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Pebble's next step

blog.getpebble.com

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Re: Pebble's next step

#231

Post by mathrawka »

A month before they made this announcement, I ordered a Time Steel. I waited 3 weeks for shipping, and the tracking code they sent me remained in "Waiting for package from shipper" Then one day I got an email from their support saying the package was returned to sender.... sure, they just didn't send it. I requested the order to be cancelled, but was ignored until I said I want the refund or will do a chargeback.

I contacted my friend that worked there and he said he was not surprised, their support team was being disbanded and he and his team received an offer to work elsewhere.

Too bad, Pebble was my favorite smartwatch out there (original one is dead) and now I am stuck watchless because the only decent options are watches that are 1 or 2 years old.

Re: Pebble's next step

#232

Post by wvenable »

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…

According to one of the developers, they produced a very tiny number of Time 2's for testing. She has said those ones all worked perfectly but even she didn't even get one.

Re: Pebble's next step

#233

Post by arjie »

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 think Kickstarter isn't for you, man. You just have different expectations for the site than what you're going to get.

Re: Pebble's next step

#234

Post by codemac »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #202

I'm sad/angry/depressed as any Pebbler right now, so I won't repeat those comments. Instead, since this is HN after all, let me ask - what shall we do? In a year or two, when my current Pebble Time fails, I'd love an equivalent smartwatch to be available. Since the market doesn't seem to want it, how can we make it happen anyway? Features I'm looking for are, in order of priority: - always-on screen, preferably color…

How bad / hard is it to put our own software on a pebble? I think that would promote longevity more than looking for another "unicorn of Kickstarter"

Re: Pebble's next step

#235

Post by RobotCaleb »

slantyyz wrote: post #153
trapperkeeper79 wrote: post #141

The iFixit was very interesting. It has a freakin FPGA?? A comment said it was there to drive the e-ink display, while the MCU slept. Any confirmation on that? Also, what the heck was the smart strap supposed to be? This is sad because I was just about to get a Pebble (had tried beefier watches but felt battery life was too limited).

>> This is sad because I was just about to get a Pebble (had tried beefier watches but felt battery life was too limited). Yeah this is sad. I had a Pebble 2 on my short list as a fitness tracker but went with something else. I liked that their devices didn't try to be too much. They were good at a few things and had a battery life I could live with.

What did you go with? I have Pebble 2 HR on my Christmas list. I had taken it off when these rumors started, but I couldn't find anything I liked more. I'm interested in Google Fit integration as I'm using that to track my runs.

Re: Pebble's next step

#236

Post by lucodibidil »

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…

Their last Kickstarter doing also well, but wasn't enough to make them through the crisis.

Re: Pebble's next step

#237

Post by Fnoord »

hedora wrote: post #226

Tldr: FitBit acquires( ) bankrupt pebble, lays of 60% of staff, cancels all pebble product lines. FitBit also cancels the warranties on already sold pebbles. FitBit may also have stiffed some holders of $27m of pebble's debt. ( ) due to legal shenanigans we must not call this an acquisition or an acqui-hire. Also, FitBit didn't do those things, a shell company created by this deal did, which is totally different some…

> When things like this happen, I always hope that consumers that got screwed over by the deal (and people that hear about it) avoid the acquiring company after the fact. If they treat pebble customers like this, how will they treat their own customers later?

Well, the CEO of Pebble Technology, Corp is joining YC.

Also, the services aren't shutting down right away.

If everyone gets their money back, the major downside is the lack of warranty and the lack of fixes to the product. Especially any security & reliability fixes.

As a Pebble 2 owner who is happy with the product as-is I am not sure if I should be happy I did receive my Pebble 2.

Re: Pebble's next step

#238

Post by heisenbit »

headgasket wrote: post #218

I also blame Apple. When you are a 1T$ company, I think it's a social responsibility to not be ruthless in your pricing with small innovating competitors running on the midnight oil. It's a page out of MS playbook. I feel like a traitor for owning an apple watch. But at this rate, with their ipadification (dropped all ports off the mbp) and product lineup explosion, Apple is going where it was in the 90s anyway...

Pricing wise Pebble and iWatch were in a different league. The price of the Pebble was determined by Pebble judging the demand and their ability to manufacture and supply at a certain cost.

Almost all the profits in the cell phone, laptop and digital watch business flow to Apple. In no category they are playing in the lower priced band. It seems to me like manufacturing in the lower/medium price band is a commodity. Ability to generate sustainable profit - absent of strong branding - is limited.

Re: Pebble's next step

#239

Post by sumitgt »

JonFish85 wrote: post #193
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…

>"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 u…

I would gladly pay around $10 a year, maybe even $15. My Pebble has been worth it. However, I am now going to return it because if the next Android update breaks the app, it will become a paper weight.

Re: Pebble's next step

#240

Post by fit2rule »

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…

>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?

Actually, I think what happened is that Eric, the CEO, is now a multi-millionaire.

So, this is more of a success story than most of us might consider savory to think about.

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