Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market • Hacker News Board

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#11

Post by rubidium » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:07 PM UTC

r0muald wrote: post #5

So buying Pebble was nothing but their previous try at surviving in a challenging wearable market? It's really difficult to wrap my head around these two recent moves in a way that makes sense.

They bought the Pebble assets for Fitbit and the entire wearable industry is in a similar position to Pandora and Twitter. There's a massive need to re-adjust expectations.

You can build a very successful music streaming business, social communication company, and wearable manufacturing company... if you gauge the size of your market correctly. Guess wrong and Expenses > Revenues = panic (unless you've got Uber's pocketbook).

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#12

Post by Johan-bjareholt » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:07 PM UTC

sremani wrote: post #6

I have bought my share of fitbit, Band etc. The only way to make wearables tolerable is making them less smart and more accurate. Accurately measure my heart rate and stop bugging me about a stupid text!

Totally agree.

The only wearable I have is a Xiaomi Band 2, and the only reason I use it is for its 18 day battery, detects when I go to sleep so I don't have to toggle it every night, that it vibrates when I get a call so I can have my phone on silent and has a clock. I rarely check how many steps I take even though that's what is supposed to be it's primary functionality.

I use that wearable to make my life easier, not to interrupt me every time I get a notification, and I certainly don't want to charge it every few days.

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#13

Post by IanCal » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:08 PM UTC

clavalle wrote: post #3

What is the most programmable wearable? I'd love to have access to my watches display, sensor, and communications features.

Well, the future state will be a bit more unknown but pebbles are very easy to program and add do, and can be had pretty cheaply.

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#14

Post by trendia » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:08 PM UTC

sremani wrote: post #6

I have bought my share of fitbit, Band etc. The only way to make wearables tolerable is making them less smart and more accurate. Accurately measure my heart rate and stop bugging me about a stupid text!

The new Charge costs more than the old one and doesn't have a GPS. Now I have to run with my phone on me to get accurate location data.

They're regressing.

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#15

Post by diego_moita » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:11 PM UTC

clavalle wrote: post #3

What is the most programmable wearable? I'd love to have access to my watches display, sensor, and communications features.

Android Wear is very open, it is very much the same api as normal Android. The main limitations are on the UI and a few specific issues like bluetooth advertising. Tbh, even Pebble didn't allow you so much access as Android Wear (e.g.: Pebble's bluetooth api was very limited).

Samsung's Tizen and Garmin's ANT seem quite open too, but I just studied the documentation, didn't actually wrote code for them.

Xiaomi's Mi band, FitBit and Apple Watch are very restricted.

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#16

Post by samblr » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

To me it looks like only big Internet companies or companies in CE space can pull of in this space. Because both have an unbelievable advantage in terms of ecosystem. If outsider fails to integrate into this existing space - there is likelihood of they not making into longer runs.

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#17

Post by dec0dedab0de » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

dkonofalski wrote: post #8

So long, farewell! Don't let the door hit you on the butt. Fitbit totally killed itself for me when it decided to launch its own ecosystem without integrating itself into HealthKit and Google Fit. I understand that they thought they were creating an ecosystem for their users but by choosing to ignore the platforms that the major OS manufacturers had created, they essentially locked everyone out of integration with no…

I have an aria and it syncs with my fitness pal just fine.

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#18

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

dkonofalski wrote: post #8

So long, farewell! Don't let the door hit you on the butt. Fitbit totally killed itself for me when it decided to launch its own ecosystem without integrating itself into HealthKit and Google Fit. I understand that they thought they were creating an ecosystem for their users but by choosing to ignore the platforms that the major OS manufacturers had created, they essentially locked everyone out of integration with no…

> Fitbit totally killed itself for me when it decided to launch its own ecosystem without integrating itself into HealthKit and Google Fit.

They launched their own ecosystem before both HealthKit and Google Fit existed; there was nothing for them to integrate with.

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#19

Post by akshayB » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

Even if you are a premium fitbit user and use their customer API you don't have access to some data point for heart rate, cardio time-frames and performance stats. They not only need to catch-up but also provide people their own health data forget HealthKit and Google Fit integration that is like step 2.

Re: Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

#20

Post by patmcguire » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

r0muald wrote: post #5

So buying Pebble was nothing but their previous try at surviving in a challenging wearable market? It's really difficult to wrap my head around these two recent moves in a way that makes sense.

I've been acquired into a company that dumped 90% of employees six weeks later. (Acqui-fired) Either the group buying and the group firing didn't talk, or they just changed their minds right after. Kind of a bummer, our company made money and was just deleted as it got sucked into their black hole of failure. Spent a lot of time trying to reconcile the two events, sometimes there just is no larger plan to figure out

There's also the matter of how the acquisition was paid for: if you're a company at risk of going under, offering stock compensation is very, very cheap for you.