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Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

reuters.com

421–430 of 538 posts

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#421
post #344

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…

What I've ended up doing is charging my fitbit for 15min every morning while I get dressed.

It's enough to go from ~60% to ~80% and fits in as a daily habit, so my watch is almost always between 65% and 80%, It can track my sleep (I exclusively use my watch for tracking sleep, tracking exercise, tracking heartrate and telling the time. I don't have notifications enabled)

Then perhaps the best feature of charging the watch in this way, is that if you forget to charge (or unexpectedly away from home), the watch will always last for 3 extra days.

And if you are going away on short weekend trips, you don't need to pack your charger, just make sure it's at 100% before you leave for a reliable 4 days of usage.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#422

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…

FWIW you can upgrade to the S5 to get an always-on display. I upgraded from S2 to S5 and I love it. Better late than never. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ah yeah I am aware of that -- though I understand the S5 also has quite a bit less battery life? Is that correct? I'm pretty happy with battery life on the S4!

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#423
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.

Google can use the data to help advertisers better target ads to you to trick you into buying stuff you otherwise wouldn't.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#424

Hmm, I don't suppose they will revive pebble. https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/22/14703108/fitbit-bought-pe...

The Fitbit versa is the spiritual successor to the pebble. I believe it is partially developed by the ex-pebble engineering team members.

Only thing it's really missing is the always-on display and native apps (they have javascript apps instead).

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#425
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.

Is there a personal data vulnerability/risk with Apple Watch? I don't know of any "tracking" or other shenanigans around the personal health data gathered from it.

There's the general risks that they have your data and in future can change what they do it. They can be bought out in future like fitbit, which is obviously laughable at the moment but it's not the first time we've seen apple sink. Plus there's the general bluetooth privacy issues, although I think apple has a decent track record of protecting against this.

I'd be interested to know what and how much it shares info too and if it's safe against things like wifi MitM attacks.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#426
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a marathoner and need to go on long training runs. My Garmin running Watch has music (Spotify) which I can play via Bluetooth. I don't want to carry around a phone during prolonged vigorous exercise. Spotify integration makes a lot of sense for fitness watches.

> I'm a marathoner Ok, but listening to music is cheating.

It isn't. And I only listen to music during training not races

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#427
post #217
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step counts as well as the fitbit. Heart rate is simple. How can it mess that up? Blood pressure is relative. You don't expect it to be accurate without a cuff. Same with O2. Those can show whether you're higher or lower "now" than you were an hour ago, a day ago, but they're not intended to be accurate on an absolute scale. Sleep seems to match up pretty well with snorelabs. Now that I think about it, I wonder how w…

>Heart rate is simple. How can it mess that up? You might be surprised: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/23/study-shows-fitbit-trackers-...

That story is about Fitbit, which I don't have.

I check my pulse against a stopwatch during the same minute that Chinese no-name is counting my pulse, and the result is the same.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#428

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.

yes - I sadly left my kickstarter edition on a beach, and tried replacing it with a steel and both watches I ended up buying had screen tearing issues. Tried all the tricks, but ended up going back to my old analog.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#429
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FWIW my Apple Watch S4 can go a whole weekend on a single charge. I don't use mine extensively, though I do use Apple Pay for every transaction that I can. You can def go 2-2.5 days on a single charge.

You obviously don't use it for tracking fitness then.

Re: Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit

#430
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Whoop]( https://www.whoop.com/ ) has a lot of buzz right now and offers some interesting looking sleep insight. I haven't used one myself yet so I can't speak from personal experience.

Sleep tracking at $30/month? Are you joking? I don't think anyone moving from a Fitbit is going to be willing for that kind of $$$ commitment to track sleep!

Not really my product to defend. It does more than sleep tracking for $30/mo, however.
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