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Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

reuters.com

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Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#401

Post by abawany »

cdiddy2 wrote: post #134
toasterlovin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xiaomi, Huawei, and Huami have really taken the wearables market by storm You link to a press release. Are there actual sales numbers to back that claim up? Because all I see out in the real world are Apple watches and Fit Bits. > I hope the rumoured Pixel Wearable isn't comically expensive like its Phone counterparts. The Apple Watch Series 3 is available on apple.com for $199.

Garmin has surprisingly good offerings in the smartwatch space too

I love my Garmin. The always-on display, week long battery life, the vast variety of well-designed watch faces, and the movement prompts (with thresholds for when one has moved adequately) are really golden. My only criticism for it is the clunky charger.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#403

Post by thevagrant »

bransonf wrote: post #309
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?

I don't think Google has a shot at acquiring Garmin though. Garmin has no reason to sell. Garmin has their own growth. In fact, Garmin is the only wearable market that I've noticed growing in the last 3-4 years (Apple is gaining traction obviously, but the Apple Watch is only a small bit of their market). Fitbit is failing, they're in desperate need of an acquisition. If you own a Garmin watch (Forerunner line for ex…

I also got hooked on Garmin. The functionality on my 645m is good. The battery is great. The device is rugged enough. It has it's won GPS, I don't need a phone when I'm out running. The best part is it looks good enough to wear to work etc without shouting 'Apple watch or Fitbit'.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#404

Post by thevagrant »

harikb wrote: post #344
fragmede wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

A watch that needs to be charged once in a few days is actually worse than one that could use a charge every night. Charge at night is a habit that can easily be adjusted to our daily schedule. btw Apple watch does last a full day (I meant 16+ hrs) with decent use, unless you are playing music out of it all the time or obsessively checking time/calendar. Only advantage of fitbit is that some models are easier to wear…

My Garmin only needs to be charged about once a week. If I'm using it a lot for fitness then twice a week. Once I traveled and forgot the charger, I managed to eek nearly two weeks out of the thing. I find this much better than daily charging and have steered away from watches that need to be charged daily.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#405

Post by krick »

Ok, are there any wearables left that can be trusted with personal data? I want to use it to track my own activity/heartrate, not to be used and tracked by somebody else for their shady purposes.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#406

Post by amatecha »

xeromal wrote: post #290
hobo_mark wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, on the two Pebble OGs I owned, they had frequent display issues. However, it turned out it's because the display connector somehow starts wiggling loose or something.

You can actually fix the display-glitching yourself by adding a paper/cardboard shim. It actually works! There's an excellent post[0] that outlines the process. I had to redo mine because it wasn't quite thick enough, but after I did that mine was good to go for a long time. I think you might have to redo it when the shim gets worn down and doesn't put enough pressure on the display connector? Not sure...

[0] https://waynedgrant.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/pebble-watch-sc...

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#408

Post by underwater »

krick wrote: post #405

Ok, are there any wearables left that can be trusted with personal data? I want to use it to track my own activity/heartrate, not to be used and tracked by somebody else for their shady purposes.

Withings, Garmin, and Polar might be worth looking at; they're in the hardware business and not the data business.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#409

Post by flukus »

jetrink wrote: post #94
TimMurnaghan wrote: post #76

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.

Fitbit is pretty good about this. I've noticed that some derived values such as resting heart rate are not available for export, but the important stuff all seems to be there. https://www.fitbit.com/settings/data/export

And account deletion is somewhat hidden, it's under settings -> personal info -> delete account (at the bottom).

When logging in I noticed there's a consent form the I was auto redirected from. Presumably this is for EU customers only and fitbit don't want to give the rest of the world privacy options.

I do feel silly giving them this data in the first place though, it's not enough to trust a company, you have to trust who they will be sold too as well.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#410

Post by Retric »

mcv wrote: post #390
harikb wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A watch that needs to be charged once in a few days is actually worse than one that could use a charge every night. Charge at night is a habit that can easily be adjusted to our daily schedule. btw Apple watch does last a full day (I meant 16+ hrs) with decent use, unless you are playing music out of it all the time or obsessively checking time/calendar. Only advantage of fitbit is that some models are easier to wear…

No, charge every night would be way worse. My wife uses her Fitbit to track her sleep, and it does this very well (much better than her previous smartwatch). She also tracks how much she walks during the day. A smartwatch that has to be charged every day would be useless to her. I have no idea about the UI that some people complain about, but my wife seems to have managed to get access quite a bit of functionality in…

I recommend using a separate sleep tracker. I was using the Fitbit constantly and got some skin irritation when I forgot to swap wrists before bed. Though, I was using a narrow version which probably made things worse.
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