17 ms·
Withings acquired by Nokia
- justjimmy 10y agoI 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)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- elsurudo 10y agoReally? Old Nokia phones were beautifully designed, as are (IMO) Lumias (not sure how much of the latter is attributable to Microsoft, though).
- HelloRipley 10y agoPretty much all of the Lumia design mnemonics was outsourced by Nokia to Frog in Helsinki.
- chipotle_coyote 10y agoI 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.)
- pavlov 10y agoNokia certainly has a history as a design-oriented consumer brand. They were making elegant metallic phones already in 1998: https://www.google.com/search?q=nokia+8810 https://www.google.com/search?q=nokia+8810
- mikestew 10y agoHowever, Nokia is not a brand that I associate with statements like "creating beautifully designed products" or general consumer products period. Do I really need mention their phones of old? As for consumer products, all I've owned are a set of their Bluetooth noise-canceling headphones (also "of old" considering I've had them for 5 or 6 years). They're awesome, and I'll be sad when they die. That's all I know, but it's enough that I wouldn't immediately discount the idea that Nokia can make decent consumer products.
- chris_wot 10y agoI didn't think Nokia existed as a seperate entity any more?
- LukeB_UK 10y agoMicrosoft only bought the Nokia phone manufacturing business and got a license to use the name for a period of time. The rest of the business still exists and seems to be doing well.
- stonogo 10y agoThey only sold their mobile device segment. They still power a ton of the world's networking infrastructure, especially since they acquired Alcatel-Lucent a while back. For unix nerds: yes, Nokia now owns Bell Labs.
- runako 10y ago
- yoda_sl 10y agoThe 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 10y agoMy 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.
- draugadrotten 10y agoTime to start hacking! https://poppopret.org/2013/06/10/summercon-2013-hacking-the-withings-ws-30/ https://poppopret.org/2013/06/10/summercon-2013-hacking-the-...
- jobigoud 10y agoI 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 10y agoA 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.
- StavrosK 10y agoI made one using a Wii Balance Board that's pretty handy: https://www.stavros.io/posts/your-weight-online/ https://www.stavros.io/posts/your-weight-online/
- levemi 10y agoThat 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!
- sakri 10y agoTogether, we believe we can truly transform the world.
- chaghalibaghali 10y agoLooks like a good candidate for http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
- nickpeterson 10y agoWow 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...
- jjudge 10y agoI 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
- calgoo 10y agoUgh Google has destroyed so many nice products.
- calgoo 10y agoA question for the startup founders on here: How much pressure is there to sell when someone comes knocking like this with millions / billions (Guess its hard to say no to Billions)? My guess is that if you have a lot of investors, they might pressure you to sell so they can get back on their investment?
- supergeek133 10y agoIs Nokia that involved in connected health?
- beat 10y agoWell, 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.
- josep2 10y agoI 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.
- pjc50 10y agoGiven the history of acquisitions, I'd say prepare for your devices to be EOL and possibly remote-bricked within a year.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago>> "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).
- spdustin 10y agoThat gives me hope, but please forgive those of us in the US for our cynicism when it comes to acquisitions like this. It's become almost a truism that acquisition = EOL.
- amirmc 10y ago> 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.
- pc86 10y ago"remote-bricked" sort of implies you won't be able to use it as a standard scale.
- bkmn 10y agoHere's to waiting for the "The Burning Smartwatch Memo"! Jokes aside, I think Nokia has great potential in the wearables category.
- programminggeek 10y agoThe 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 10y agoAnd before that, everyone's reaction was: "Wait, isn't Nokia a tire company?"
- HelloRipley 10y agoRubber boots.
- ptaipale 10y agoAnd before that, wood pulp and tissue paper. The name of the company comes from a river which is the location of that wood pulp mill (sold out by Nokia over 20 years ago).
- HelloRipley 10y agoIsn't nokiankoski where someone mixed up the sewage in / drinking water out lines?
- ptaipale 10y agoJust the town of Nokia. In 2007 it turned out that years ago, someone had designed a stupid arrangement at the wastewater treatment facility where a freshwater pipe was used to flush the sewage side. But if a maintenance man left the tap on, and put the sewage process going, some of the sewage would go backwards, into the freshwater side. A couple of thousand people were infected by norovirus or campylobacteria. Highly unusual. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_water_supply_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_water_supply_contaminati...
- matco11 10y ago
- c-slice 10y agoWithings 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.
- sdneirf 10y agoWait, Nokia is still around?
- codecamper 10y agosorry 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.
- kstrauser 10y agoYou'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.