
Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers - zhuxuefeng1994
http://www.techinsider.io/jawbone-stops-production-of-fitness-trackers-2016-5
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mynegation
Personal anecdote: I had three Jawbone fitness trackers that stopped working
within months. Granted, two of them were replaced by Jawbone, but after a
third I stopped bothering. The bracelet design was thin and elegant as opposed
to the bulky Fitbits. Inside, jawbone bracelets had several very small PCBs
arranged in a row, connected by wires, with a protection layer of epoxy glue
or something. The whole construction was flexible but - I imagine - pretty
prone to wear and tear. Whereas Fitbit went for hard casing design that was
inserted into the rubber strap. To me it is a story of finding the right
balance between aesthetics, reliability, and functionality

~~~
canistr
I can also attest to the poor quality of the UP bands. I'm currently on my 5th
band in 3 years. One lost band and 4 replacements later, I'm really only using
them to continue with the sleep tracking.

I discovered early on that the step counting wasn't really that great of a
feature or selling point. I made it a habit to inform people around me that
really the best feature and the only reason why I continued to use the UP was
for sleep tracking.

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Wonnk13
For Jawbone, Fitbit et al. the hardware has been commoditized, the software
has limited utility and the whole 10,000 steps a day seems like a fad. It's
incredibly hard to maintain users once the honeymoon period ends.

Personally, I'm long on UA, but I still have some lingering doubts about their
acquisitions with ConnectedFitness and the their Healthbox or whatever.

I'm a pretty competitive triathlete and all of my gear is Garmin or some other
niche specialty company. I love it and it works but the market space is
limited to athletes like me.

~~~
imaffett
lol... every triathlete is "pretty competitive" ;). My wife and I switch to
running and are using garmin vivoactives. The battery life is amazing and
works great swimming (no gps)

My non-active friends mostly ditch their fitbit style devices after a few
months. Its either an apple watch, microsoft band (not joking) or some type of
running/multisport watch.

~~~
DiabloD3
The Microsoft Band 2 is actually extremely nice. It isn't tied down by being
forced to run Android Wear or Apple Watch OS or Samsung Gear, and instead runs
"Microsoft Wearables" which is closer in design and lightness to the kind of
realtime OS design you see in Pebbles.

It has decent battery life (48h claimed, meets the requirement of >24h real
world, but not >7 days real world), it is physically small and light, but is
also a typical smartwatch.

It has the right blend of both being an activity tracker and a smartwatch, but
the only reason I won't buy one is it is insufficiently water proof. The only
devices that will survive true day to day wear are currently being made by
Garmin. Nothing that Fitbit or Jawbone makes is beyond IPX7, and all of
Garmin's stuff (coming from the professional competition device pedigree that
they do) has actual water rating marks (at least 50 meters, some models exceed
that).

So yeah, I've been recommending Garmin gizmos lately. Vivofit 3, $99 without
heart rate tracking, battery life of a year with a standard coin battery, or
Vivosmart HR, $149, battery life of 5 days, has heart rate tracking, both
support Garmin Connect, thus every major app and ecosystem.

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nichochar
I am a bit of a tech nerd and I like trying out different options. I had a
fitbit for a year, and thought it was cool but pretty useless and unused after
2-3 weeks...

A few years later I decided to try another one, I tried the jawbone (this was
3 months ago). The experience was terrible. The app was really buggy, the
connecting to my bluetooth never worked (arguably bluetooth the protocol's
fault, but then again my fitbit circumvented that by having a dongle), and
after only ONE week it stopped working entirely. This was the jawbone UP3.

I am not at all surprised that they are losing in this very competitive
market. Fitbit is doing a great job, hiring great people from what I can tell,
and Jawbone just cannot keep up.

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msh
> Sources also said Jawbone has discontinued its Bluetooth speaker business
> and is trying to sell its remaining inventory.

No trackers and no speakers, what's the left of their business? Nothing?

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jevinskie
I was astonished when I visited their site a few months ago and saw almost
nothing but fitness trackers. The earphones that made them famous were almost
completely unmentioned!

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zxcvvcxz
Commodity fitness trackers are a terrible business to be in, I almost fell for
the hype a few years ago. As a user I never saw it, couldn't even get myself
to use them consistently and I really liked the idea. And I even heard an
investor say (regarding FitBit), "After 3 months they [the customers] just
stop wearing it."

If you're not top 2 or 3 you're probably toast.

> Jawbone raised a new $165 million round of funding in January. The company's
> CEO Hosain Rahman told Tech Insider a few months ago that the company plans
> to use that money to develop clinical-grade fitness trackers.

If the financing is going to help them lead to a major pivot, that's great. I
don't know what "clinical-grade fitness trackers", but if they want to
redirect their resources and expertise towards a market where they can charge
more for hardware, that'd be a smart move.

Maybe they can contribute to elder care somehow. Fall detection has been done,
but how well? I always thought physiotherapy could be a decent use case. After
a shoulder injury I remember being able to move my arm 10 degrees above
parallel, then 15 degrees the next day, etc etc. Could have probably helped my
therapist optimize treatments and physio routine while communicating this data
over the internet. Maybe "e-physiotherapists" could be a thing.

Anyways I hope the company finds a better product/market fit, and survives
long enough to do so.

~~~
sanotehu
To answer your question about the difference between "clinical grade" and
"consumer grade" hardware, consider [1] - where FitBit-measured heartrates
differed from actual heartrates by about 30bpm. As a doctor I looked into
getting a fitbit but realised they could not live up to the ideal of heartrate
tracking that I wanted.

To be fair this is a hard problem. Even the pulse oximeters we use in our
hospitals have a hard time picking up certain heart rhythms. The only way to
be sure is to get an ECG done!

[1]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12086337/Fitbit-h...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12086337/Fitbit-
heart-rate-tracking-is-dangerously-inaccurate-lawsuit-claims.html)

~~~
MBCook
While not clinically certified, reports were that the Apple Watch was very
close to accurate most of the time, just a few BPM off at most.

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raverbashing
I have the slight impression that the fad is wearing out on fitness trackers

It most likely will be replaced by "in watch" features or just left in a
drawer

~~~
canistr
I wouldn't necessarily say that the fad has ended. I would say that since
fitness trackers were introduced several years ago, early adopters were quick
to realize the limitations of them. However with marketing/advertisements,
they became more widely visible and available to the main market. A new pool
of consumers opened up but came to the same realization of the poor quality
and commoditization of step counters/fitness trackers.

I see it as some combined effect that is manifested in GoPro/FitBit stock
(i.e. tanking). The reality is that the average person doesn't do any amount
of extreme activity such that the step counters provides any additional value.
But the lifestyle aspects shown in the ads convinces people that getting one
will change their lives.

~~~
harry_corn
Wrong. Fitbit's stock value has nothing to do with the underlying value.
Follow the markets lately?

There is no fad here. These companies are attempting to lay down the pipes for
the upcoming sensor and IoT revolutions.

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abritinthebay
Given that their fitness trackers routinely stopped working after 3-6 months
and had to be replaced by them at their own cost... not surprised.

It's a dying bit of kit, easily replaced by more capable smart watches, and
while single-function tools can be great there isn't enough they can do to
compete at a high level, they'd have to make them almost disposable in cost.

~~~
fisherjeff
I loved my UP24. Then it died after six months. But then I loved my
replacement UP24... until it died after a few months too.

The beauty of a single function device is that I didn't want a watch or an
Uber app or whatever on my wrist. And better yet, without all those things the
battery lasted two weeks at a time, and it was a nice unobtrusive non-
statement on my wrist. I really didn't mind the price, if only they could've
made the damn thing work for more than a few months...

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jrockway
Sort of off-topic, but what fitness gadgets do you all like?

I used a FitBit One for many years until I washed it recently and it died.
Honestly, I never really looked at the data unless I expected it to be
anomalous, even though I religiously carried it with me at all times. I bike
8-10 hours a week, so a few steps aren't really making a health difference for
me.

The big thing that annoyed me about FitBit is that Apple has a reasonably
useful thing for collecting all your health information on your iPhone, but
FitBit refuses to participate (no doubt because it would cost software
engineering time and reduce the number of "premium" subscribers).

All-day heart-rate tracking would be interesting, but I already wear a watch
and I'm not going to wear a second one. (And I doubt you'll talk me out of
wearing my Speedmaster. Maybe Patek makes a fitness-tracking watch :P)

Everything sleep-tracking related has terrible reviews, from my research. I
would love to know exactly how much time I spend in bed, but nothing will
collect the data for me without buggy apps and overcomplicated made-up
analysis and whatnot ("you spend 3.7 minutes in REM" uh huh.)

I'm strongly considering just putting a pressure sensor under one of my bed's
legs, connecting it to some WiFi-enabled resistance reader, and using that.
It's surprising to me that nobody makes a product in this space that does one
thing and does it well. I am also surprised that people like wearing things to
bed. Like I'll remember to do that.

For biking, I think I already own every gadget there is. I've seen that there
are now muscle oxygenation sensors (presumably for measuring when you're
riding at lactate threshold), but the reviews say the devices basically just
return random numbers and you might as well use a power meter and do an FTP
test every couple months (which is good, but some days I feel like I can ride
at my FTP forever, so I wonder how accurate these 20 minute tests are).

All in all it seems like people are interested in collecting data about
themselves, so companies are racing to build devices to fill the gap with
random numbers :P

~~~
_JamesA_
The most frustrating part is the isolation of the different fitness social
networks. I have family and friends using Runkeeper, Strava, etc whereas I
have to use Garmin Connect with my Garmin device(s).

I have found Tapiriik[1] to be invaluable in keeping these different
apps/fitness networks synchronized.

[1]: [https://tapiriik.com/](https://tapiriik.com/)

~~~
DiabloD3
Garmin Connect devices are supported by the major ecosystems, Runkeeper,
Strava, the MyFitnessPal/MapMyRun ecosystem, and the Runtastic ecosystem.

It also connects to both Google Fit and Apple HealthKit to do cross-ecosystem
syncing when there isn't native support.

Generally, if your app/ecosystem doesn't support Garmin, Fitbit, Jawbone
(which is now dead), and Google Fit/Apple Healthkit/Microsoft Health (for
phone driven pedometer), you don't exist.

Also, Tapiriik is basically pointless: Google Fit/Apple Healthkit/Microsoft
Health were all invented to break up the closed ecosystem bullshit. The data
is mine, either give it to me via a public major API, or I'll let someone else
track it for me.

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morsch
I wonder if the hardware all stops working if they go belly-up. That would be
pretty hilarious. It sure seemed like -- ca. 2 years ago -- my Up band/their
Up app didn't do a whole lot without their server; I couldn't even set the
alarm that one time I really needed it, because there was no cell reception in
that particular alpine hut.

Also, if they're selling of business units, I wonder if they're considering
selling off the user data along with it, and what the next "owner" of my data
intends to do with it.

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jbeales
Too bad. My UP3 is pretty new, so I can't comment on longevity, but I like the
idea of something that doesn't try to be a watch, and, in the case of the UP3,
knows its limits and doesn't try to measure active heartrate when it can't do
it right.

Hopefully this is just clearing out the warehouse before releasing something
better.

But yeah, the app could use some bug-fixing.

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andyfleming
It seems like the reason to buy an up3 would be for the purpose of sleep
tracking. It doesn't seem like any other tracker is on par with it. The up3
will track your heart rate through the night, and even has a flexible alarm
setting to try to wake you in the lightest sleep phase.

Does anyone know if there is a comparable sleep tracking device?

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douche
Hmm, I like my UP2. I have no idea how accurate it is, but it's not bad as a
better quality pedometer, considering what I paid for it ( < $100 ). I mostly
use it for hiking or when I'm on vacation, hoofing it around European cities.

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kennywinker
I had such a negative experience with their jambox, when I was shopping for
fitness trackers I wrote them off immediately. Personal devices are a market
where quality really matters, and people have long memories for a bad
purchase.

~~~
draw_down
I'm not in the market for these, but I also haven't had a great experience
with Jambox. Mostly I find it unbelievable hat something as simple as a
speaker could be so hard to use.

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rasz_pl
Im sure $15-20 Xiaomi Mi Band fitness trackers have nothing to do with it.

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perseusprime11
If the are getting out of fitness trackers and jambox, what is remaining?

~~~
untilHellbanned
VCs running for the exits.

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dumdedum
their products are really poor quality, they break a lot with normal use.

Personally I'm with MiBand of xiaomi is really cheap and works better. I had a
jawbone but returned in less than a week

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/27/jawbone-up-fitness-
tracke...](http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/27/jawbone-up-fitness-trackers-
discontinued-rumor/), which points to this.

