Meta Cancels Development of Health and Messaging-Focused Smartwatch

[MacRumors]

Meta has scrapped the development of its health and messaging-focused smartwatch, in an abrupt end to the company's plans to directly compete with the Apple Watch.

Employees were reportedly told on Friday that work on its smartwatch project would be halted as part of a cost-cutting effort that will involve structural changes to the company.

Meta's smartwatch development team will now switch to building augmented reality glasses, according to chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, who runs Meta's Reality Labs division.

Rumors about Meta's plans to bring a smartwatch to market first appeared in February 2021, with reports indicating that the device had a detachable display with two built-in cameras for taking pictures and videos to share on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Early reports suggested Meta intended for the device to work using a cellular connection without the need for a tethered smartphone, and to run a version of Google's Android software. Meta also planned to work with other companies to create accessories that would allow the detachable display to be attached on backpacks and similar items.

In addition to the demise of its smartwatch project, Meta's internal reorganization will also bring an end to all Portal development, reports Reuters. First launched in 2018, Portal was a brand of smart display featuring video calling capabilities using exclusively Meta-owned services like WhatsApp and Facebook.

Despite the release of several versions, Portal never really took off as a consumer device, while Meta's attempts to promote it in the enterprise market also failed. The company plans to continue selling smart displays under the Portal brand until the end of the year while supplies last.

The structural changes to Meta come shortly after the company laid off 11,000 people, or about 13% of its global workforce. Announcing the move in a note, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the layoffs were the combined result of his own poor decisions, macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss, all of which resulted in lower-than-expected revenue.

Article Link: Meta Cancels Development of Health and Messaging-Focused Smartwatch

 

[vtuberalpha]

One failure after the other. Truly exquisite business.

 

[JanoschR]

Of course they cancelled it because they are really bad at these things. Besides that, they need all hands on deck to fail with the meta verse stuff.

 

[ian87w]

Wait, Zuck said he made poor decisions, thus other people should be laid off. I see.

 

[chucker23n1]

To be fair, for anyone to launch a smartwatch right now has got to be rough. Apple Watch is already entrenched in the market, and Google only got into the risk because they already owned wearOS and Fitbit.

Add to that that a lot fewer people trust Meta now…

 

[JanoschR]

To be fair, for anyone to launch a smartwatch right now has got to be rough. Apple Watch is already entrenched in the market, and Google only got into the risk because they already owned wearOS and Fitbit.

Add to that that a lot fewer people trust Meta now…

Right and googles approach was literally "take the Apple Watch and make it round". Let's see how that will turn out ...

 

[JanoschR]

I feel like the headline could be "Titanic Cancels Desert Course" ...yeah, guess why 😜

 

[Robert.Walter]

“Zuckerberg said the layoffs were the combined result of his own poor decisions, macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss, all of which resulted in lower-than-expected revenue…”

But mostly his own bad decisions.

Given how Zuck isn’t very good at scalability and sustainability of anything original, and Google is more or less the place where acquisitions go to die, I have new found respect for Apple which not only successfully scales new ideas, but successfully integrates it’s acquisitions.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Right and googles approach was literally "take the Apple Watch and make it round". Let's see how that will turn out ...

Agree. While we all above a certain age are habituated to clocks and watches being round, such that even my 3rd Apple Watch looks odd on my wrist, it’s form is optimal for the way we view all other info and I wouldn’t willingly lose this info presentation benefit in trade for a round dial.

(I have my old Omega Speedmaster which I wear about once a year when I’m nostalgic for round. Haha.)

 

[Marbles1]

Zuck trying desperately to pivot to something else, as you might expect. Sometimes people really do have only one 'big idea' which makes them rich and which they can do well. An option for him would be to double down on Facebook and just focus on making the experience richer, better, more personal, with more options for commerce, business etc.

But instead Facebook are determined to go down a hardware route.

Facebook really stopped being 'cool' (if they ever were) a decade ago. So what have they got? a social media platform for those who are 30+ years old. They own the Oculus VR headsets which are good enough and have a niche.

Who would ever want a Facebook watch?

 

[Cromulent]

I have no idea why people would want a device that tracks them where ever they go and sends it to Zuckerberg. I know the Apple Watch sends data to Apple, but they are way more trustworthy than Meta.

 

[orbital~debris]

Oh this is a big loss to everyone who wants to collect copious personal data from Facebook users and utilise it in a nefarious manner.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Given the share structure, I’m not sure that even the shareholders can boot him out.

As per Reuters:
“At the time of the stock sale, Zuckerberg commanded 57% of the vote with just a 28% economic stake, subjugating other owners with supervoting shares that carry 10 votes apiece.”

Essentially all other shareholders are (very) limited partners.

 

[Robert.Walter]

I have no idea why people would want a device that tracks them where ever they go and sends it to Zuckerberg. I know the Apple Watch sends data to Apple, but they are way more trustworthy than Meta.

Totally. Although Apple could still tighten things up a bit, I’ve no concerns about Apple, but Google, Meta, Amazon, no way.

 

[Bustycat]

Meta can develop the smartwatch in Horizon Worlds although the lower-half body can’t be detected.

 

[hagjohn]

Fixed.

Announcing the move in a note, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the layoffs were the combined result of his own poor decisions, macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss, all of which resulted in lower-than-expected revenue.

 

[Morgenland]

Meta's smartwatch development team will now switch to building augmented reality glasses


Who tries to bake bread, can also make wine.

 

[cicalinarrot]

You don't need a pedometer if you don't have legs.

 

[Shirasaki]

It would be interesting to see Zuckerberg seeing his company he found crumble in his very eyes before he retire.
Nobody really know what Facebook can go at this point.
He wants an ecosystem, but how? Reputation has been permanently damaged. Why not bothering repairing them?

 

[spazzcat]

So Twitter and Mata are on a speed run to the bottom...

 

[RedWeasel]

Wait, Zuck said he made poor decisions, thus other people should be laid off. I see.

But he takes full responsibility!

 

[Marbles1]

It would be interesting to see Zuckerberg seeing his company he found crumble in his very eyes before he retire.
Nobody really know what Facebook can go at this point.
He wants an ecosystem, but how? Reputation has been permanently damaged. Why not bothering repairing them?

Back when Facebook was growing it seemed like he had a number of pillars to fall back on

- Games/Social apps - everything from scrabble through to FarmVille and other casual games ran on the Facebook platform and got people playing with each other. What happened to this? Why wasn't his built on, expanded, made more premium, better experience etc.

- Photo curation - albums, tags, friends etc. - for a while it was one of the few places you could organise your photo library and if you understood it, could share photos with friends etc. Now people are less keen on this. Photos are sent privately in WhatsApp, or shared using google photos or apple photos etc. What happened to this? why wasn't this built on? It kept people on the platform

- Commerce - people would tag their interests and therefore make it easy to serve up adverts, Facebook could have pushed this hard and become a customisable shopping platform.... but instead they relied on the adverts only which would then capture information to sell to customers, rather than keeping people on the Facebook website or in the app, doing the buying and selling inside Facebook.

Look how 'sticky' sites like Reddit are, or even twitter. People are so engaged, looking, checking etc. So much of that with Facebook is dead or dying. They've just let it rot as Zuck has been obsessed with the vapourware that is 'the meta verse' which sounds like something Adam Neumann would dream up as part of his latest scam.

In any normal company, Zuck would be booted out, and Facebook would have a 'Satya Nadella' moment. Facebook is wildly successful but they definitely need a new chief to take them to the next level, just as Microsoft did.

 

[chucker23n1]

But he takes full responsibility!

To be fair, his letter regarding the layoffs is a million times better than Elon's.

He takes responsibility, he provides context where he think he went wrong, he offers various accommodations, he acknowledges that this also sucks for the remaining staff, and he signs it with his name. Elon's (Twitter's) letter does none of that.

 

[laptech]

There is way way too much information out there that proves Meta tracks it's users and does so by nefarious means. This will have an impact on Meta's revenue stream because people are no longer trusting Meta and thus moving away from it's various platforms and devices.

Brand loyality has been lost because Meta has proven it is a company that cannot be trusted in how they go about obtaining users data and what they do with that data. With such a dive in it's brand loyality there is no way a Meta watch was ever going to succeed to because the first thing people would say is 'what is their game plan? is it just another way to obtain my user info?'. This is how people are thinking now when it comes to Meta and it is something that is noticeable across many many tech forums and tech websites.

Zuckerberg needs to focus on how to get users to be saying 'How can I justify using this device in my everday life' rather than 'Meta is just trying to find new ways of obtaining my user info' because if he is unable to change peoples mindset of how they view his company then Meta will only have a few more years left because Zuckerberg will have nothing that people will want and without more people his revenue will drop even more which will cause companies to remove their ad sponsorships which would mean more employee layoffs and company partnership selloffs.

 

[RedWeasel]

To be fair, his letter regarding the layoffs is a million times better than Elon's.

He takes responsibility, he provides context where he think he went wrong, he offers various accommodations, he acknowledges that this also sucks for the remaining staff, and he signs it with his name. Elon's (Twitter's) letter does none of that.

Taking responsibility would mean to step down.