
Withings acquired by Nokia - yoda_sl
http://www.withings.com/us/en/withings-nokia
======
josep2
I have 3 Withings products and I must say all 3 have helped improve my life
and health. I hope this helps create more great things rather than
uncertainty.

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pjc50
Given the history of acquisitions, I'd say prepare for your devices to be EOL
and possibly remote-bricked within a year.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "I'd say prepare for your devices to be EOL and possibly remote-bricked
within a year "

No way they would get away with that, especially as they're both European
companies and consumer protections laws tend to be a lot better here than in
the US (where if I remember correctly Nest pulled something like that
recently).

~~~
amirmc
> No way they would get away with that, especially as they're both European
> companies and consumer protections laws...

I'm curious. Why would you think they couldn't get away with it? I don't have
one of these scales but I'd guess that they function as ordinary scales just
fine (i.e. accurate readings), without the backend stuff. The 'cloud features'
are probably under some ToS that lets them do whatever they want (like shut it
down). The fact that people bought it for _exactly that feature_ doesn't seem
to have much bearing.

~~~
k-mcgrady
If you take a look at the product page it's not just a scale. [0] It's a
'smart body analyser'. There are several features that probably wouldn't work
if they turned off the servers. For example if gives you the weather forecast
when you weight yourself. Wifi sync and the companion app are also billed as
main features. I would guess shutting down the servers would be fine providing
all of this stuff still works and the device can maintain your history as it
is supposed to show you trends. So it may still function as a scale but it's
not being sold as a scale - it's not even called a 'scale'.

[0] [http://www.withings.com/uk/en/products/smart-body-
analyzer](http://www.withings.com/uk/en/products/smart-body-analyzer)

Edit: Also under EU law if a product does not function as advertised you have
a minimum two-year guarantee. So the company "must repair or replace them free
of charge or give you a price reduction or a full refund." Unless the product
continued doing everything it says on that sales page I linked Nokia would
probably have to refund me and in many countries in the EU you are given even
longer that the minimum required two years.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
To get to that link from their home page you have to click an icon labelled
"SCALES".

~~~
k-mcgrady
Sure, that's the product category. The iPhone is a phone. But it's sold on the
premise that it does much more than simply make phone calls. If Apple bricked
everything apart from the phone call functionality it still isn't carrying out
the functions it was advertised to me and sold to me to do, thus violating the
law.

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yoda_sl
The acquisition price is apparently around $191M USD (€170M):

    
    
      http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/nokia-withings-acquisition-news/
    

I am overall happy with Withings products: wifi scale, step counter and blood
pressure. My hope is that Nokia will be doing a better job with the
acquisition than how they kept up with smartphones.

The purchase price seems to be on the low end; Withings do have a lot of
personal customers info related to health and activities so I was thinking an
acquisition price will be higher.

~~~
pkaye
My concern is if Nokia or someone else drops the ball and the online accounts
are deactivated that all these cool products become nearly useless. I very
much depend on my Withings scale to automate my weight measurements on a daily
basis.

~~~
jobigoud
I also have a Withings scale. There is a "Download" link on the website in the
data table tab. It gives a CSV file of all the records for the current user.
Good time to back it up locally, just in case.

(I wish all cloud based services would have this type of export facility).

~~~
djrogers
A local backup is fine for your history, but if the server get shut down it's
not a 'connected scale' going forward now, is it? I'll be bummed if ours stops
sync'ing at some point.

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beat
Well, good for the founders. I hope they and their investors walked off with a
tidy sum from this. I have the Withings watch, and it's a very decent little
device. They tackled the biggest gripe many people have with health monitor
bracelets - that they look stupid and toylike. Withings made an actual watch
out of it, and a decent-looking one. I replaced the band with a better leather
one, and it gets compliments.

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c-slice
Withings has consistently built really functional, beautiful products. From
the outside it seems like an innovative, well run company. Hopefully this will
continue to stay the same with Nokia.

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justjimmy
I really enjoyed using my Withing as my daily weighing tool.

However, Nokia is not a brand that I associate with statements like "creating
beautifully designed products" or general consumer products period. I wasn't
aware they're tapping back into the general consumer market after selling off
its mobile division? (Though I did hear something about making a come back in
making phones for Nokia)

~~~
elsurudo
Really? Old Nokia phones were beautifully designed, as are (IMO) Lumias (not
sure how much of the latter is attributable to Microsoft, though).

~~~
HelloRipley
Pretty much all of the Lumia design mnemonics was outsourced by Nokia to Frog
in Helsinki.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
I don't think that's true. The Lumia design language is actually the Nokia
N8/N9 design language (look at pictures of either of them and this is
immediately evident), and that was designed in-house by a team lead by Axel
Meyer.

(Also, Frog Design is based in Palo Alto, and their web site doesn't list a
Helsinki office.)

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chris_wot
I didn't think Nokia existed as a seperate entity any more?

~~~
runako
Ouch.

Nokia has a market cap of $23B and did $14B in revenue over the last year.

[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=NOK+Key+Statistics](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=NOK+Key+Statistics)

~~~
forgotpwtomain
Isn't that a pretty low market-cap for that kind of revenue figure (not even
2x)? Are expectations not very good for them?

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runako
1) Expectations are definitely not strong. 2) The common multiple is versus
profit, not revenue. Their Price/Earnings is around 8. Not great, but much
higher than Price/Sales.

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supergeek133
Is Nokia that involved in connected health?

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bkmn
Here's to waiting for the "The Burning Smartwatch Memo"!

Jokes aside, I think Nokia has great potential in the wearables category.

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levemi
That is some cringey completely self-unaware "our incredible journey" type
stuff. Great things for everyone! Dear customers have a great heaping of
uncertainty. Isn't everything so great? Everything will be fine!

~~~
chaghalibaghali
Looks like a good candidate for
[http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

~~~
nickpeterson
Wow that site is eye opening. I guess I'm not an early enough adopter to
experience this stuff first hand. That would be truly infuriating if you
depend on any of those products...

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jjudge
I use their wifi scale every day and see no issue with this - it's a good
chance for Withings to move faster, and for Nokia to become more relevant

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sdneirf
Wait, Nokia is still around?

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ptaipale
Nokia has been around since 1867 and continues as a profitable company.

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codecamper
sorry but these products just seem so lame & chintzy. Probably you can find
all the same stuff on ebay for $10 delivered from china including s&h.

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kstrauser
You've been misinformed. Their scale is a solid slab of sleek glass, and
genuinely looks and feels nice. I'd totally buy a dumb version of it that
looked exactly the same.

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programminggeek
The first reaction pretty much everyone is going to have: "Wait, isn't Nokia a
phone company?"

And that is why this will likely fail.

~~~
Nullabillity
And before that, everyone's reaction was: "Wait, isn't Nokia a tire company?"

~~~
matco11
That's Nokian Tyres.

~~~
Nullabillity
Same company. From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokian_Tyres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokian_Tyres)
:

> A three-company merger formed the Nokia Corporation in 1967; Nokian Tyres
> Limited was established in 1988 as a joint venture company split from the
> conglomerate as Nokia Corporation started focusing entirely on the mobile
> communications business.

