Oof. Goodbye Fitbit. Or, rather, welcome to the world where you're a pawn in internal politics.
You may think you have a product but you don't. If your product survives (as in, Google didn't buy you just for the team), your product schedule will have to survive the interests of every other PA/team in Google.
- You think you have software to run your products? Ha. The Android team will have a different opinion.
- Even if you survive Android, Fuchsia probably thinks you belong on their paltform.
- Oh and while we're at it, let's integrate with OAuth2.0 so your device now needs a Google account to even work (and stops working when refresh tokens can't be used as happened to many Google wireless routers).
- Your software development is now set in stone as various teams work out how to migrate it to Google infrastructure and rewrite it in [language/framework du jour].
I actually agree with other commenters: Google just doesn't know what it's about anymore. It has no overriding vision. Larry just isn't the leader Google needs to be, which would be fine, except that he clearly wants to be.
> “I actually agree with other commenters: Google just doesn't know what it's about anymore. It has no overriding vision.”
it’s pretty apparent to me that after google finally got over wanting to be facebook, google now wants to be apple. and they’re desperately trying not to be microsoft, even though that’s what they mostly are.
in the beginning, google had a unique identity (quirky & clever) and vision (organize the world’s information). now they look to others to figure out who to be. it’s like the small town high school football star who never moved on.
1. Just so we are clear, after having gone through 5 "lifetimes" of fitbit and probably 15 across the family, one thing I can tell you is that the software is buggy with no end in sight. Fitbit could definitely use better software.
2. If Google didn't integrate their Auth, the same community will be complaining about the lack of compatibility.
Is this an accurate description of Google? I thought they used the same 4-5 languages they've used since the beginning of time, maybe minus perl and plus kotlin.
Or for the data ... even better profiles of people, including people who tried avoiding giving Google that data. Probably time for such users to send GDPR notices (If EU citizens)
Here is the thing, total side topic - but Fitbit's product is really excellent!
The packaging of the PCBs, the operating system, the tech, it's all really impressive.
I know that means nothing in the larger scope, Google bought them for their data and mining potential.
But the product is actually really cool. It appears to be simple, but when you deep drive, you can run your own javascript code on your own device, and serialize the data with packages like CBOR for export... This was done a micro that's running an RTOS made in C on an extremely constrained resources device.
Garmin and Apple have the fitness market covered. Fitbit never had the hardcore fitness market Garmin executed into and Apple has always had a product that works well across the wearable and fitness. Between these two companies I can't imagine there's much of a niche Fitbit does better. On the extreme hardcore triathlon user even Garmin has taken a lot of market from Suunto and the like. I've owned a handful of Garmin devices over the years and have never considered Fitbit. Now that Google owns them my initial reaction is that Fitbit is going to be in a very confusing state for the next year and their products will fall further behind. Unless Google actually scraps what WearOS is today and goes back to the drawing board they've lost this war even to Garmin.
To me, Garmin is the only company here that does a good job with the "hardcore fitness" market, but why does that matter in the first place? The better market to compete in is the "fitness amateur" market, which I see as being many times the former in size. Fitbit competes well here, and Google has no offering to speak of. Seems like a successful diversification move for Alphabet's portfolio. I especially like what Google's software can do to improve FitBit's offering by leveraging AI.
My Garmin 935 is waterproof, has an always on display, shows smartphone notifications, charges once a week, and has worked for over a year. If apple or Fitbit had this, I’d go back. Had multiple fit bits and they all broke in 6 months. Had an Apple Watch, but it needed to be charged every day, wasn’t waterproof, and display turned off. Apple has improved on 2 of those but it still needs every day charging.
I would put garmin last software, but the other hardware features more than make up for it.
I have seen a lot more Fitbits then Garmins or Apple Watches. I would argue that the hardcore market, while the most loyal, isn't the largest revenue generator. It's everyone who wants something "smart" without breaking the bank (or tied to iOS).
Google needs a proper smartphone-like smartwatch and they needed a cheap buy to speed up the dev process. They don't need the Garmin market because they want a smartwatch on every person and not on every athletic person. I was always hoping smart glasses come after smart phones but I guess these are even smaller and need even more time than watches to become efficient enough to cover for the small battery.
I'd be willing to try a fitbit if they had a daylight-readable smart watch. I haven't gotten around to getting a Garmin, but last I checked they were the only watch since pebble with a daylight-readable screen--and they support heart-rate. Google has a chance to do better with App integration.
I for one welcome this change. I want a standalone smartwatch good enough so that I can stop using my phone. The state of smartwatches right now is quite sad (I cannot afford an Apple smartwatch so I cannot speak for those). The simple list of things I want from a smartwatch right now are barely fulfilled by the best I could find which is Huawei Watch 2. I want Google Pay, calls and LTE, proper Maps navigation, sending voice messages through some Facebook owned chat app which everyone uses, some very very simple browser experience, bluetooth connection for headphones, Youtube and Spotify.
The Huawei Watch 2 I have constantly crashes, the battery life is horrible, charger doesn't connect well, Google Maps doesn't offer directions (only location), WhatsApp and Discord aren't supported, Google Pay works but I have to use PayEnabler because they don't care, Spotify isn't there and Youtube is very very laggy.
I guess the biggest issue is actually Qualcomm because the current chip is 3100 which is 28nm (is that like 5-6 year old tech?). I sincerely hope that with this acquisition and Qualcomm rumored Snapdragon wear 439 (they are rebranding it as 3500 or something) I will finally in the May of 2020 get an actually good (no need to be great) standalone Google Pixel Watch.
"Similar to our other products, with wearables, we will be transparent about the data we collect and why. We will never sell personal information to anyone. Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads. And we will give Fitbit users the choice to review, move, or delete their data."
Steve Ballmer had another colourful analogy, he used it in response to companies claiming that a merger would create a powerhouse to challenge the market leader:
"It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster."
(Thanks to "raldi" for finding the quote on Daring Fireball, and identifying that Gruber was quoting Lyons, who said he heard it from Ballmer, although the words here are Lyons')
So, the concerning thing is, if Company A has been collecting data on users but not doing much with it, then gets absorbed by Company B who is notorious for infringing on everyone's privacy, do users even get a choice to prevent their data (that was collected by Company A) from being seen/used by Company B?
A large established and (based on personal connections) loyal fan base is a failure? Growth is not everything. Growth isn’t even really sustainable over a long enough time span, and Fitbit’s been around awhile.
It seems Google may be very interested in health data collected by Fitbit as other comments speculate. Fitbit has already done the data collection - now Google is buying it. For Google, this is definitely a "win" as I suspect they are mostly interested in this data and not as much in the hardware.
Both sides can lighten up some overworked desks. Fitbit can cut some management overhead by being under google, and google can cut some operations overhead by allocating to fitbit.
Overall it is less of a failure to merge than them failing independently.
My first thought is that google will idle and eventually kill Fitbit in four years (see Nest innovation before and after google). But then, I don’t know if Fitbit would still exist in four years if it stayed independent.
I am not sure what to think about this as a Fitbit user! I have been trying to find an easy way to get sleep and exercise data and Fitbit seemed to do the job well enough (I use my phone app during runs to get GPS data). Google's history of killing off successful but stagnant projects (RIP Reader) does worry me a lot! My prediction is that Fitbit merges with Google Fit which I used to work but I had trouble getting any useful data besides daily steps off of it.
Maybe I will have to find a new option for fitness tracking! Nike+ -> Google Fit -> Fitbit -> ???
to everybody worrying about "the data", what do you actually believe google could possibly learn about you through your fitness data?
as far as i can tell, the most valuable piece of data they could harvest through a fitbit acquisition is whether or not you're the type of person who uses a fitness tracker (and they already know whether or not you installed the fitbit app through the play store). It seems insane to me that they would pay 2.1B to feed your heart rate or step count into their ad-targeting algorithms - it's just not that valuable.
>Google has made progress with partners in this space with Wear OS and Google Fit, but we see an opportunity to invest even more in Wear OS as well as introduce Made by Google wearable devices into the market.
I think it's pretty clear Google hasn't made much progress with Wear OS. Otherwise they wouldn't have needed to buy both Fossil and Fitbit.
Maybe they should just use Fitbit OS and scale it up this time.
I've had an irrational grudge against Fitbit ever since they bought and buried Pebble. There's a cold, spiteful sliver of myself that takes pleasure from this.
Now for Google to be swallowed by the firmament...
Yesterday I was reading the Google Graveyard https://killedbygoogle.com/ so my first reaction on seeing this headline was to think it meant Google is killing Fitbit.
RIP FitBit. Google bought you, which means that a good lineup of products will be killed or infected with buggy, slow, limited and unimaginative software from Google. Prepare to reboot your Fitbits daily.
Maybe those always on displays can display Coke or Pepsi ad or two while you are jogging and figure out that you are dehydrated and out of the water, as ad-tech is the only thing that works in the whole Google empire.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|6 years ago|reply
Right to deletion would be one. Heightened portability requirements another.
[+] [-] cletus|6 years ago|reply
You may think you have a product but you don't. If your product survives (as in, Google didn't buy you just for the team), your product schedule will have to survive the interests of every other PA/team in Google.
- You think you have software to run your products? Ha. The Android team will have a different opinion.
- Even if you survive Android, Fuchsia probably thinks you belong on their paltform.
- Oh and while we're at it, let's integrate with OAuth2.0 so your device now needs a Google account to even work (and stops working when refresh tokens can't be used as happened to many Google wireless routers).
- Your software development is now set in stone as various teams work out how to migrate it to Google infrastructure and rewrite it in [language/framework du jour].
I actually agree with other commenters: Google just doesn't know what it's about anymore. It has no overriding vision. Larry just isn't the leader Google needs to be, which would be fine, except that he clearly wants to be.
Disclaimer: Xoogler.
[+] [-] clairity|6 years ago|reply
it’s pretty apparent to me that after google finally got over wanting to be facebook, google now wants to be apple. and they’re desperately trying not to be microsoft, even though that’s what they mostly are.
in the beginning, google had a unique identity (quirky & clever) and vision (organize the world’s information). now they look to others to figure out who to be. it’s like the small town high school football star who never moved on.
[+] [-] harikb|6 years ago|reply
2. If Google didn't integrate their Auth, the same community will be complaining about the lack of compatibility.
[+] [-] habitue|6 years ago|reply
2.1B isn't an acquihire. They want the customers, the team, and the manufacturing chain at the very least.
[+] [-] hcnews|6 years ago|reply
I am a Xoogler myself.
[+] [-] taurath|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qroshan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SquishyPanda23|6 years ago|reply
Is this an accurate description of Google? I thought they used the same 4-5 languages they've used since the beginning of time, maybe minus perl and plus kotlin.
[+] [-] extropy|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/new...
[+] [-] 1290cc|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johannes1234321|6 years ago|reply
Or for the data ... even better profiles of people, including people who tried avoiding giving Google that data. Probably time for such users to send GDPR notices (If EU citizens)
[+] [-] plexicle|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SirLotsaLocks|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acchow|6 years ago|reply
Isn't it an organization optimized for enabling engineers to increase leverage?
That's why things get rewritten into [language/framework du jour].
[+] [-] SlowRobotAhead|6 years ago|reply
I absolutely agree with everything.
Here is the thing, total side topic - but Fitbit's product is really excellent!
The packaging of the PCBs, the operating system, the tech, it's all really impressive.
I know that means nothing in the larger scope, Google bought them for their data and mining potential.
But the product is actually really cool. It appears to be simple, but when you deep drive, you can run your own javascript code on your own device, and serialize the data with packages like CBOR for export... This was done a micro that's running an RTOS made in C on an extremely constrained resources device.
I've always been impressed with Fitbit.
[+] [-] windexh8er|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ac1spkrbox|6 years ago|reply
To me, Garmin is the only company here that does a good job with the "hardcore fitness" market, but why does that matter in the first place? The better market to compete in is the "fitness amateur" market, which I see as being many times the former in size. Fitbit competes well here, and Google has no offering to speak of. Seems like a successful diversification move for Alphabet's portfolio. I especially like what Google's software can do to improve FitBit's offering by leveraging AI.
[+] [-] taloft|6 years ago|reply
I would put garmin last software, but the other hardware features more than make up for it.
[+] [-] halfmatthalfcat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kungito|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nbanks|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neuromancer2701|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kungito|6 years ago|reply
The Huawei Watch 2 I have constantly crashes, the battery life is horrible, charger doesn't connect well, Google Maps doesn't offer directions (only location), WhatsApp and Discord aren't supported, Google Pay works but I have to use PayEnabler because they don't care, Spotify isn't there and Youtube is very very laggy.
I guess the biggest issue is actually Qualcomm because the current chip is 3100 which is 28nm (is that like 5-6 year old tech?). I sincerely hope that with this acquisition and Qualcomm rumored Snapdragon wear 439 (they are rebranding it as 3500 or something) I will finally in the May of 2020 get an actually good (no need to be great) standalone Google Pixel Watch.
[+] [-] Mortiffer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bilal4hmed|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] braythwayt|6 years ago|reply
Dan Lyons^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
Steve Ballmer had another colourful analogy, he used it in response to companies claiming that a merger would create a powerhouse to challenge the market leader:
"It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster."
(Thanks to "raldi" for finding the quote on Daring Fireball, and identifying that Gruber was quoting Lyons, who said he heard it from Ballmer, although the words here are Lyons')
[+] [-] Razengan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kerng|6 years ago|reply
Google officially has become the Microosft of the mid 2000s. Lack of direction and innovation, buying up companies just for the sake of it.
Here is a link to Google's anology: https://www.techspot.com/news/42338-google-attacks-nokia-and...
[+] [-] jpm_sd|6 years ago|reply
"Google has struggled to make much of a dent in the wearables category..."
"Fitbit, meanwhile, has had issues maintaining growth in recent years."
Failure + failure = success?
[+] [-] falcolas|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] virgilp|6 years ago|reply
Well the world is not so simple. Apple + Next = ?
[+] [-] martinsuchan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Phillips126|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] papln|6 years ago|reply
George: [Laughs] Relationship intern...hey, what if two of us teamed up?
...
George: I've tried. We don't have it. But maybe the two of us, working together at full capacity, could do the job of one normal man.
Jerry: Then each of us would only have be like a half man. That sounds about right!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HggAV7V6Wg
[+] [-] mrits|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whoisjuan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjg007|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] naringas|6 years ago|reply
edit: not saying it didn't used to be, up to the 20th century it certainly was.
[+] [-] MiracleUser|6 years ago|reply
Both sides can lighten up some overworked desks. Fitbit can cut some management overhead by being under google, and google can cut some operations overhead by allocating to fitbit.
Overall it is less of a failure to merge than them failing independently.
[+] [-] prepend|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roland35|6 years ago|reply
Maybe I will have to find a new option for fitness tracking! Nike+ -> Google Fit -> Fitbit -> ???
[+] [-] notatoad|6 years ago|reply
as far as i can tell, the most valuable piece of data they could harvest through a fitbit acquisition is whether or not you're the type of person who uses a fitness tracker (and they already know whether or not you installed the fitbit app through the play store). It seems insane to me that they would pay 2.1B to feed your heart rate or step count into their ad-targeting algorithms - it's just not that valuable.
[+] [-] kgraves|6 years ago|reply
Pebble -> Fitbit -> Google.
I am sure there are more examples.
[+] [-] koolba|6 years ago|reply
Is there any legal enforcement to prevent this in the future?
Besides marketing by health status, I can imagine that advertisers would be very interested in your heart rate before / during / after viewing an ad.
[+] [-] bobajeff|6 years ago|reply
I think it's pretty clear Google hasn't made much progress with Wear OS. Otherwise they wouldn't have needed to buy both Fossil and Fitbit.
Maybe they should just use Fitbit OS and scale it up this time.
[+] [-] jszymborski|6 years ago|reply
Now for Google to be swallowed by the firmament...
[+] [-] phaedrus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SurgeArrest|6 years ago|reply
At least there is Xiaomi.
[+] [-] taneq|6 years ago|reply