Sad to see. I can't speak on their wearables, but I've owned a Jawbone Big Jambox for four years and continue to use it to this day. It may not be the best compared to other bluetooth speakers, but it's a great product nonetheless.
Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
51–60 of 200 posts
Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's so easy for Shenzhen to just copy them though. There's nothing defensible about hardware.
Note that if Shenzen companies started publishing proposals on Kickstarter, they could make a success: Compared to SV products which get delivered in a year or two, they could churn prototypes in a few weeks, build confidence with investors and repeat. I hear people screaming "but they're not reliable/trustworthy!", but you can build trustworthiness by delivering bigger and bigger products, and, actually, Kickstarter…
They already do, see uArm. At one point they were listed as a US company, but they seem to have updated their page. I have nothing bad to say about the experience - my robot arm arrived on time, it pretty much works, some niggles with the software but they seem to be fixing it.
No problems with Shenzhen companies running Kickstarters, after all they can probably have much better relationships with the factories than Westerners are likely to.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ufactory/uarm-put-a-min...
Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The days of consumer hardware company's access to startup capital is over. So I haven't worked at a hardware start-up but it seemed pretty difficult even before these companies to raise funding versus a pure software play. I'm not necessarily convinced this makes it easier or harder. Is there a specific reason you think it will be harder now? Also, for what it's worth, Fitbit and GoPro are still going. I'm convince…
In 2014, there was piles of "success stories" for VCs to look at and the market was hot. Most of those successes have turned into down rounds or complete shutdowns in the last year.
It seems like the problem is whoever pointed them as successful... successful ideas, maybe, but not companies.
Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the magic in the iphone and ipod come primarily from software (and for the ipod, the music licensing relationships that apple alone had in the beginning.) Android hardware can be pretty good; the app ecosystem, the ecosystem in general, the clear love that Apple has for the iphone, and the control that is (generally) used in user-beneficial ways all make the iphone superior to android.
in the case of the iPod I'm not sure that was true. remember, these were the days of everyone having a bunch of mp3s on their hard drive. The actual iPod software was extremely rudimentary, and basically barely integrated with iTunes. this was still in the days of windows, keep in mind, and before apple actually launched iTunes for windows. and still, it was immediately a dominant player and not one company was able…
Rhe iPod had demand.
Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
#55The problem with fitness trackers and smartwatches is that each and every brand keeps adding unnecessary features to the stack. They won't listen to users and keep building devices that have no market. Most of those companies created a product that was good and needed a good amount of work to make it better. But it seems that developers and management felt that simple = bad, and worked their asses off to add useless…
The pricing of $49 is the kicker. No one can make the device you're describing for that. Garmin devices (like the Forerunner 935) tick off your feature requirements but are relatively expensive.
I'd be willing to bet that I could.
Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
#56Sorry to come off as a fanboy, but I blew through hundreds of dollars on multiple generations of Jawbone bluetooth headsets that never worked well enough. By contrast, my AirPods work incredibly well.
Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
#57Sorry to come off as a fanboy, but I blew through hundreds of dollars on multiple generations of Jawbone bluetooth headsets that never worked well enough. By contrast, my AirPods work incredibly well.
My Jambox is a frequent pain in my butt, and I only ever use it with one device.
Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's so easy for Shenzhen to just copy them though. There's nothing defensible about hardware.
honest question: why then did no one copy the iPod, and no one has copied the iPhone with any success? as soon as the iPod came out way back in the day, the criticism was that it would soon be copied. No one ever did, and I worked in the music business at the time and was familiar with everything on the market. nothing ever came close, apple made a ton of money. it's a common thing to say that it's not defensible/can…
I'm under the impression Google/Android had pretty good success in copying the iPhone.
Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
#59Sorry to come off as a fanboy, but I blew through hundreds of dollars on multiple generations of Jawbone bluetooth headsets that never worked well enough. By contrast, my AirPods work incredibly well.
To be honest, bluetooth was not that reliable until recently. With the new 4.x versions of Bluetooth, things are a lot more stable with audio devices. So I wouldn't blame Jawbone alone.
Re: Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup
#60[deleted]