Right as I jumped on the bandwagon! Hurts.
Hopefully they have some influence over fitbit. I want to be able to make apps and install / test from my OpenBSD box!
Pebble's next step
191–200 of 457 posts
Re: Pebble's next step
#192Pebbler here. There is an old Italian anarchist poem[0] that sings: "date fiori ai ribelli caduti", "give flowers to the fallen rebels". Flowers for you, rebels. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X0Rsf_7f0U
So say we all.
Re: Pebble's next step
#193You 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…
>"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."
What is this based on? I'd be shocked if that worked. I think it'd be a sign of blood in the water, and signal the end (if vendors see this, they're going to want to be paid up front, employees are going to start looking for the exits).
> Had they shared a coupon with the community (i.e. email add campaign, or add on watch - "buy one, get one half off" for christmas they would have probably had a large bump in orders. Although I recognize this would be a mild annoyance, I can also guarantee they would have sold plenty of units.
Pure volume wasn't what sank the ship, I'm sure. It probably would have put them out of business faster.
> "This simply seems like poor management"
That's an easy thing to say, but it's probably more complex than that. They were in a tough spot, with competition from much, much deeper pockets.
Re: Pebble's next step
#194I guess their latest Pebble version didn't get the sales they expected. Definitely surprising that they weren't able to sell the company - they had the brand and a loyal customer base. As an owner of a Pebble Time, I was impressed by the integrations, simplicity of design, and battery life. I wonder went wrong - hopefully, there will be some type of post-mortem on these "various factors" over the next few weeks.
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Re: Pebble's next step
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Your next step: boycott Fitbit and make it known you are doing this because of the shutdown of pebble. EDIT: Also, this is my last post on YC. So Pebble's CEO is joining YC. And being critical of innovation killing deals by the boys on YC gets you down votes to negative territory.
OK over and out you guys, Done with your echo chamber. So long and thanks for all the fish.
Re: Pebble's next step
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a lawperson, but can companies really just terminate a warranty like that?
When being bought, one would think the new company would take over the responsibilities. But I also read that the employee-shares would be worthless, so it looks like FitBit bought Pebble in a weird sense.
There's probably some startupy term for this. If Fitbit and Pebble were both buildings next to each other, Fitbit just bought Pebble's to demolish it and build Fitbit Tower 2.
Re: Pebble's next step
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Was the last Kickstarter a gamble? _All_ Kickstarters are gambles. Their messaging[1] is pretty clear in the fact that you aren't buying a product, you're contributing money with the hope that the maker will deliver on their promises. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store
Right, but I meant a gamble on their side, not the buyers'. Like when MtGox lost their bitcoins and ran as a fractional reserve trying to cover what happened. Or an actual addicted gambler trying to cut their losses by playing more. I wonder when they learned they were going out of business, and if the last Kickstarter was just a Hail Mary...
A gamble by definition is always a two sided transaction.
Re: Pebble's next step
#198Somebody pointed this out to me the other day:
https://github.com/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge
I've not looked into it yet, but it is described as:
"A free and cloudless replacement for your gadget vendors' closed source Android applications. Pebble and Mi Band supported."
The feature list seems substantial. So hopefully we'll be able to continue to use our pebbles for some time.
Re: Pebble's next step
#199I'm curious why they didn't take the Citizen offer for $700+ million. And then that Intel offer, which is now a better deal than what Fitbit offered. There must be more to the story. I feel that the CEO bears the blame for letting this company down, could it be hubris? Can't wait to read more when this story comes out.
> I'm curious why they didn't take the Citizen offer for $700+ million.
Probably the usual story when things fall apart after looking so bright: hubris, greed, bad advice, due diligence that wasn't favorable, etc.
Let's see which new hardware companies spawn out of this debacle.
Re: Pebble's next step
#200As someone who quite likes their time steel and who was patiently waiting for their time 2 this is incredibly frustrating. No other watches do what I want so I guess my foray into smart watches is over. It's a shame too because I appreciate the convenience it offers but I probably won't miss it much after a couple of weeks
I agree with this being frustrating. I had to explain to so many people that even though my watch doesn't have a SIM card, integrated 4G, GPS or a memory card slot for music it is still exactly what I wanted. Pebble watches do what smart watches should do, without trying to be a tiny phone on your wrist. I guess I can only dream, but I hope they some day open up parts of it so that the phone app can continue working…
Wow this is so true with me, I just want a watch that is a small extension of my phone. Not a watch trying to be a phone. Now I got to figure out wtf to get next if anything. A watch I have to charge every night isn't going to happen.