481–490 of 538 posts
> Fitbits’ stock shot up almost 30 percent after the first rumors surfaced. In recent months, the company’s stock often traded below $3, down from close to $48 shortly after its IPO in 2015. Today, after the announcement, it went up to around $5.20. Good lord, must the acquisition offer feel like a relief? Surely, Fitbit wouldn't do a Groupon now. The article fails to mention Fossil, but Google recently did acquire t…
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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…
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What are you afraid of? I would be more worried about the data in your phone. There is more damage to be made with GPS location and all the other private data. I doubt that knowing what time you sleep, when you exercise, and your hearth rate can add a lot more risks. Maybe the hearth rate combined with what you are doing on your phone can be used to measure the effect of what you are reading or watching...
Well, this data would been incredibly valuable to insurance companies. If you could tie specific demographic information (which Google has mastered) to sleep and exercise routines, this could be used in a risk model. I'm fairly confident this will eventually happen, as I had a professor explain to me that he wears a fitness tracker in exchange for a premium reduction. I think the incentive of the insurance company is…
I refuse to give Google any money.
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.
Even if my watch is connected to my phone, if my phone isn't connected to the internet, I can't get the data off of it!
Still bitter that Fitbit bought Pebble and did apparently nothing worthwhile with the tech or the team they acquired. I loved my Pebble OG and kept searching for a nice secondhand Pebble Time Steel to upgrade to -- until the Fitbit acquisition where we learned the Pebble ecosystem was unfortunately doomed. I've since "upgraded" to an Apple Watch S4, but to be honest it's really just a "side-grade" as there are major…
The team that built Pebble built the FitbitOS ecosystem. They have done incredible work and did it even better the second time around.
Disclosure: I am a former Fitbit employee.
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Phones don't have GPS running most of the time, to conserve battery. GPS is turned on only while you use navigation apps or while tracking workouts. So even if Google tracks you all day, they mostly have coarse data. Fitbits main purpose is workout tracking, so they have a lot of precise GPS tracks. I suppose those have some value for Google.
Well, a Fitbit operates the same way your phone does. GPS not on all the time. The battery is much smaller than it is on your phone. However, Google doesn't need your precise location 24/7. Polling GPS once every 5-10 minutes is more than enough to advertise things in your area or know every place you go throughout your day.
A lot of people use Fitbits for workout tracking, so they must have a lot of GPS tracks that could be useful for mapping areas that are currently not so detailed on Google Maps (eg. many hiking trails are missing on Google Maps in my area)
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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.
There is some talk of the recently announced PineTime ( https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PineTime ) running RebbleOS. Should be cheaper than the Mi Bands with a more traditional watch form factor and decent battery life!
Very bad news for anyone who has a Fitbit device. Google tends to destroy any "smart" devices they acquire; first they tie it more closely to their ecosystem, too much for comfort, then they remove features, then they get bored and neglect it, then you have a brick.
Fitbit has done a pretty good job of that already. See the spO2 sensor on the Charge 3 that has been inaccessible since the device launched.
Very cheap device, I see many of them and the Mi Band 4 around here (and Apple watches). Seems to be a saturated market.