another.

Re:I had one

[cheesybagel]

No shit. Same thing happened to me. I returned it and got my money back.

Re:I had one

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an issue with Android 5 and earlier. Nothing to do with Fitbit. In Android 5 and earlier if an app needed contacts for those who wanted to invite other people, then everyone needed to give permission, even those who didn't want to invite others. You can't even install Pandora radio app without giving permission to it to make outgoing calls. Apple iOS never had this issue. Google solved this issue in Android 6. So if you have already upgraded to Android 6, it shouldn't be a problem. I solved the problem by upgrading to iPhone (Android 6 was not released at that time).

Re:I had one

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been well-documented that PPG heart monitors in any manufacturer's devices essentially didn't work. That's been corrected over the past year or so via improved software to compensate for motion.

What I'd like to know is where the claim of a spring launch comes from. I don't think FitBit set that expectation. I'm not sure it even existed.

Re:There are people still working at "Yahoo Financ

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but their grammar skills aren't what they used to be...

FitBit is lousy

[Anonymous Coward]

Their app is riddled with bugs and their forums have a plethora of disappointed owners. So I'm not surprised by this news.

FitBit? What? They're still in business? How?

[DiSKiLLeR]

FitBit? What? They're still in business? How?

Every thing they release has been utter crap. Charge, Charge HR, and Surge all that the pealing rubber band issue, and no matter how many times they replace your tracker it happens again anyway.

FitBit is garbage.

Re:FitBit? What? They're still in business? How?

[bluefoxlucid]

Recently, they tore down the sleep application for anyone who doesn't have a new Charge 2 or Blaze. With one of only three types of new trackers, you get Sleep Stages; with everything else, they've removed interactive graphs, sleep latency, sleep efficiency, total time in bed, and so forth. You also can't switch to the Sensitive tracker after a bad night, which is more-accurate for detecting wake events (meaning you want it Sensitive if you wake up a lot so it doesn't detect wake as sleep, and Normal if you sleep well so it doesn't detect sleep as wake). They put back a few statistics after everyone got pissed.

They've been hostile to users about this change, albeit with a velvet tongue. Lots of lip service, blaming the user, and telling the user the features that vanished are either things they said they wanted to go away or things they don't need. Anyone who points out support is unhelpful is removed for being "inflammatory"--this frequently includes people who point out that support seems to have no idea what's happening, and misses people who claim Fitbit just hires retards and high-school drop-outs for support; Fitbit is basically removing any posts criticizing their staff, and plenty of posts criticizing their business, although with the massive flood it's been arbitrary due to the PR nightmare that is just deleting every dissenting voice. They're at least not complete morons.

Should have just sold Pebble Time 2 instead.

[bongey]

Fitbit screwed up royally by buying out Pebble and shutting down the entire about to launch Pebble Time 2, which mind you looks better than that monstrosity.

Bring back the pebble

[DuroSoft]

It's their gulity conscience over buying up and killing the Pebble. Serves them right.

how does it differ from original fitbit?

[kiviQr]

Does this mean that new Fitbit last even less than original one or they finally realized that they have issue with quality? I had 3 different Fitbits none of them lasted more than 9 months.

Same as gopro

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez this is the same tragedy as go pro's drone.