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Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

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Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#31

Post by _ouxp »

jrockway wrote: post #29

Sort of off-topic, but what fitness gadgets do you all like? I used a FitBit One for many years until I washed it recently and it died. Honestly, I never really looked at the data unless I expected it to be anomalous, even though I religiously carried it with me at all times. I bike 8-10 hours a week, so a few steps aren't really making a health difference for me. The big thing that annoyed me about FitBit is that Ap…

It's probably not for you, given the speedmaster & the biking, but I like my Withings Activite. Looks like a normal analog watch with a activity level dial, and integrates with Apple Health via Withings' app, which is nicely designed. Regular watch battery.

Edit: I would also be interested if anyone knows of an automatic (mechanical) watch with a pedometer complication. Seems like it wouldn't be too far off from the power-reserve dials that some fancy automatics have.

Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#32

Post by Animats »

mynegation wrote: post #6

Personal anecdote: I had three Jawbone fitness trackers that stopped working within months. Granted, two of them were replaced by Jawbone, but after a third I stopped bothering. The bracelet design was thin and elegant as opposed to the bulky Fitbits. Inside, jawbone bracelets had several very small PCBs arranged in a row, connected by wires, with a protection layer of epoxy glue or something. The whole construction…

If it's breaking just because it was flexed or got wet, they're doing something wrong. Flexible printed circuits [1] have been around for decades. The problem may be that they had to use commodity surface mount ICs, instead of getting ones with bigger pads that could take more stress.

[1] http://www.flexiblecircuit.com/product-category/flex-printed...

Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#33

Post by JCole »

jrockway wrote: post #29

Sort of off-topic, but what fitness gadgets do you all like? I used a FitBit One for many years until I washed it recently and it died. Honestly, I never really looked at the data unless I expected it to be anomalous, even though I religiously carried it with me at all times. I bike 8-10 hours a week, so a few steps aren't really making a health difference for me. The big thing that annoyed me about FitBit is that Ap…

Have you tried SleepCycle? Marketed as an alarm-clock but it has some relatively useful sleep analysis dashboards.

Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#34

Post by childifchaos »

mynegation wrote: post #6

Personal anecdote: I had three Jawbone fitness trackers that stopped working within months. Granted, two of them were replaced by Jawbone, but after a third I stopped bothering. The bracelet design was thin and elegant as opposed to the bulky Fitbits. Inside, jawbone bracelets had several very small PCBs arranged in a row, connected by wires, with a protection layer of epoxy glue or something. The whole construction…

Yep had two and both broke within two months! Moved to a Fitbit which I lost as the clasp isn't very secure. Then gave up on fitness trackers!

Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#35

Post by _JamesA_ »

jrockway wrote: post #29

Sort of off-topic, but what fitness gadgets do you all like? I used a FitBit One for many years until I washed it recently and it died. Honestly, I never really looked at the data unless I expected it to be anomalous, even though I religiously carried it with me at all times. I bike 8-10 hours a week, so a few steps aren't really making a health difference for me. The big thing that annoyed me about FitBit is that Ap…

The most frustrating part is the isolation of the different fitness social networks. I have family and friends using Runkeeper, Strava, etc whereas I have to use Garmin Connect with my Garmin device(s).

I have found Tapiriik[1] to be invaluable in keeping these different apps/fitness networks synchronized.

[1]: https://tapiriik.com/

Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#36

Post by zxcvvcxz »

Commodity fitness trackers are a terrible business to be in, I almost fell for the hype a few years ago. As a user I never saw it, couldn't even get myself to use them consistently and I really liked the idea. And I even heard an investor say (regarding FitBit), "After 3 months they [the customers] just stop wearing it."

If you're not top 2 or 3 you're probably toast.

> Jawbone raised a new $165 million round of funding in January. The company's CEO Hosain Rahman told Tech Insider a few months ago that the company plans to use that money to develop clinical-grade fitness trackers.

If the financing is going to help them lead to a major pivot, that's great. I don't know what "clinical-grade fitness trackers", but if they want to redirect their resources and expertise towards a market where they can charge more for hardware, that'd be a smart move.

Maybe they can contribute to elder care somehow. Fall detection has been done, but how well? I always thought physiotherapy could be a decent use case. After a shoulder injury I remember being able to move my arm 10 degrees above parallel, then 15 degrees the next day, etc etc. Could have probably helped my therapist optimize treatments and physio routine while communicating this data over the internet. Maybe "e-physiotherapists" could be a thing.

Anyways I hope the company finds a better product/market fit, and survives long enough to do so.

Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#37

Post by jrockway »

_JamesA_ wrote: post #35
jrockway wrote: post #29

Sort of off-topic, but what fitness gadgets do you all like? I used a FitBit One for many years until I washed it recently and it died. Honestly, I never really looked at the data unless I expected it to be anomalous, even though I religiously carried it with me at all times. I bike 8-10 hours a week, so a few steps aren't really making a health difference for me. The big thing that annoyed me about FitBit is that Ap…

The most frustrating part is the isolation of the different fitness social networks. I have family and friends using Runkeeper, Strava, etc whereas I have to use Garmin Connect with my Garmin device(s). I have found Tapiriik[1] to be invaluable in keeping these different apps/fitness networks synchronized. [1]: https://tapiriik.com/

Garmin Connect can auto-upload to Strava and TrainingPeaks (which are what I use). I have an Edge 1000 and my ride is on all three sites before I even make it up the stairs to my apartment.

But yeah, the isolation is annoying. I don't really mind for cycling, Strava is the social network everyone uses, and the analysis tools are pretty good. (I like TrainingPeaks because you can download a ZIP file with every ride ever for further analyses you may come up with in the future.)

Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#38

Post by jrockway »

JCole wrote: post #33
jrockway wrote: post #29

Sort of off-topic, but what fitness gadgets do you all like? I used a FitBit One for many years until I washed it recently and it died. Honestly, I never really looked at the data unless I expected it to be anomalous, even though I religiously carried it with me at all times. I bike 8-10 hours a week, so a few steps aren't really making a health difference for me. The big thing that annoyed me about FitBit is that Ap…

Have you tried SleepCycle? Marketed as an alarm-clock but it has some relatively useful sleep analysis dashboards.

Haven't tried it. I only sleep with my phone in the bedroom when I'm oncall, otherwise, whatever the phone wants out of me can wait until I wake up.

If it works based on sound, that won't work either, because I sleep with air cleaners running on high in the room (and earplugs).

Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#39

Post by morsch »

I wonder if the hardware all stops working if they go belly-up. That would be pretty hilarious. It sure seemed like -- ca. 2 years ago -- my Up band/their Up app didn't do a whole lot without their server; I couldn't even set the alarm that one time I really needed it, because there was no cell reception in that particular alpine hut.

Also, if they're selling of business units, I wonder if they're considering selling off the user data along with it, and what the next "owner" of my data intends to do with it.

Re: Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

#40

Post by brianwawok »

imaffett wrote: post #15
Wonnk13 wrote: post #10

For Jawbone, Fitbit et al. the hardware has been commoditized, the software has limited utility and the whole 10,000 steps a day seems like a fad. It's incredibly hard to maintain users once the honeymoon period ends. Personally, I'm long on UA, but I still have some lingering doubts about their acquisitions with ConnectedFitness and the their Healthbox or whatever. I'm a pretty competitive triathlete and all of my g…

lol... every triathlete is "pretty competitive" ;). My wife and I switch to running and are using garmin vivoactives. The battery life is amazing and works great swimming (no gps) My non-active friends mostly ditch their fitbit style devices after a few months. Its either an apple watch, microsoft band (not joking) or some type of running/multisport watch.

For a triathlete I am loving my Garmin 735. It's fitness tracker plus run bike swim tracker with wrist heart rate.
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