Fitbit Buyout Will See Pebble's Time 2 and Core Wearables Canceled, Refunds Issued

[richardwh]

So so Sad.

I have both the Apple watch and Pebble. I wore both for a time and ended up loving Pebble over the Apple watch. What pushed me over was the day I had to reboot my Apple watch to get it working again. Never had to reboot my Pebble. Does any one else think the world has gone crazy when it is now acceptable to reboot a watch?

For me it was the long battery life and always on display. I could easily check the time discretely. I wore the watch at night and the alarm would wake me without waking my wife. Can't do that with Apple because it's being charged. Had to laugh when Tim Cook mentioned the gentle wake up with the haptic forgetting the watch would be in the charger plus the haptic wasn't able to wake me up! Only charged the Pebble while I had a shower which was enough to keep it going 24/7. Anything else like that on the market?

But I also get why Apple watch is successful. For me I have always worn a watch and was used to the always on. For many people who didn't wear a watch, taking a phone out, pressing a button to see the time is acceptable. The Apple watch is as improvement to that but a step backward for me.

Don't be hard on Fitbit, they got IP which is all they wanted and were upfront about that. It's Pebble's decision to sell to Fitbit. Pebble sold out it's loyal followers by not selling to a company that could continue the product in some way.

 

[Boston007]

So Fitbit just bought the developers from pebble? Would be a shame if they all quit!

I would buy a pebble over a Fitbit.. Fitbit smart watches and fitness trackers are lame.

I agree, so glad I got my Apple Watch on Black Friday. I will not use FitBit anymore
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Does any one else think the world has gone crazy when it is now acceptable to reboot a watch?

No, it's not crazy at all. It's a little computer. Reboots are great. Guess what? Sometimes I shutdown my Watch overnight and restart in the morning. NBD.

For me it was the long battery life and always on display. I could easily check the time discretely. I wore the watch at night and the alarm would wake me without waking my wife. Can't do that with Apple because it's being charged. Had to laugh when Tim Cook mentioned the gentle wake up with the haptic forgetting the watch would be in the charger plus the haptic wasn't able to wake me up! Only charged the Pebble while I had a shower which was enough to keep it going 24/7. Anything else like that on the market?

NIFTY. I don't use mine for wake up alarm, and I'm sure many don't.

Don't be hard on Fitbit, they got IP which is all they wanted and were upfront about that. It's Pebble's decision to sell to Fitbit. Pebble sold out it's loyal followers by not selling to a company that could continue the product in some way.

Except FitBit doesn't listen to their customers, and the fact they are canceling these orders is a sign they don't care about customers.

 

[richardwh]

I agree, so glad I got my Apple Watch on Black Friday. I will not use FitBit anymore
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Except FitBit doesn't listen to their customers, and the fact they are canceling these orders is a sign they don't care about customers.

Yes good point. Clearly demonstrating they have no issues leaving developers and customers out in the cold.

 

[LotusLord]

While I'm a little sad about it, I'm not surprised. The repeated use of Kickstarter showed that they were not really ready for prime time. A friend of mine had both the original and time and then started using a fitbit charge HR. Since then I've not seen him wear either pebble. The fact that fitbit is keeping any pebble services running is pretty nice considering they're almost certainly losing money on the acquisition.

 

[Agent-J]

Shame, really. I almost got a Pebble a couple of times. I don't need apps, just wanted notifications. I ended up with a Martian Notifier, and that's exactly what I needed. But Pebble was one step above that, so the next step up for me now is a full smartwatch, which I don't need and is out of my budget.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

The key word is "almost".

A few of Apples earliest workers and suppliers who had the opportunity now wish they took stock instead of cash. When early Atari almost ran out of cash, one of the young secretaries took stock instead of a paycheck, ended up rich.

Ya place your bets and takes your chances...

Right... I don't turn down all the stock, but I generally take less than half, often less than 1/5th, of what everyone else is taking, in exchange for more actual cash.

In the off chance the stock becomes worth a lot, I get something (this has never happened). In the far more likely chance that the stock never becomes worth anything, I walk away with whatever I had for a salary.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Does this mean existing Pebble watches would stop working? There's plenty of functionalities that depends on their Internet service:

• Installing apps
• Configuring watchfaces
• Voice transcription

They have said that FitBit will maintain the servers "for now."
To answer your three bullet points...

• Installing apps - the "App Store" will eventually go away, but apps can be side-loaded by opening the .pbw file directly on your phone with the Pebble app. Users are already downloading and archiving all the .pbw files from the App Store so that they stay available - and some developers are releasing them directly.

Before Pebble launched their App Store with Pebble OS version 2, this "side loading" was the only way to load apps on to a Pebble. Many independent "app stores" sprung up. Most went away when the official App Store opened, but they will return.

• Configuring watchfaces - while this uses a web interface, it doesn't actually do anything with Pebble's servers. The web-based configuration screen you see when configuring a watch face is actually hosted by the watch. Doing a watch face configuration works even if you have no cellular connection and no WiFi connection.

• Voice transcription - this is the nasty one. This is the only thing that Pebble would have to do a firmware update to make it usable after the servers go down. While the actual transcription is handled by Nuance, I'm sure Pebble's Nuance license will expire at some point, causing voice transcription to stop working. As it stands now, the *ONLY* thing the Microphone on the Time series watches is used for is voice transcription through Nuance. Hopefully Pebble does one last firmware to unlock developer access to raw microphone input, so that third party developers can implement other uses for the microphone.

 

[Mad Venture]

• Installing apps - the "App Store" will eventually go away, but apps can be side-loaded by opening the .pbw file directly on your phone with the Pebble app.

Thanks! I waded through this discussion to find this workaround, then had to create an account so I could thank you.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

Hehehe, this is hilarious. From day 1 the pebble software was the worst thing about it. It never got much better during the lifetime of the pebble (I had the first pebble and pebble time) - I can't stop laughing that this is what fitbit bought xD xD xD

Not saying this as a disgruntled user btw but as a programmer.

So as a programmer, what have you worked on?

Angry Birds?

You should know that the Pebble OS was far more efficient than the Apple WatchOS in terms of battery life and UI simplicity. It gets the job done without the overkill vanity of Apple Watch.

It sounds to me you have a personal grudge with someone there the way you're giggling like a juvenile.
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So Fitbit just bought the developers from pebble? Would be a shame if they all quit!

I would buy a pebble over a Fitbit.. Fitbit smart watches and fitness trackers are lame.

Something tells me Fibit will use the Pebble line and revive it as their own as in " Fitbit Pebble " or such with a new OS. The original Pebble which I got a few months back for a cheap deal was an experiment on my end and it actually was handy for me to be notified with vibration of incoming texts or news when I'm in fencing class since I'm deaf. It's a very useful feature. Or even out in the cold weather under a thick jacket especially if someone asks for what time it is, I don't need to pull the phone out to be made by 'observing thieves' to make me for their 'black market' schemes. That's the one thing you want to be careful with when going about in the city.

 

[Soccertess]

Horrible news that Pebble is no more! while I thought pebble was fungly, I liked the new colour screens. I believe they were colour E-ink?

Anyways, shame they are done for!

 

[bodonnell202]

This makes me sad. I'll never spend a dime on anything Fitbit ever...

 

[sevoneone]

Pebble's biggest mistake, in my opinion was releasing/kickstarting new generations so soon after finally getting the previous out and on store shelves. I understand they felt they needed to compete with Apple and the Android wear makers with a color screen, but truth is they had a chance to really get people hooked on the simplicity. Watch and Android Wear are just another screen that beep and want to be touched. Pebble had it right, it felt like a passive device that was just there and did it's job and was easy to interact with when needed. Compared to Watch that wants to be touched, tapped, tapped -harder-, twisted, pressed and plugged in to charge constantly.

Pebble never gave themselves a chance to breath and let people discover their product before hitting GO on the next version. They were sprinting in a race where the finish line had not (and still has not) been defined. When Watch failed to be a home-run with consumers on release, it should have been their clue to slow things down and settle in for the long fight and focus on growing a user base that genuinely loved their product.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I believe they were colour E-ink?

Well, they were Memory LCD, which they called "e paper". A low-power type of LCD, not the same tech as a Kindle.

 

[Cloudane]

I don't understand. How can you blame Fitbit for Pebble's troubles? If anything, I'd say Fitbit is saving the company from dying a slower more agonizing death.

yeah this was before I saw that Pebble was already going under.

Still - of all the companies to buy them, after seeing what they did with the no. 1 software update request for the Charge HR - I wish it could've been literally any other. One who would carry it on, not one who is going to hold the servers hostage for some short amount of time before saying "we're killing it now; buy ours".

 

[Grolubao]

This is a big shame, the Pebble was a great watch. Granted it didn't do all the flashy things that Android Wear and Apple Watch did, but as a watch that served me basic notifications and controlled my tunes whilst I was at work it was great.

For me the Pebble did everything I wanted in a low cost device.

I just hope when time comes to get a new smart watch there is one out there that will:

Have a long battery life (4 days+)
Track my fitness and sleep and integrate with HealthKit (hence the need for long battery life)
Water resistant
Serves basic notifications, I don't need anything flashy like Apple Watch.
Controls my music.
Be hard wearing (my Pebble goes down drains a lot as I work for a water company)
Be cheap, I don't mind scratching up a cheap watch but a £300 Apple Watch I would be scared of wearing for fear of damaging at work.

It's called Vivosmart, does all you want with a 3 week battery life for half the price

 

[sidewinder3000]

Yeah, I often have a chuckle at loads of people losing their jobs before Xmas.

Kudos, my man! You are such a better person than that "other" guy because unlike him, you care about people losing their jobs during the holidays. And you're not afraid to let people know it!

Unless, maybe, that other guy was making a completely different point about the low quality of Pebble's OS, and how he is astonished anyone would pay $40 mil for such bad software?

But I digress. This isn't about him. It's about how awesome a person you are because of your well articulated POV on how people losing their jobs at the holidays is bad. And no laughing matter! I just want you and everyone on these forums to know how much I appreciate you tearing that other guy a new one for his inhumane comments about the clunky operation of Pebble's OS. Why people choose to talk about the quality of watch software on tech forums during the holidays I'll never understand.

 

[Michael Scrip]

The key word is "almost".

A few of Apples earliest workers and suppliers who had the opportunity now wish they took stock instead of cash. When early Atari almost ran out of cash, one of the young secretaries took stock instead of a paycheck, ended up rich.

Ya place your bets and takes your chances...

And there's that story of a masseuse who worked at Google way back when they only had 40 employees... who got stock option in addition to her weekly salary.

Then a few years later... she cashed in her stock which was worth millions!

 

[sidewinder3000]

I didn't think they had a business model that was sustainable.

My understanding is that the Pebble CEO rejected an $800 mil. buyout offer from a big European watchmaker a year or so ago. If it's true, and he rejected it because he thought there would be a bigger payout down the road, or that he'd grow the company into something even bigger, then his hubris/stupidity cost a lot of hard working employees there shot at a life-changing stock buyout/payday.

The tragedy is almost Shakespearean.

 

[niun]

Kudos, my man! You are such a better person than that "other" guy because unlike him, you care about people losing their jobs during the holidays. And you're not afraid to let people know it!

Unless, maybe, that other guy was making a completely different point about the low quality of Pebble's OS, and how he is astonished anyone would pay $40 mil for such bad software?

But I digress. This isn't about him. It's about how awesome a person you are because of your well articulated POV on how people losing their jobs at the holidays is bad. And no laughing matter! I just want you and everyone on these forums to know how much I appreciate you tearing that other guy a new one for his inhumane comments about the clunky operation of Pebble's OS. Why people choose to talk about the quality of watch software on tech forums during the holidays I'll never understand.

This.
Obviously this is a rib splitting hilarious tale of terrible software and terrible acquisitions. Sorry I missed the joke.

 

[jlc1978]

My understanding is that the Pebble CEO rejected an $800 mil. buyout offer from a big European watchmaker a year or so ago. If it's true, and he rejected it because he thought there would be a bigger payout down the road, or that he'd grow the company into something even bigger, then his hubris/stupidity cost a lot of hard working employees there shot at a life-changing stock buyout/payday.

The tragedy is almost Shakespearean.

Unfortunately the is not uncommon. I worked for a company whose founders turned down a very good offer because it was not big enough, only to see the company get sold for a fraction of that offer a few years later. Ego and pride get in the way of rational thought far too often.

 

[prowlmedia]

Don't think this will result in "loads of people losing their jobs". OK, probably a few admin types will, but I am sure technical people will be file. The whole reason Fitbit acquired Pebble is their engineers and IP.

I suspect most will walk if they don't get given shares. which will negate the point of buying the IP in the first place. I certainly would.

 

[Boston007]

Unfortunately the is not uncommon. I worked for a company whose founders turned down a very good offer because it was not big enough, only to see the company get sold for a fraction of that offer a few years later. Ego and pride get in the way of rational thought far too often.

Exactly

Back in 2008 I was working for Yahoo and that's when Microsoft wanted to buy them for like $33 share, a GOOD price for the company. The dumb Yahoo CEO refused it. The stock never even came CLOSE to it's price at the time ever again. Idiot!

He ruined it for the stockholders AND the employees.

 

[tgwaste]

Does this mean existing Pebble watches would stop working? There's plenty of functionalities that depends on their Internet service:

• Installing apps
• Configuring watchfaces
• Voice transcription

A backup App store is currently in the works.
Watch face configurations don't rely on internet connections at all as they are built into the app now.
Voice transcriptions doesn't rely on Pebble at all.

Further:

CloudPebble will stay around and if it goes Down Katharine Berry will host it herself.
The iOS App is a bit worrisome though. Not sure how thats going to go. Will probably tie into the back app store.

 

[jlc1978]

I suspect most will walk if they don't get given shares. which will negate the point of buying the IP in the first place. I certainly would.

I would not be surprised if stock was part of the deal to keep the people you want. Any time much of your value walks out the door every night you need to keep them happy or you will quickly find they leave and you have lost your most important assets.