Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
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Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
1–10 of 57 posts
Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
#2I have the slight impression that the fad is wearing out on fitness trackers
It most likely will be replaced by "in watch" features or just left in a drawer
Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
#3Given that their fitness trackers routinely stopped working after 3-6 months and had to be replaced by them at their own cost... not surprised.
It's a dying bit of kit, easily replaced by more capable smart watches, and while single-function tools can be great there isn't enough they can do to compete at a high level, they'd have to make them almost disposable in cost.
Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
#4I am a bit of a tech nerd and I like trying out different options. I had a fitbit for a year, and thought it was cool but pretty useless and unused after 2-3 weeks...
A few years later I decided to try another one, I tried the jawbone (this was 3 months ago). The experience was terrible. The app was really buggy, the connecting to my bluetooth never worked (arguably bluetooth the protocol's fault, but then again my fitbit circumvented that by having a dongle), and after only ONE week it stopped working entirely. This was the jawbone UP3.
I am not at all surprised that they are losing in this very competitive market. Fitbit is doing a great job, hiring great people from what I can tell, and Jawbone just cannot keep up.
Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
#5Url changed from http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/27/jawbone-up-fitness-tracke..., which points to this.
Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
#6Personal anecdote: I had three Jawbone fitness trackers that stopped working within months. Granted, two of them were replaced by Jawbone, but after a third I stopped bothering. The bracelet design was thin and elegant as opposed to the bulky Fitbits. Inside, jawbone bracelets had several very small PCBs arranged in a row, connected by wires, with a protection layer of epoxy glue or something. The whole construction was flexible but - I imagine - pretty prone to wear and tear. Whereas Fitbit went for hard casing design that was inserted into the rubber strap. To me it is a story of finding the right balance between aesthetics, reliability, and functionality
Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
#7I was astonished when I visited their site a few months ago and saw almost nothing but fitness trackers. The earphones that made them famous were almost completely unmentioned!
Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
#8Given that their fitness trackers routinely stopped working after 3-6 months and had to be replaced by them at their own cost... not surprised. It's a dying bit of kit, easily replaced by more capable smart watches, and while single-function tools can be great there isn't enough they can do to compete at a high level, they'd have to make them almost disposable in cost.
I loved my UP24. Then it died after six months. But then I loved my replacement UP24... until it died after a few months too.
The beauty of a single function device is that I didn't want a watch or an Uber app or whatever on my wrist. And better yet, without all those things the battery lasted two weeks at a time, and it was a nice unobtrusive non-statement on my wrist. I really didn't mind the price, if only they could've made the damn thing work for more than a few months...
Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
#9I had such a negative experience with their jambox, when I was shopping for fitness trackers I wrote them off immediately. Personal devices are a market where quality really matters, and people have long memories for a bad purchase.
Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
#10For Jawbone, Fitbit et al. the hardware has been commoditized, the software has limited utility and the whole 10,000 steps a day seems like a fad. It's incredibly hard to maintain users once the honeymoon period ends.
Personally, I'm long on UA, but I still have some lingering doubts about their acquisitions with ConnectedFitness and the their Healthbox or whatever.
I'm a pretty competitive triathlete and all of my gear is Garmin or some other niche specialty company. I love it and it works but the market space is limited to athletes like me.