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The acquisition price is apparently around $191M USD (€170M): http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/nokia-withings-acquisition-news/ I am overall happy with W

by yoda_sl 10y ago

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 10y ago
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.
- draugadrotten 10y ago
  Time 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 ago
  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 10y ago
    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.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  I 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/
PakG1 10y ago
My hope is that Nokia will be doing a better job with the acquisition than how they kept up with smartphones. When I look at the corporate history of Nokia and see that they used to be in industries completely unrelated to electronics, let alone mobile phones, I have this tiny inkling of hope that they still know how to make big pivots. That's probably simplifying their corporate history too much, but the point is that Nokia wasn't even always a phone company. Things can change.
- Jhsto 10y ago
  For a few interesting examples, they still sell Nokia rubber boots in Finland. They also made ammunition for Finnish assault rifles: https://imgur.com/8wUNGcB https://imgur.com/8wUNGcB There was recently an article which revealed some of Nokia's plans to keep on developing 5G networks. Seemingly the idea is to integrate this technology to many of its new IoT devices: http://www.image.fi/image-lehti/uusi-nokia-on-uusi-nokia http://www.image.fi/image-lehti/uusi-nokia-on-uusi-nokia (in Finnish)
nutate 10y ago
Mass amounts of historic personal health info is more of a liability than an asset depending on the jurisdiction and the litigiousness of your customers in case of a breach.
mtw 10y ago
$191M and Google got Nest for a billion. Nokia got a good deal there
- retox 10y ago
  Or Nest was over valued, which I think is more likely. Buggy thermostats and smoke detectors aren't worth a billion.
  - Domenic_S 10y ago
    The smoke detectors suck, but the thermostats are amazing.
  - a_small_island 10y ago
    Right, they're worth THREE billion.
- boulos 10y ago
  Nest was $3.2B (https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2014/0113.html https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2014/0113.html) not "just" a (1) billion.
Eric_WVGG 10y ago
I'm optimistic. In a way, Nokia at its height commanded an industry of networked, "dumb" but highly complex electronic devices. They just couldn't keep up when their industry got disrupted by pocketable computers with complete GUIs. The good IoT devices of the future won't be refrigerators with LCDs running Android grafted to them, they'll be more akin to smart interfaces electronic devices. If I’m right, the future of Nokia could be surprising.

by yoda_sl 10y ago

pkaye 10y ago

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.

draugadrotten 10y ago
Time 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 ago
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 10y ago
  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.
StavrosK 10y ago
I 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/

PakG1 10y ago

My hope is that Nokia will be doing a better job with the acquisition than how they kept up with smartphones. When I look at the corporate history of Nokia and see that they used to be in industries completely unrelated to electronics, let alone mobile phones, I have this tiny inkling of hope that they still know how to make big pivots. That's probably simplifying their corporate history too much, but the point is that Nokia wasn't even always a phone company. Things can change.

Jhsto 10y ago
For a few interesting examples, they still sell Nokia rubber boots in Finland. They also made ammunition for Finnish assault rifles: https://imgur.com/8wUNGcB https://imgur.com/8wUNGcB There was recently an article which revealed some of Nokia's plans to keep on developing 5G networks. Seemingly the idea is to integrate this technology to many of its new IoT devices: http://www.image.fi/image-lehti/uusi-nokia-on-uusi-nokia http://www.image.fi/image-lehti/uusi-nokia-on-uusi-nokia (in Finnish)

nutate 10y ago

Mass amounts of historic personal health info is more of a liability than an asset depending on the jurisdiction and the litigiousness of your customers in case of a breach.

mtw 10y ago

$191M and Google got Nest for a billion. Nokia got a good deal there

retox 10y ago
Or Nest was over valued, which I think is more likely. Buggy thermostats and smoke detectors aren't worth a billion.
- Domenic_S 10y ago
  The smoke detectors suck, but the thermostats are amazing.
- a_small_island 10y ago
  Right, they're worth THREE billion.
boulos 10y ago
Nest was $3.2B (https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2014/0113.html https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2014/0113.html) not "just" a (1) billion.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago

I'm optimistic. In a way, Nokia at its height commanded an industry of networked, "dumb" but highly complex electronic devices. They just couldn't keep up when their industry got disrupted by pocketable computers with complete GUIs. The good IoT devices of the future won't be refrigerators with LCDs running Android grafted to them, they'll be more akin to smart interfaces electronic devices. If I’m right, the future of Nokia could be surprising.