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Pebble's next step

blog.getpebble.com

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Re: Pebble's next step

#181

Post by TeMPOraL »

experimentsin wrote: post #158
TeMPOraL wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sound like typical post-acquihire PR bullshit. New 'exciting opportunities' and 'building the foundation for the next great wearable experience' does not in any way imply that any useful thing resembling a smartwatch will be created. It doesn't imply there will be a developer-friendly platform. Nor does this message actually make sense. "We want you—our fantastic developer community—to keep playing a crucial rol…

No argument over the phrasing. However, an evolution of the Fitbit Blaze device platform hooked up to something inspired by the CloudPebble online SDK doesn't seem implausible.

Given my experience with technology companies (especially startups) so far, I don't really expect that to happen. Though it would be very nice.

Re: Pebble's next step

#182

Post by linsomniac »

Love the Pebble, so sad to see it go. I had one of the originals, and now have a Time Steel I love. Feel a little bit like they shot themselves in the foot because I'd have been willing to pay $200 for the watch, but there were tons of refurb ones for under $100 available, so that's the one my Fiance got me. I tried one of the Android watches, but hated it. The Pebble was soooo much better.

Re: Pebble's next step

#183

Post by AtheistOfFail »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #140
lettergram wrote: post #109

You know, Pebble has garnered one of the best group of loyal customers I know of: well-off techies. Had they came to the community and said, "hey we are losing sales and we need everyone to pitch in $10 / year for software support (maybe a web interface for fitness or something) I guarantee a few hundred thousand people would have done it. Had they shared a coupon with the community (i.e. email add campaign, or add o…

This is exactly right. 100s of thousands of well off techies strap your product to our body and the best deal you could arrange is to put a bullet in the companies head? It seems very strange they are basically just shutting down. That has to be an ego driven decision on the FitBit side - they wanted to kill Pebble. Are they even going to use the brand name? The combination of: working production facility, users in t…

FitBit got the best deal, they get any salvageable tech/developer resources and put a bullet in a competitor's head.

Re: Pebble's next step

#184

Post by sreenadh »

Can one please explain in simple english what actually happened? I did read that fitbit was interested in buying pebble. I assumed it will be like apple buying beats, and pebble will continue as usual.

Is fitbit shutting down pebble as pebble is a superior product over the crappy fitbits?

The core strength of Pebble was its simple OS and energy efficient device. I hope they opensource the OS.

Re: Pebble's next step

#185

Post by TeMPOraL »

theatrus2 wrote: post #175
captainmuon wrote: post #64

I'm quite angry. This sucks so bad. I "ordered" a Time 2 via Kickstarter. I'm glad they are refunding me, but that makes me think... WTF, did they not produce any Time 2's? Or are they all going to the landfill? How long have they been knowing that they are going to be insolvent? This doesn't happen overnight! Was the last Kickstarter a gamble? Why does everybody have to aim for total market dominance to be successfu…

> I'm glad they are refunding me, but that makes me think... WTF, did they not produce any Time 2's? Or are they all going to the landfill? The probably made some, but it takes money to turn any component inventory they may have into shippable products. They probably burned all of the money on mechanical tooling and part procurement already, and maybe hit a major issue in doing so (critical component is suddenly a ve…

> and maybe hit a major issue in doing so (critical component is suddenly a very different price, etc)

There were some stories circulating that their provider of screens for Time 2 is in financial troubles, so presumably may have not been able to fulfill the order.

Re: Pebble's next step

#186

Post by fudgy73 »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #86
fudgy73 wrote: post #77

I don't usually get upset about this stuff, business is business, but with my outstanding time 2 and core orders, I am definitely feeling bamboozled. I always thought of pebbles fighting fitbits, the watch for 'us' vs the trackers for everyone. The open platform vs the locked in, the device that got just what you wanted done vs the not-really-a-watch. It seemed like with pebble health and their relationship with Stan…

I'm not a lawperson, but can companies really just terminate a warranty like that?

I don't know. I'd probably read some terms of service doc somewhere to understand better, but I guess I don't care enough to do so.

Re: Pebble's next step

#187

Post by stingrae »

dijit wrote: post #3

I'd like to know how this happened really. Pebbles were pretty decent and their successful campaigns definitely contributed to the rise of smart watches. But after having two hugely successful crowdfunding campaigns, how did they fail?

When such a large percentage of your sales as a company come from kickstarter, where you seemingly have to give a heavy discount to the real price. My guess is that it becomes hard to succeed in retail/other channels at a real price with margin that could sustain a company.

Re: Pebble's next step

#188

Post by CodexArcanum »

I've been generally dissatisfied with the smart watch options in general, even more so than cell phones and the Sophie's choices for cell phones is pretty bad!

What factors prevent open source hardware from being viable? Like if the basic parts of the pebble (e-paper screens, small efficient processors, flat batteries, etc) were open hardware so that any number of manufacturers could just churn out the parts; and if there was a FOSS option for an OS to run that hardware; what prevents a vibrant community from forming around those options? We could have artisans putting together various nice watch options, and lots of little apps to run on them. Why don't we have that?

Re: Pebble's next step

#189

Post by [deleted] »

captainmuon wrote: post #64

I'm quite angry. This sucks so bad. I "ordered" a Time 2 via Kickstarter. I'm glad they are refunding me, but that makes me think... WTF, did they not produce any Time 2's? Or are they all going to the landfill? How long have they been knowing that they are going to be insolvent? This doesn't happen overnight! Was the last Kickstarter a gamble? Why does everybody have to aim for total market dominance to be successfu…

[deleted]

Re: Pebble's next step

#190

Post by headgasket »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #140
lettergram wrote: post #109

You know, Pebble has garnered one of the best group of loyal customers I know of: well-off techies. Had they came to the community and said, "hey we are losing sales and we need everyone to pitch in $10 / year for software support (maybe a web interface for fitness or something) I guarantee a few hundred thousand people would have done it. Had they shared a coupon with the community (i.e. email add campaign, or add o…

This is exactly right. 100s of thousands of well off techies strap your product to our body and the best deal you could arrange is to put a bullet in the companies head? It seems very strange they are basically just shutting down. That has to be an ego driven decision on the FitBit side - they wanted to kill Pebble. Are they even going to use the brand name? The combination of: working production facility, users in t…

Yeah seen that pattern before with the treo and handspring. That gang (palm clueless mgmt) even killed BeOS with the same stone.
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