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Fitbit will lay off 110 employees amid challenges in wearable market

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

#71

Post by vannevar »

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!

...less smart and more accurate

Yes---all of these failed and failing players keep trying to push some overly ambitious platform vision, and no one is focused on perfecting the health tracking app that is getting them in the door in the first place. And for god's sake, give us the option to keep our own data locally. I don't want the Cloud to know every time I go to the bathroom.

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

#72

Post by dmurray »

s_kilk wrote: post #52
CydeWeys wrote: post #28

I've said it before and I'll say it again: A big part of Fitbit's problem is the poor hardware quality of their products, especially considering the high price. A lot of people, me included, will never buy another Fitbit after having been burned. Their warranty only lasts one year, yet I've had to replace both Fitbit devices I've had twice within that one year. I'm now Fitbit-less because the latest, a Charge HR, fai…

I'm on my fifth fitbit in about 10 months. After a few weeks, like clockwork, the rubber housing will start to peal away from the display, eventually leading to the glue coming unstuck and the housing bubbling up. Needless to say, I'll not be bothering with fitbit again.

If it's needless to say, what changed for you since the 4th one broke?

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

#73

Post by johnward »

CydeWeys wrote: post #28

I've said it before and I'll say it again: A big part of Fitbit's problem is the poor hardware quality of their products, especially considering the high price. A lot of people, me included, will never buy another Fitbit after having been burned. Their warranty only lasts one year, yet I've had to replace both Fitbit devices I've had twice within that one year. I'm now Fitbit-less because the latest, a Charge HR, fai…

I've had quality issues but every time I was sent a replacement promptly. I get the devices via my employers wellness plan so I'm not sure if that is some trigger for their support team or not.

I'm a firm believer that the charge hr had a major software flaw that caused it's battery life to halve but Fitbit will never admit it. After a certain firmware version the battery life was terrible. The fitbit support forums show the same trend.

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

#74

Post by johnward »

thearn4 wrote: post #63
CydeWeys wrote: post #28

I've said it before and I'll say it again: A big part of Fitbit's problem is the poor hardware quality of their products, especially considering the high price. A lot of people, me included, will never buy another Fitbit after having been burned. Their warranty only lasts one year, yet I've had to replace both Fitbit devices I've had twice within that one year. I'm now Fitbit-less because the latest, a Charge HR, fai…

Yikes, I just picked up a FB Charge 2. I like it so far. Disappointing to hear that it may fail prematurely.

So far the Charge 2 is holding up well for me. I had problems with the Charge HR. Keeping my fingers crossed. Though I did manage to scratch the screen not a week after buying it. The only other issue is that I'm starting to realize that step tracking isn't really that valuable. At least I get some benefit from heart rate and sleep.

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

#75

Post by nradov »

CydeWeys wrote: post #28

I've said it before and I'll say it again: A big part of Fitbit's problem is the poor hardware quality of their products, especially considering the high price. A lot of people, me included, will never buy another Fitbit after having been burned. Their warranty only lasts one year, yet I've had to replace both Fitbit devices I've had twice within that one year. I'm now Fitbit-less because the latest, a Charge HR, fai…

Perhaps the reason people commenting here have had so many problems with Fitbit devices is that they actually use them. From what I've seen, Fitbit's target market is primarily overweight people who don't really exercise much and leave them on the shelf.

Garmin fitness trackers have much higher build quality and seem to have a fairly good reputation among athletes. But they cost several times more than a Fitbit.

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

#76

Post by nradov »

Analemma_ wrote: post #59
arafa wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Fitbit won the prize for being the only hardware/software to blue screen my Windows computer in at least a decade. It actually took me a few hours to figure out what was happening because I never suspected simply plugging in that device could do it. Sure enough, after 5 minutes or less it would hard crash my computer. I promptly gave it away and will never buy another one. I read some Amazon reviews where people t…

Isn't that more a Windows problem? An OS should never crash entirely because a device was plugged in. Fitbit probably should've caught that in testing though.

It also could be a defect in the host computer's USB controller. Sometimes those issues have to be fixed in firmware; the OS isn't necessarily to blame.

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

#77

Post by dagurp »

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.

The also bought Vector. It's no surprise that they would downsize

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

#78

Post by s_kilk »

dmurray wrote: post #72
s_kilk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on my fifth fitbit in about 10 months. After a few weeks, like clockwork, the rubber housing will start to peal away from the display, eventually leading to the glue coming unstuck and the housing bubbling up. Needless to say, I'll not be bothering with fitbit again.

If it's needless to say, what changed for you since the 4th one broke?

I should clarify, I'm on the fifth warranty replacement. I'll not be replacing it once the warranty runs out in march.

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

#79

Post by bostand »

arafa wrote: post #55
CydeWeys wrote: post #28

I've said it before and I'll say it again: A big part of Fitbit's problem is the poor hardware quality of their products, especially considering the high price. A lot of people, me included, will never buy another Fitbit after having been burned. Their warranty only lasts one year, yet I've had to replace both Fitbit devices I've had twice within that one year. I'm now Fitbit-less because the latest, a Charge HR, fai…

My Fitbit won the prize for being the only hardware/software to blue screen my Windows computer in at least a decade. It actually took me a few hours to figure out what was happening because I never suspected simply plugging in that device could do it. Sure enough, after 5 minutes or less it would hard crash my computer. I promptly gave it away and will never buy another one. I read some Amazon reviews where people t…

That's really odd, I haven't seen a blue screen for ages and even then it was a hardware problem (faulty RAM).

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

#80

Post by overgryphon »

Analemma_ wrote: post #59
arafa wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Fitbit won the prize for being the only hardware/software to blue screen my Windows computer in at least a decade. It actually took me a few hours to figure out what was happening because I never suspected simply plugging in that device could do it. Sure enough, after 5 minutes or less it would hard crash my computer. I promptly gave it away and will never buy another one. I read some Amazon reviews where people t…

Isn't that more a Windows problem? An OS should never crash entirely because a device was plugged in. Fitbit probably should've caught that in testing though.

Device drivers run in kernel mode and can bugcheck the machine. Microsoft can certainly provide tooling and help device driver writers write reliable drivers, but the device is still responsible for it's driver.
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