
Ask HN: What do you think of not-engineered-to-last products? - dfeojm-zlib
FitBit 2 Charge display spontaneously failed about the 2-year mark. Searching around, I noticed many others have experienced the very same issue and that they&#x27;re not standing behind this obviously defective product.<p>1) Why do customers keep letting themselves be abused by companies with crappy products that don&#x27;t last?<p>2) IANAL. Is this type of defect something that could lead to a class-action lawsuit and&#x2F;or a recall?
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duckMuppet
Most people want what's popular. Further, these people want not only what's
popular, but what their friends/coworker/S.O. has so they can monitor and have
social interactions with them.

The market the fitbit crowd occupies isn't the same as individuals who have a
serious interest in fitness or interest in long term reliability of their
product. They're interested in the social aspects.

People seriously into fitness are probably looking into the higher end devices
such as from Garmin or Suunto for example. These devices tend to be more
durable with less social interactions, especially since most are in the fitbit
or apple gated community.

As far as your second concern, unless these devices are falling within
warranty, it's unlikely that any class action would hold any ground, seeing as
they probably had a 1 year warranty right and sounds as if they made it an
extra year.

It seems as if you're in an in-between group. Consumers, by and large don't
want the complexity of these devices today.

20 years ago it was removable batteries and microSD cards. People
overwhelmingly voted with their pocketbooks to get rid of those for a more
limited but more fashionable phone, which like your watch has a wear out date.
It's unfortunately easier to replace an entire device now every few years than
it is to support devices that are a year or two old.

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mytailorisrich
People are not being abused. Companies give them exactly what they want:
affordable products that customers replace every 2 to 3 years with new shiny
ones.

Another aspect is the useful life of batteries.

