I liked Pebble as a company because they knew how to make just the right engineering compromises to make their product work. The smartwatch everyone wants has a battery that lasts for weeks, a high contrast always-on color screen visible in daylight and total darkness, no bezel, and a round case only a few mm thick. That perfect watch is impossible to build, but Pebble found compromises that worked. They chose different compromises than those of Apple and Google, and IMHO better ones. The Pebble Time Round is a tiny little triumph of smart engineering compared with any other product on the market, including the Apple Watch.
In particular it's incredible what the Pebble firmware team was able to accomplish. They built a bespoke OS that's extremely reliable (certainly more reliable than Android Wear), with an app SDK and store, plus a well thought out user interface with a striking visual design and even fun little animated flourishes, despite running in a fraction of the power budget of Apple or Android smartwatches. How many companies could have done that? Fitbit is getting a bargain, if that team is still intact.
I think Pebble benefitted a ton from being the first company in the space. There were definitely a ton of hiccups with the original Pebble watch. There was barely a store and when the store did come into being it was buggy as hell. The hardware design decisions have always been pretty great though. Even today, I'd probably take the original Pebble over an Apple watch or anything from Android wear for practicality.
Do not compare to the Apple watch; have you looked at Garmin's Fenix 3? It has an always-on screen, a compass that works EVERYWHERE including indoors, on airplanes, in underground car parks, etc., a super-accurate GPS, and all the other functions you would need. Its battery lasts over a week when not using GPS, or 24hrs with GPS.
It doesn't need a phone to operate, it's very sturdy and what's more, it's round (square watches are ugly, how do makers of other "smart" watches not see that???)
It's a bit thick but not too heavy. I've had it for a year and couldn't live without it.
Unless they've recently made changes, their OS firmware is actually built on top of FreeRTOS, with a bunch of backported features and memory optimizations for the lower-end and first-generation devices.
I think the most impressive engineering feat is what they're able to accomplish in their software, given their hardware limitations.
> In particular it's incredible what the Pebble firmware team was able to accomplish. They built a bespoke OS that's extremely reliable
That doesn't match my experience at all. A few months ago I was completely ready to jump on the smartwatch bandwagon so got a pebble. First of all, and somewhat unrelated, but the watch band itched and was uncomfortable and seemed to be low quality. More importantly, the Pebble randomly disconnected from my Android phone multiple times a day causing notifications not to show up. The watch would also crash occasionally, resetting to its homescreen and forgetting what I was doing.
I don't know why anyone cares about week long battery life. It would give me literally no advantage. I take my watch off when I go to sleep, so I simply put the charger on the table near my bed, and that's where I put it. It's no more effort to charge it than to not charge it.
I can understand 2 days since you might stay at your girlfriend's house or something, but mine already can do 2 days anyway.
I'll be very sad, if not surprised, to see Pebble go. I backed the V1 Pebble on Kickstarter but gave up wearing it after a few months as it looked, well, not good[1]. Against my better judgement I threw caution to the wind and bought a Pebble Time Round[2] a while ago. It's fantastic. I get compliments on it before people even realise it's a smartwatch, and it does all I really need from one (notifications plus a little step tracking stuff).
Apple and Android watches have never appealed to me, but they have an obvious market advantage, so I suppose this was inevitable. But boy does it make me sad. The only upside is that I'm not really anticipating any new features on my Round and am content just as it is - it should continue to work as-is for a while yet.
I still have the first gen Pebble Steel and I really like it. The display gets a little funky sometimes, but it's held up.
The problem with their model is they kept pushing newer watches. I'm fine with my black and white Pebble. It does everything I want. I mean the new ones look nice. I'd get one if I didn't have one already. I still like the design of the original Steel over most of the newer watches as well.
I hope it lasts several more years. They made a great product, and I'm glad they didn't depend on planned obsolescence like the cellphone manufactures that have left us in this Android mess. I wish that model wasn't required for growth.
They should had found some other means to support the company while keeping the wearables as just one of a larger line of products or services. Even something totally unrelated like professional grade home routers or garden watering systems or some other IoT crap.
For sure. I love my Time Round. It's almost exactly what I've been looking for in a smartwatch since day 1: round, light, reasonably long battery, supports rich notifications and is cross-platform. Nothing else on the market comes close to it. The Apple Watch is amazing but only works on iOS and the data it stores isn't easily exportable to other services. Android watches are still too beta for me and their round offerings are way too bulky. Both have pretty bad battery life; I was lucky to get a day out of either and have, more often than not, had them die on me mid-day.
I hope Fitbit releases something like this with their newly-acquired IP. I'm not counting on it, however.
Have to agree. I'm wearing a Pebble Time Steele and a lot of people like it but don't notice it to be a smartwatch at first sight (depending on the watch face of course).
However, it did not receive good reviews. I guess in part because it is widely accepted that smartwatches do not last more than a day or two and are not well readable outside. Customers and reviewers are blinded by super-high-resolution displays - although you won't watch YouTube on your wrist.
Pebble is functional, the world wants bling-bling.
We were 5 colleagues that bought 5 watches from their first Kickstarter for the V1 Pebble.
Unlike you, I liked mine, but I didn't use it as a smart watch, but more as an alarm (it vibrates!), and it was a nice gimmick that you could flick your wrist to turn the backlight on.
I stopped used mine because the screen started tearing up like this: http://i.imgur.com/NsZKXDn.jpg and when I contacted their support, they couldn't do a thing about it.
My dad actually managed to get a hold of a V1 Pebble, and he is still using it every day.
As a Pebble and Citizen owner, disappointed this one didn't go through. There may have been more friction, but I think Citizen does a pretty great job of "making the right compromises" on their non-smart watches.
Having just recently bought Pebble 2 SE I have some things to say about the product. Unlike a smartphone Pebble has a benefit of staying always with you, thus it is better than a smartphone for things like habit tracking, habit reversal therapy, time tracking. It reduces friction from having to reach out for your phone because it is always on your wrist and it has this great feature of quick actions. Basically you can assign any or all of its 4 buttons to launch an app or perform an action on long-press. This is invaluable.
Another great feature is smart alarm. It works similarly to Sleep As Android and suchlike but you don't have to sleep with your smartphone on your bed.
Other than that it can do notifications, quick replies, music player remote control, show you two days of calendar appointments, weather, countdown to next Apple announcement and last but not least time and date.
What I'm missing is the ability to create voice notes or having a real smart voice assistant like Google Now. It has its alternatives which are IMHO not near as good. The hardware is not a limiting factor here - it has a microphone.
Always-on screen and at least 5 days of battery life with pretty fast charging are not bad things either.
The actual fitness-tracking thing, the step counter, is not very precise and it is only good to make sure that you get enough movement.
So all in all it is not a fitness tracker. It is more of a lifestyle companion that can help you to keep on schedule, form new habits and make better use of your time. It would be best marketed to GTD/time management crowd than to fitness enthusiast who have much much better fitness tracking devices.
I was a Fitbit user for 1 year: good functionalities but terrible hardware, the Fitbit Charge HR breaks in a matter of months. They replace it, and it breaks again. So switched to Pebble 2, pre-ordering it: for the same price point it's waterproof, has an always on display and notifications. However I've still to receive it... while it's already on Amazon: lame. Btw... I'm a bit concerned that what was good about Pebble could go away in this fusion between the companies. Sure Pebble could make Fitbit hardware better, but there are also issues in the way the company (Fitbit) presents itself and the kind of software/UI it presents. A random things: export of your data is limited.
Same here. I got a Fitbit Charge HR for father's day this year. It was broken 3 months later. I just haven't had time to deal with contacting them to get a replacement, so, like that, it was over.
I'm also a Charge HR user; I fixed mine with superglue. My dream scenario would be if this merger produced a Pebble 3 with the excellent heart-rate and sleep tracking of the HR.
Your fitbit experience is very familiar, and I feel like the same issues plague most of their products.
I've been through 2 wristbands from them. I bought the weight scale, and it also has a serious issue: after the battery drains and you replace the batteries, it gets into a funky loop of calibration/sensing. This quickly runs out the batteries as well as lights up the house at night. There is no fix.
We've gone through several Fitbits in our family. The build quality is terrible and the bluetooth communications is very flaky. Not going to buy any more hardware from that company.
Perhaps Pebble can inject some quality into the Fitbit culture.
This makes me very sad. Pebble pretty much invented the smartwatch segment, yet didn't quite have the mass appeal or marketing muscle to make it really big.
Here's my personal account, nothing particularly interesting will follow so you may want to skip to the next post unless you're a fan like me:
Whilst I followed it closely, and was super intrigued by the concept, I wasn't able to get in on their first Kickstarter. However as soon as I saw that the Pebble Steel was announced I ordered it straight away in 2014.
I absolutely loved that watch. Being able receive notifications meant no more having to look at my phone every few minutes. There were some quality concerns - I had to get 2x Pebble Steel replacements, first due to the screen tearing issue, second due to non-functioning buttons - and then my 3rd one, was good until the day it sadly got stolen! (I was wondering, how are they making any money this way?)
I had switched to the Pebble Time Steel by then, as a Kickstarter backer, but still liked the OG Steel's somewhat more retro design. Unfortunately the Time Steel's contrast ratio was a bit of a downgrade, so as such I'm rather hopeful my Pebble Time 2 kickstarter will be delivered in the end.
Around this time, the Apple Watch got released. The display was off unless shaken / interacted with, didn't work with Android, and lasted less than a day (even with the display off most of the time). My Pebble Time Steel would do 10 days, before the fitness and sleep tracking update. After that it did 8-9, and still does.
Last month I received the Pebble 2, and am loving its display - it is even better than the Pebble Steel - and HRM. Seeing the announcement I'd like to get my wife a Pebble 2 as well, to upgrade her Pebble Time, before it's too late.
Lastly I'd like to give a huge kudos to the Pebble dev team for their constant updates. The past year has seen some fantastic developments; the Pebble OS just keeps on getting better. So, yes, that's quite a few Pebbles. I'm a fan, and I will greatly miss them.
To be fair, the Pebble watches weren't very smart. They were notification watches at best. What Google and Apple can do with their watches is leaps and bounds ahead of what Pebble can do. A bit like comparing the first home Pong gaming machine to an Atari 2600. I want the flexibility and feature-set of my Urbane and having it charge it more often to have these features and its gorgeous screen is more than worth it, at least to me.
A while back (~1.5 years), I learnt of a chip being developed that was under 80c in volume, came with BLE, buzzer, touch, flash, ram, built in power supplies, display and an 80MHz ARM plus included driver circuits for analog, segment digital and full LCD displays.
The play was "a watch can't afford not to be a smart watch" (from just vibrations and auto time sync/time zone updates etc... through to full app platform capability with a touch/LCD display).
I thought this was an obvious end game for smart watches if it got traction. This chip got canned after a giant semiconductor merger (as I heard it).
My two cents on smart watches: If you already wear a watch, and if you regularly check your phone for notifications, a smart watch is perfect for you (contingent on price and look). If you never wore a watch before then maybe not so.
I finally decided to buy a Moto 360 about a year ago, my main reasons for choosing it:
* it looked like a normal watch (has a round face, and I use a minimal digital watch face, I don't like the fake analog ones)
* at the time it cost about the same as a normal (nice) watch $150, I waited for the 1st gen price to go down from $300
It's actually gotten to the point where if I'm not wearing my watch I get that "naked" feeling as if forgot my phone at home. Wearing the watch makes it way easier to check messages, and dismiss those which aren't important. The only time I don't wear it is when running (I think it's too fragile) or at nicer events like weddings where I'll substitute it for a nice "real" watch (plus I shouldn't be checking notifications anyway).
Edit: I also have never used the fitness tracker features, I personally don't see the point of them. Either I went running or exercised that day or I didn't, I don't think number of steps really or my heart rate tells me more than I already know. Again, my two cents...
> Can a company really not exist without growth? Or do they just don't want to?
This is the devil's bargain when you take VC money. You basically rule out the "small success" option. VC is a hit-driven business, so they will push you to go big. And neither they nor their LPs (whose money it really is) are in the business of owning small, modestly successful, privately held companies. You need to go public or get acquired by somebody who can provide a return to the LPs.
I think the problem was that Pebble had a very high headcount, and not enough money coming in to satisfy that. And, of course, VCs breathing down their neck.
Aside from knowing the Pebble team (I've been to their office a couple times; Eric gave me great advice when I was looking at building hardware and doing Kickstarter), I selfishly hope Pebble Core ships -- I'm not really that into smartwatches, but the Core is going to be transformative, at least as much as RPi and Alexa/Echo have been. It might be a great fit with Fitbit.
I would without hesitation bet on the Pebble team on whatever they do next.
I bought a secondhand Pebble Classic last year. I think they really hit the sweet spot in the market - the battery life is a key feature for me as I don't want to be forever charging my watch the same way I charge my smartphone. Taking it off for an hour to do dishes or something is long enough to charge it up for a week.
The screen is surprisingly crisp and runs at a high enough frame rate for animations. And it's always on, so unlike many watches you don't have to move your wrist at all to wake it up. The vibrating alert is brilliant, and I have a watch face that buzzes whenever bluetooth disconnects, which has stopped me leaving home without my phone many times.
I like the square shape of the Classic watch, since it doesn't draw much attention and can be passed off as just another digital watch. Sure, it looks a lot cheaper than it actually is, but if you're concerned about your stuff being stolen, this is a great thing.
I like the Pebble most because it does what a smartwatch should do, which is extend the smartphone - it doesn't try to be a phone on its own. The hardware is great. The haptic motor failed after about a year, but the watch wasn't new when I bought it, and when I enquired about repairs, Pebble replaced the whole watch free of charge.
I'm very impressed with Pebble as a company and as a product, so I'm really disappointed and concerned about their future reading this article. For Fitbit to basically buy up Pebble for their software and patents smacks of gutting the company and discarding the shell. By discontinuing the watch itself, they're probably going at it backwards. I've had more problems with the software and the watch faces than I've ever had with the hardware - part of this was down to Android, but the Pebble app store used to be hideous even on a top-model phone. As ever, excellent hardware, abysmal software, but it's only the software that people (particularly other companies) care about. I'll be sad if Fitbit do follow through with their plans as detailed here.
As a Pebble customer (have a Time Steel, waiting on a Time Steel 2), I'm disappointed to hear this. I'd like to think that there will be synergies here, and that Fitbit will use Pebble's IP to build in the many great Pebble features.
Unfortunately, I've heard so many reliability complaints about Fitbits. So even if we get the best of both worlds in terms of features, I doubt the new products will be as reliable as Pebbles have been. It's not like Fitbit is going to retool their manufacturing process based on the know-how of the much-smaller company they're acquiring.
So the thing surprising about this is that Fitbit's stock just took a nosedive, their financials are questionable (but maybe the holidays will be good to them again) and they're acquiring a company in a market where there is a clear leader (Apple) but as whole, the market itself appears to have hit a peak or is in decline.
Even if they got a steal the whole things seems like a bizarre move. At best they integrate Pebble into their lineup, get some good brain power in SV (they are HQed in MA I believe) and build out their future products with Pebble's finely tuned developer ecosystem (their opensource SDK is amazing). At worst, they go down in flames and in the fire sale they fetch a little more for owning Pebble IP.
> and they're acquiring a company in a market where there is a clear leader (Apple)
If you have to spell it out, they might not be the clear leader. The Apple watch is missing a glaring feature - compatibility with Android phones (Android Wear has the reverse issue). That alone makes it the Apple watch a non-starter for a large number of people with smartphones, and "people with smartphones" is the target market. Fitbit and Pebble are the biggest two smartphone OS-independent smartwatch producers that spring to my mind.
I can't comment on most of this for obvious reasons, but our HQ is in SF. We do have a Boston office, and it's our second largest, but we have two other offices too. Of course everyone is looking to hire more talent, whether it's in SV or elsewhere.
I had a Fitbit before and therefore had a chance ot compare it with Pebble. Pebble was superior in nearly every way. Therefore it seems too low a price in my eyes.
Pebble is a company I would have invested in if I were a VC. It seemed like such a great idea. Didn't they raise $10 million on kickstarter? what went wrong?
I have an outstanding kickstarter order for their Pebble Core, which I really think was an interesting step to a post-phone world. It's a real shame. I love the platform, the devices, and the dev community. I hope they will be able to fulfill orders with the funds, but I imagine that it's pretty low on the priority list for fitbit.
[+] [-] modeless|9 years ago|reply
In particular it's incredible what the Pebble firmware team was able to accomplish. They built a bespoke OS that's extremely reliable (certainly more reliable than Android Wear), with an app SDK and store, plus a well thought out user interface with a striking visual design and even fun little animated flourishes, despite running in a fraction of the power budget of Apple or Android smartwatches. How many companies could have done that? Fitbit is getting a bargain, if that team is still intact.
[+] [-] rockostrich|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kobeya|9 years ago|reply
There's been an exodus from Pebble for months now. Our team already picked up a few competent people. :( Sad because I really like Pebble's products.
[+] [-] bambax|9 years ago|reply
Do not compare to the Apple watch; have you looked at Garmin's Fenix 3? It has an always-on screen, a compass that works EVERYWHERE including indoors, on airplanes, in underground car parks, etc., a super-accurate GPS, and all the other functions you would need. Its battery lasts over a week when not using GPS, or 24hrs with GPS.
It doesn't need a phone to operate, it's very sturdy and what's more, it's round (square watches are ugly, how do makers of other "smart" watches not see that???)
It's a bit thick but not too heavy. I've had it for a year and couldn't live without it.
[+] [-] karlding|9 years ago|reply
I think the most impressive engineering feat is what they're able to accomplish in their software, given their hardware limitations.
[+] [-] tokenizerrr|9 years ago|reply
That doesn't match my experience at all. A few months ago I was completely ready to jump on the smartwatch bandwagon so got a pebble. First of all, and somewhat unrelated, but the watch band itched and was uncomfortable and seemed to be low quality. More importantly, the Pebble randomly disconnected from my Android phone multiple times a day causing notifications not to show up. The watch would also crash occasionally, resetting to its homescreen and forgetting what I was doing.
I am now a happy Moto 360 user (gen 2).
[+] [-] on_and_off|9 years ago|reply
weird. I stopped using AndroidWear, but only because I have no interest in wearables, the OS itself has worked like a charm for me.
> if that team is still intact
from what I understand, employees have been leaving from quite some time since pebble has been in the red for a while.
[+] [-] ClassyJacket|9 years ago|reply
I can understand 2 days since you might stay at your girlfriend's house or something, but mine already can do 2 days anyway.
[+] [-] this-dang-guy|9 years ago|reply
They are by far and away my favorite smartwatch. The others have just no appeal to me at all.
Fitbit, however, makes awful devices, IMO. I really hope they don't kill the Pebble magic.
[+] [-] camillomiller|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fuck_google|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] untog|9 years ago|reply
Apple and Android watches have never appealed to me, but they have an obvious market advantage, so I suppose this was inevitable. But boy does it make me sad. The only upside is that I'm not really anticipating any new features on my Round and am content just as it is - it should continue to work as-is for a while yet.
[1] https://cnet3.cbsistatic.com/img/sF4gFNZCv6n7hNYYI2vb9J_n3do...
[2] https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/1.jpg?w...
(photos to illustrate the great progress they made in just a few years)
[+] [-] djsumdog|9 years ago|reply
The problem with their model is they kept pushing newer watches. I'm fine with my black and white Pebble. It does everything I want. I mean the new ones look nice. I'd get one if I didn't have one already. I still like the design of the original Steel over most of the newer watches as well.
I hope it lasts several more years. They made a great product, and I'm glad they didn't depend on planned obsolescence like the cellphone manufactures that have left us in this Android mess. I wish that model wasn't required for growth.
They should had found some other means to support the company while keeping the wearables as just one of a larger line of products or services. Even something totally unrelated like professional grade home routers or garden watering systems or some other IoT crap.
[+] [-] nunez|9 years ago|reply
I hope Fitbit releases something like this with their newly-acquired IP. I'm not counting on it, however.
[+] [-] jbi|9 years ago|reply
However, it did not receive good reviews. I guess in part because it is widely accepted that smartwatches do not last more than a day or two and are not well readable outside. Customers and reviewers are blinded by super-high-resolution displays - although you won't watch YouTube on your wrist.
Pebble is functional, the world wants bling-bling.
[+] [-] on_and_off|9 years ago|reply
The market as a whole as been a bit underwhelming so far.
Next year might be a bit more exciting :
-so we already have the pebble time round
-the withings activité heart will go out soon
-google is reportedly working on 2 new 'pixel' smartwatches.
Things might finally get interesting in the smartwatch market.
[+] [-] kawsper|9 years ago|reply
Unlike you, I liked mine, but I didn't use it as a smart watch, but more as an alarm (it vibrates!), and it was a nice gimmick that you could flick your wrist to turn the backlight on.
I stopped used mine because the screen started tearing up like this: http://i.imgur.com/NsZKXDn.jpg and when I contacted their support, they couldn't do a thing about it.
My dad actually managed to get a hold of a V1 Pebble, and he is still using it every day.
[+] [-] saltycraig|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dirtbox|9 years ago|reply
I've found the watches to be a joy to use, to develop for and the community is sensational. I have no hopes it'll survive as is with Fitbit.
If you have a Pebble and are involved in any way in it's development, I strongly recommend you have a look at Gadgetbridge https://github.com/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge
[+] [-] ethbro|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sah2ed|9 years ago|reply
I couldn't seem to find a source for this claim. Source?
[+] [-] ivanb|9 years ago|reply
Another great feature is smart alarm. It works similarly to Sleep As Android and suchlike but you don't have to sleep with your smartphone on your bed.
Other than that it can do notifications, quick replies, music player remote control, show you two days of calendar appointments, weather, countdown to next Apple announcement and last but not least time and date.
What I'm missing is the ability to create voice notes or having a real smart voice assistant like Google Now. It has its alternatives which are IMHO not near as good. The hardware is not a limiting factor here - it has a microphone.
Always-on screen and at least 5 days of battery life with pretty fast charging are not bad things either.
The actual fitness-tracking thing, the step counter, is not very precise and it is only good to make sure that you get enough movement.
So all in all it is not a fitness tracker. It is more of a lifestyle companion that can help you to keep on schedule, form new habits and make better use of your time. It would be best marketed to GTD/time management crowd than to fitness enthusiast who have much much better fitness tracking devices.
[+] [-] antirez|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mccoyspace|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teach|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fudged71|9 years ago|reply
I've been through 2 wristbands from them. I bought the weight scale, and it also has a serious issue: after the battery drains and you replace the batteries, it gets into a funky loop of calibration/sensing. This quickly runs out the batteries as well as lights up the house at night. There is no fix.
[+] [-] kabdib|9 years ago|reply
Perhaps Pebble can inject some quality into the Fitbit culture.
[+] [-] sundvor|9 years ago|reply
Here's my personal account, nothing particularly interesting will follow so you may want to skip to the next post unless you're a fan like me:
Whilst I followed it closely, and was super intrigued by the concept, I wasn't able to get in on their first Kickstarter. However as soon as I saw that the Pebble Steel was announced I ordered it straight away in 2014.
I absolutely loved that watch. Being able receive notifications meant no more having to look at my phone every few minutes. There were some quality concerns - I had to get 2x Pebble Steel replacements, first due to the screen tearing issue, second due to non-functioning buttons - and then my 3rd one, was good until the day it sadly got stolen! (I was wondering, how are they making any money this way?)
I had switched to the Pebble Time Steel by then, as a Kickstarter backer, but still liked the OG Steel's somewhat more retro design. Unfortunately the Time Steel's contrast ratio was a bit of a downgrade, so as such I'm rather hopeful my Pebble Time 2 kickstarter will be delivered in the end.
Around this time, the Apple Watch got released. The display was off unless shaken / interacted with, didn't work with Android, and lasted less than a day (even with the display off most of the time). My Pebble Time Steel would do 10 days, before the fitness and sleep tracking update. After that it did 8-9, and still does.
Last month I received the Pebble 2, and am loving its display - it is even better than the Pebble Steel - and HRM. Seeing the announcement I'd like to get my wife a Pebble 2 as well, to upgrade her Pebble Time, before it's too late.
Lastly I'd like to give a huge kudos to the Pebble dev team for their constant updates. The past year has seen some fantastic developments; the Pebble OS just keeps on getting better. So, yes, that's quite a few Pebbles. I'm a fan, and I will greatly miss them.
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrlambchop|9 years ago|reply
The play was "a watch can't afford not to be a smart watch" (from just vibrations and auto time sync/time zone updates etc... through to full app platform capability with a touch/LCD display).
I thought this was an obvious end game for smart watches if it got traction. This chip got canned after a giant semiconductor merger (as I heard it).
[+] [-] jlubawy|9 years ago|reply
I finally decided to buy a Moto 360 about a year ago, my main reasons for choosing it:
It's actually gotten to the point where if I'm not wearing my watch I get that "naked" feeling as if forgot my phone at home. Wearing the watch makes it way easier to check messages, and dismiss those which aren't important. The only time I don't wear it is when running (I think it's too fragile) or at nicer events like weddings where I'll substitute it for a nice "real" watch (plus I shouldn't be checking notifications anyway).Edit: I also have never used the fitness tracker features, I personally don't see the point of them. Either I went running or exercised that day or I didn't, I don't think number of steps really or my heart rate tells me more than I already know. Again, my two cents...
[+] [-] neals|9 years ago|reply
Can a company really not exist without growth? Or do they just don't want to?
[+] [-] dspillett|9 years ago|reply
Certainly not if you have investors who want competitive returns, unfortunately.
[+] [-] wpietri|9 years ago|reply
This is the devil's bargain when you take VC money. You basically rule out the "small success" option. VC is a hit-driven business, so they will push you to go big. And neither they nor their LPs (whose money it really is) are in the business of owning small, modestly successful, privately held companies. You need to go public or get acquired by somebody who can provide a return to the LPs.
[+] [-] rtpg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|9 years ago|reply
I would without hesitation bet on the Pebble team on whatever they do next.
[+] [-] gargravarr|9 years ago|reply
The screen is surprisingly crisp and runs at a high enough frame rate for animations. And it's always on, so unlike many watches you don't have to move your wrist at all to wake it up. The vibrating alert is brilliant, and I have a watch face that buzzes whenever bluetooth disconnects, which has stopped me leaving home without my phone many times.
I like the square shape of the Classic watch, since it doesn't draw much attention and can be passed off as just another digital watch. Sure, it looks a lot cheaper than it actually is, but if you're concerned about your stuff being stolen, this is a great thing.
I like the Pebble most because it does what a smartwatch should do, which is extend the smartphone - it doesn't try to be a phone on its own. The hardware is great. The haptic motor failed after about a year, but the watch wasn't new when I bought it, and when I enquired about repairs, Pebble replaced the whole watch free of charge.
I'm very impressed with Pebble as a company and as a product, so I'm really disappointed and concerned about their future reading this article. For Fitbit to basically buy up Pebble for their software and patents smacks of gutting the company and discarding the shell. By discontinuing the watch itself, they're probably going at it backwards. I've had more problems with the software and the watch faces than I've ever had with the hardware - part of this was down to Android, but the Pebble app store used to be hideous even on a top-model phone. As ever, excellent hardware, abysmal software, but it's only the software that people (particularly other companies) care about. I'll be sad if Fitbit do follow through with their plans as detailed here.
[+] [-] gnicholas|9 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, I've heard so many reliability complaints about Fitbits. So even if we get the best of both worlds in terms of features, I doubt the new products will be as reliable as Pebbles have been. It's not like Fitbit is going to retool their manufacturing process based on the know-how of the much-smaller company they're acquiring.
[+] [-] Negative1|9 years ago|reply
Even if they got a steal the whole things seems like a bizarre move. At best they integrate Pebble into their lineup, get some good brain power in SV (they are HQed in MA I believe) and build out their future products with Pebble's finely tuned developer ecosystem (their opensource SDK is amazing). At worst, they go down in flames and in the fire sale they fetch a little more for owning Pebble IP.
[+] [-] fragmede|9 years ago|reply
If you have to spell it out, they might not be the clear leader. The Apple watch is missing a glaring feature - compatibility with Android phones (Android Wear has the reverse issue). That alone makes it the Apple watch a non-starter for a large number of people with smartphones, and "people with smartphones" is the target market. Fitbit and Pebble are the biggest two smartphone OS-independent smartwatch producers that spring to my mind.
[+] [-] sulam|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fudged71|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erikb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] em_te|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewtbham|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] odiroot|9 years ago|reply
Now it's probably not going to happen.
[+] [-] proee|9 years ago|reply
Seems they have a really great product and team.
[+] [-] tekromancr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toodlebunions|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Raed667|9 years ago|reply
I didn't get one because we basically have 3 options:
- Super expensive (more than a smart-phone), 'full-featured" models.
- Mid-range, not-that-useful models.
- Crappy and cheap Chinese products
Needless to say I didn't buy a smart-watch. And I feel that this is the same experience a lot of people around me are having.