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Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

reuters.com

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Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#281

Post by CydeWeys »

jschwartzi wrote: post #135
CydeWeys wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Garmin fitness watch, and I mainly use it to tell the time, daily step count, and the distance/pace/heart rate/duration during runs and bike rides. I do sync the resultant recorded activities to Strava but frankly that's not very important to me. And this is enough to justify the device for me. It only cost $150 or so, lasts much longer than a year, and earns its keep in useful functionality.

Also the battery lasts for almost an entire week between charges, which is an awesome feature. My fiancee has to recharge her Samsung watch almost every day. This is one of those things where limiting the functionality of the device enhances the usability of it. I can easily do the 3 or 4 things I actually want a watch to do on my fitbit(stopwatch, heartrate, pedometer, see who's calling) and don't have to worry abou…

Yes, that too. It's a huge plus to me that the battery in this Garmin watch lasts for a week, even with light GPS usage. I wouldn't put up with a smart watch that required charging every night; it's too much extra hassle for little additional benefit.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#282

Post by bovermyer »

VectorLock wrote: post #241
bovermyer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Charge 3 has been really solid since I got it back in February. Other than having to restart it once or twice to fix the display not working, I haven't had any issues with it.

Hows that spO2 sensor working?

Just fine. I haven't noticed anything in my sleep data that could be construed as the sensor going haywire.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#283

Post by climb_stealth »

gniv wrote: post #142
climb_stealth wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really happy with the Fossil hybrid watch that I got for christmas two years ago. The bluetooth worked perfectly which I would never had expected. Whilst the Fossil app is great the actual bluetooth reliability has gone downhill with the latest updates and I'm wondering whether it is related to talent moving to Google.

I'm thinking of getting a hybrid too. If you were to buy today, would you still go for the Fossil?

I have a Fossil Q Hybrid. I would say buy it, but make sure you can return it after opening the box.

Their bluetooth stack seems rock solid. Especially coming from Garmin where intermittent issues were the norm for me.

I'm only interested in 4 things: counting steps, getting calendar notifications, getting call notifications and getting text notifications.

Steps counting and syncing works without issues, calendar events work without issues. Text and call notifications stopped working for me altogether.

Basically, it either works really well or not at all.

I'd be willing to invest time into this to get it to work, but their support is not much help. It doesn't go beyond checklist and "have you tried re-pairing and enabling all permissions".

It's a shame they sold to Google. They seem to have had some really good talent there and I fear it is going to be wasted at Google.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#284

Post by lelf »

dblock wrote: post #97

Fitbit is damaged goods. Just read https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/Would-you-buy-Fitbit-I... - I own one of these along with many unsatisfied customers. Google is buying technical debt.

> Google is buying technical debt.

They are buying (a lot of) data and a list of customers. They don’t care about the app code.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#285

Post by seltzered_ »

wlesieutre wrote: post #195
zeta0134 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not own a Fitbit, but on my older Pebble, the music integration feature allows me to play/pause the music, switch tracks (to skip that one song in the playlist I should really remember to remove), and adjust the volume. When I'm working out or doing yardwork, it's handy to have access to these things on my wristwatch rather than trying to fiddle with the phone in my pocket. It's sounds like the most minor conven…

I used to have a Pebble and being able to do music control with hardware buttons was great. I could push those buttons through my coat sleeve while wearing gloves.

I still use a pebble 2 se, and notably the pairing of music controls and shortcuts is amazing. Without having to look at the screen, sleeves still covering the device, you can:

- Hit the back button a couple times to make sure I'm back on the watchface/home screen

- Hold down a button to shortcut into an app (e.g. music controls, music boss)

- Play/pause, control volume, go forwards/backwards (or 30sec skip in some podcast apps).

Hoping I can continue to use the device. Have any competitors come close in matching pebble's button UX?

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#286

Post by fragmede »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #90
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Meanwhile try one, then try an older Apple watch, the Fitbit is straight up trash (with nicer battery life.) Fitbit UX is bad, and requires tons of interaction between the phone and watch and is remarkably hard to use, even switching watch faces requires digging multiple screens into the fitbit app and a 30+ second sync period, on the Apple watch this is known as 'swiping right' or at worst, holding down and tapping…

> with nicer battery life

Don't discount this feature on a fitness tracker. The most recent Apple Watches are better in this respect compared to the first one, but the battery life is still measured in hours, rather than days.

The UX for a Fitbit as a smartwatch is honestly horrible. The Pebble acquihire prioritized watch apps, in (what I see as) a belief that watch apps are necessary to compete with Apple. Resources would be far better spend improving the first-party UX and apps first, before opening up the ecosystem to outside developers. The iPhone dev kit trailed far behind the initial iPhone launch.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#287

Post by Wowfunhappy »

calypso wrote: post #273
dTal wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My EOL Pebble doesn't use any servers at all, with Gadgetbridge. Why should moving data from my watch to my phone, over bluetooth, require a server on the internet? Silliness.

An app store, watch face store, dictation, weather. those features are the reason it requires a server. That's what you give up by not using rebble or similar services.

Also, any third party apps that create timeline pins unfortunately need to go through a server.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#288

Post by datavirtue »

Another merger? Is this good for consumers? If Google had to license the tech or start a competitor from scratch it certainly would be good for consumers. Instead, now Fitbit customers are dealing with the thought have having Google hoover up that data too.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#289

Post by Alupis »

jschwartzi wrote: post #270
Alupis wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Fitbit still doesn't have support for chest-strap heart rate monitors! They said a long way back they were looking into releasing their own - fine. But still no chest-strap! Chest-strap is required for serious (and safe) training near your peak heart rate - and it's a ton more accurate for regular exercise too. All the other fitness watches support pretty much any chest-strap you can buy. They've standardized...…

Fitbit isn't really made for serious fitness enthusiasts. If you look at its feature set and design, it's trying to give the average person a way to get data about how fit they are in the range between not fit and average. The sleep tracking, water tracking, automatic workout tracking, and other simple features are more for the average person than for a marathon runner. So it doesn't surprise me that they don't suppo…

The problem is, you get a Fitbit as a casual person just getting into exercise - and before you know it, you've outgrown Fitbit!

That's not a great business model. They should have devices that either scale with you, or different models with feature-sets that target different ranges of users.

The people that are active and stick with fitness tracking are exactly the ones that are most likely to purchase new devices over time - either as replacements or upgrades. Instead, they switch to Garmin or some other more "serious" fitness tracker. That's a crying shame for Fitbit... the original fitness tracker.

Supporting chest-straps, or selling their own chest-strap, doesn't mean a casual users needs to buy one. But it does mean a growing serious fitness enthusiast can continue to use Fitbit, buying new devices over time.

From my experience, Fitbit still has the most polished App. It's a darn shame you can't get more out of Fitbit devices though.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#290

Post by xeromal »

hobo_mark wrote: post #58
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Meanwhile my Pebble2 still holds a charge for a week after years or careless daily use...

Your mileage may vary. My pebbles, the OG and the round, both had screen tearing issues.
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