Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit • Hacker News Board

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#71

Post by trenning » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

braythwayt wrote: post #55

whydoyoucare wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the whole point, isn't it? And then sell it to healthcare providers, so you can receive timely advice! :-D

And let's be clear that by "healthcare providers," we mean insurance companies. And by "timely advice," we mean notifications that you need to shop for new insurance, because they've detected that you have become a riskier bet and are dropping your coverage.

And higher premiums because they can detect some anomaly in your heart rhythm. Oh sorry we can't insure you because Google sold us your fitbit info and you have a preexisting condition you aren't aware of.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#72

Post by pfranz » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #6

MaximumMadness wrote: post #3

Every person I've talked to over at Fitbit (pre-this news) has been down on the company. Sounds like they've had trouble effectively scaling software/new hardware to the level of success that the initial device had. While this could easily be another money sink for Google as they attempt to figure out some sort of Android wearable, it also has the potential to be an Instagram level-acquisition. Non-Apple wearables se…

Something definitely has been off at Fitbit - I had their first device and then after swearing off smartwatches got a new Fitbit for Christmas. 10 months later I'm on my 3rd watch from them - the first one stopped taking a charge after a few months, the second one the screen went out in a week or two. I'm hoping the third time is the charm

I've had the opposite experience. I've bought each gen of the FitBit. I never found the new version compelling enough to buy immediately (but that's generally how I feel about phones and computers, too). I think gen 1 had the strap break after a few years (it was annoyingly wasn't replaceable). Gen 2 did suddenly just die after a few years. In both cases the newer version had been out for awhile and competitors didn't look too compelling. Each upgrade was nice, too.

I did have a charging issue, but it was because I left the charger plugged in inside the bathroom. I guess the steam from showers corroded the charging posts causing them eventually to no longer make contact with the watch. I bought a few replacements from Amazon for <$20 total and started unplugging it when it wasn't charging and I haven't had the issue in years.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#73

Post by corporateslave5 » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

Location tracking for better ad targeting if anyone is curious why they want fitbit

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#74

Post by mrgreenfur » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #70

I don't really get what Fitbit offers to Google...seems like they could easily build from scratch what Fitbit currently offers. And the Fitbit brand doesn't seem particularly strong right now...

Google gets fitness data attached to your profile for incredible insight into ad targeting and profiling. Seems incredibly valuable to me. The actual products themselves are a bit ancillary for google their real value is realized behind the scenes.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#75

Post by cascom » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #69

Ah nooo please. Anyone but google. I love my Fitbit charge 3 and was thinking about replacing my Fitbit scale because my original model just died after 6 years. If google is going to buy Fitbit then I’m out.

100% so annoying - going to have to throw out my fitbit stuff if this goes through

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#76

Post by TimMurnaghan » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

Anybody know a good way to get your data out of fitbit? I've got a year's worth of decent data and it's obviously at risk if google shutter it. Also I don't want them to have it - so I guess I'm in the market for something independent.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#77

Post by akhilcacharya » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #27

automathematics wrote: post #13

My Fitbit Versa is my favorite smartwatch (and I have two Android Wear watches in a drawer that couldn't get one full WORK day of battery) I'd love to see the Pebble hardware running Android Wear (maybe fixed by Fitbit to last longer) with Pixel branding. I'm hopeful.

Pebble hardware could never run Android Wear. It has 256 kilobytes of RAM! Android Wear requires two thousand times more RAM than that. That's the really impressive achievement of Pebble. They built a smartwatch software platform that was orders of magnitude more efficient than Apple or Google, but still a joy to use. That efficiency gave them the flexibility to make hardware design choices (e.g. 7 day battery or 7.5…

The Pebble ran on a Cortex M3. These days the new Mi Bands offer somewhat equivalent specs for $40 with 15 day battery life on color displays with heart rate monitors.

I'd be really excited to see something similar in a more traditional watch form factor.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#78

Post by erinaceousjones » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

drcode wrote: post #15

I'd still love to hear a convincing argument from someone as to the benefits of counting steps and measuring heart rate with a wrist band- Are people feeling like they are more fit because they walked to lunch "the long way" so they can reach the 10000 step goal that Fred from accounting has set for them? Do they feel healthier because they were regularly watching their heart rate reading during their hour in the gym…

It's just... kind of neat.

My favourite things have been seeing on the daily heart rate graph the moment my favourite band at a festival came on, and the time I had a horrific nightmare.

I also noticed that excercises that I thought were pushing my heart rate to its peak ~180 (i.e. my upwards slog of a bike ride home, or going to the climbing gym) were actually moderately intensive, topping out at like ~130 (although, the absolute accuracy of the cheap HR sensors is questionable: but they're fairly good at detecting relative change). It encouraged me to do more cardio-intensive running mostly just to make the numbers go up.

Also the sleep tracking (again, might not be the most accurate) yields some interesting data. And being able to see the effects of consuming various substances on HR.....

Some of us just geek out over Quantified Self :-)

Also of note: I always felt that the Fitbits are too much of a "walled garden"; the devices' bluetooth communications are locked down and encrypted so only the official app can do anything useful with them. After I went through three broken/lost fitbits I switched to Xiaomi mi bands and the fact that they've had their communications protocol reverse engineered and a really powerful third-party phone app "Notify & Fitness" is great for me as I can play around with the (live!) data coming off the band, without the condition that it touches anyone elses' servers first.

I've also used the band to sync an LED pixel array tshirt I made to my heart rate

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#79

Post by AgloeDreams » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

aluminussoma wrote: post #38

I would think that Google's first choice was Garmin. In my personal opinion, they have better watch products. It was reported last month that Fitbit engaged Qatalyst for a sale. I wonder who leaked the news to Reuters, which did not mention a price: was it Qatalyst, hoping to start a bidding war?

Sales numbers talk, happy customers walk. Fitbit sells tons (likely 10x that of Garmin), while they are poorly rated. Garmin really doesn't as much even though their products are quite well liked.

Google wants the brand.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#80

Post by basch » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #27

automathematics wrote: post #13

My Fitbit Versa is my favorite smartwatch (and I have two Android Wear watches in a drawer that couldn't get one full WORK day of battery) I'd love to see the Pebble hardware running Android Wear (maybe fixed by Fitbit to last longer) with Pixel branding. I'm hopeful.

Pebble hardware could never run Android Wear. It has 256 kilobytes of RAM! Android Wear requires two thousand times more RAM than that. That's the really impressive achievement of Pebble. They built a smartwatch software platform that was orders of magnitude more efficient than Apple or Google, but still a joy to use. That efficiency gave them the flexibility to make hardware design choices (e.g. 7 day battery or 7.5…

Pixel, Pebble, Slate would be a good set of names if they resurrected the branding. Bring back Nexus too, the Pixel Nexus. Drop the name google/chrome entirely, name the hardware division Pixel. The Pixel Pebble as their smart watch offering. The Pixel Nest as their smarthome tech.

I actually think google would benefit from differentiating their consumer tech from their search/adwords products.