91–100 of 108 posts
Having (very briefly) owned a fitbit flex (I think -- it's the one that got recalled for giving people a rash), does anyone know of a similar device with fairly high time resolution, that does NOT require an account, subscription, or connection to a website/service to work? Specifically, something you can pull the data directly off the device in some usable form? OS requirement for the device connection is irrelevant…
From all the academic research I have seen regarding nutrition and exercise getting a few thousand extra steps will have no meaningful affect on your weight and health.
Is the pedometer really just a psychological trick to get people thinking about their weight and health more often which leads to people actually eating less?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
FitBit has a brand. You can't build that in a weekend. In fact, you don't need to build one at all. AliBaba returns over 14k results for "fitness tracker", and I imagine many of them are exact FitBit clones. However, consumer product businesses are about way more than just the product itself. Marketing matters. Distribution matters. Apple bought Beats not because they couldn't create headphones, but because they want…
Honestly I thought Apple bought Beats because they wanted Dr. Dre for future marketing purposes. Is that not the case?
The manufacturing process. I don't know much about this, but apparently beats can produce colour and shine in plastic of a very high quality in high volume.
It's a team that have manage to not only build a valuable brand, but create a whole new, high-end market segment. That kind of skill is definitely something Apple wants.
They also have a music service and Apple wants in on streaming and their other streaming acquisitions weren't good enough (or they had launched using them)
I'm no expert, but these are the value propositions of Beats that I've gathered as a regular on HN.
Can someone explain the purpose of step counting? From all the academic research I have seen regarding nutrition and exercise getting a few thousand extra steps will have no meaningful affect on your weight and health. Is the pedometer really just a psychological trick to get people thinking about their weight and health more often which leads to people actually eating less?
Keep in mind that many people struggle to get even a few thousand steps. Beyond that, it's a great status symbol, or at least it was, until the Apple Watch came out :-)
Also, the data can be interesting, both for researchers, and for yourself--if you're the kind of person who wonders e.g. if getting a lot of steps late in the evening rather than in the morning affects your sleep...
Are they still here? My FitBit is almost useless for me. It rots in a drawer. When I bought it I had trouble using it with my Samsung S4 - unsupported phone because Bluetooth something yada yada. Maybe they evolved since. Their website was ugly and hard to use. Their apps too, and they banned specific phone models and countries from installing the app. Very vexing to be left out on purpose, after buying the damned th…
I think you might have misunderstood the sleep tracking feature. It also tracks when you're awake or restless while you're sleeping so you can understand if you slept well or not.
Last time I checked, my notepad and pen didn't do that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
FitBit has a brand. You can't build that in a weekend. In fact, you don't need to build one at all. AliBaba returns over 14k results for "fitness tracker", and I imagine many of them are exact FitBit clones. However, consumer product businesses are about way more than just the product itself. Marketing matters. Distribution matters. Apple bought Beats not because they couldn't create headphones, but because they want…
A separate fitness tracker is the PDA-and-flip-phone combo of 2015. Once there are popular and mainstream wearable computers, I have no need for a separate fitness tracker. And that will happen as surely as things will continue to get smaller.
fitbit's current product is v 0.5 of that future. all of their energy as a company can be put to improving health through their product line ..much different than the ingrained processes and motivations of cell phone makers.
edit : s/cellphone/wearable/ ..same comment applies.
Can someone else make a similar device? Yes. Is there any reason someone has to use FitBit? No. Can someone else operate more efficiently? Probably. Does another company out there in the same space have better customer loyalty than FitBit? For sure.
This all spells major trouble for FitBit. Apple could easily achieve a much better economy of scale than FitBit and in the long run win a war of attrition. Even if Apple doesn't succeed in this space, the fact that the barriers to entry are low suggests that FitBit will never be wildly profitable. Any competitive advantage it currently has will not last.
Devices in millions [2011,2014]: 0.2, 1.3, 4.5, 10.9 Revenue in millions [2011,2014[: 14.5, 76.4, 271.1, 745.4 Paid active users in millions [2011,2014]: NULL, 0.6, 2.6, 6.7 I realize they sell more than just pedometers, but their core product is a 3-axis accelerometer that calculates a dubious step count w/o really actionable insights. Imagine what this can be once there start to be useful applications/more of the d…
Believe me, I thought the FitBit was a stupid device when I heard about it, but then I got one for free from work. Having it on your wrist all day and tracking all your activity really did make a difference for me and for my friends that have it - to the point where I convinced friends to get the FitBit. The effectiveness of the FitBit, just by my anecdote, is that it tracks all your steps, even for little things suc…
Your use of the word "effectiveness" implies you desired a particular result having used your FitBit. So, what precisely is your desired result? That you do your extra walk?
I like the Fitbit hardware (I use a Surge and love running with it) and their software is decent, but their customer service is atrocious. I found a bug triggered by hitting the "Pause" button during a run. Effectively the device paused on the display, but the underlying data they use to build maps, calculate pace, etc keeps calculating. So if you run for 10 minutes, pause for 10 when you unexpectedly meet a friend,…
Can you get in touch with me personally? I'd like to escalate your case. At fitbit.com I'm blewis.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Believe me, I thought the FitBit was a stupid device when I heard about it, but then I got one for free from work. Having it on your wrist all day and tracking all your activity really did make a difference for me and for my friends that have it - to the point where I convinced friends to get the FitBit. The effectiveness of the FitBit, just by my anecdote, is that it tracks all your steps, even for little things suc…
> Second, is when at the end of the day your are close to your target, its easy to convince yourself to go for a little walk to reach the target. Having an external locus of control can make a huge difference for some people when it comes to exercising more or eating better. It helped for me. > ...but the device and app work great for what they do. That was NOT my experience with the app. I think it's pathetic they d…
Why? Considering their platform existed before HealthKit and the current limitations of Healthkit... it sounds like a smart move to me.