7 ms·

Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers

67 points by zhuxuefeng1994 10y ago

raverbashing 10y ago
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
- rhizome 10y ago
  I use my phone as a cycling computer and only need a $50 heart-rate monitor to make it as fully featured as I need.
  - kbaker 10y ago
    Sorry for the offtopic, but can you explain a bit more about your setup? Which phone app do you use while cycling? Android or iOS?
    - en4bz 10y ago
      Not OP but I personally use Strava [1] for Running/Cycling and a Wahoo HR Monitor [2]. Strava works on Android and iOS and is free. Wahoo HR monitor is only $50 and works great. [1]: https://www.strava.com https://www.strava.com [2]: http://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/hr.html http://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/hr.html
      - jrockway 10y ago
        I'm going to throw in my recommendation for this HRM: http://www.scosche.com/rhythm+ http://www.scosche.com/rhythm+ Works with Ant+ or Bluetooth. As accurate as the chest band, but much easier to put on. No CR2032 batteries to deal with.
      - rhizome 10y ago
        Did you consider the Polar H7? Seems to get a lot of love and it's about the same price.
    - rhizome 10y ago
      I just switched to Strava after using MyTracks for years. It's fine. Android. I don't use an HRM yet, but I'm about to get one, and that'll be it unless I decide to get a cadence sensor.
- canistr 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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.
abritinthebay 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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...
nichochar 10y ago
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.
dang 10y ago
Url changed from http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/27/jawbone-up-fitness-trackers-discontinued-rumor/ http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/27/jawbone-up-fitness-tracke..., which points to this.
mynegation 10y ago
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
- ecesena 10y ago
  Same exact experience. I had my jawbone, had it replaced for free, now broken again. I still use it for sleep tracking/alarm. I have a Fitbit brand new still in its package that I will never open and wear, too wide and unaesthetic for my taste.
- canistr 10y ago
  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.
- habiteer 10y ago
  To me, the perfect balance between aesthetics, reliability and functionality is the Withings Activité. I've used both Fitbit and jawbone up previously. And I'm incredibly satisfied with my Withings watch.
- Animats 10y ago
  If it's breaking just because it was flexed or got wet, they're doing something wrong. Flexible printed circuits [1] have been around for decades. The problem may be that they had to use commodity surface mount ICs, instead of getting ones with bigger pads that could take more stress. [1] http://www.flexiblecircuit.com/product-category/flex-printed/ http://www.flexiblecircuit.com/product-category/flex-printed...
jevinskie 10y ago
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!
kennywinker 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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.
Wonnk13 10y ago
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.
- sametmax 10y ago
  Ok, I bough a suunto last year, and I have been hesitating between it a a garmin. It's not a big deal, eventually what ever does the job is good enough, I just want to run. But as a geek I like gadget review :) So, why do you prefer garmins ?
- imaffett 10y ago
  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.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    For a triathlete I am loving my Garmin 735. It's fitness tracker plus run bike swim tracker with wrist heart rate.
  - braythwayt 10y ago
    > lol... every triathlete is "pretty competitive” I think the only uncompetitive triathlete is someone who goes for a ride, takes a tumble into a wet ditch, and has to walk their bike back onto the road. Every single triathlete I’ve met has been fixated on gear, performance, and age-group rankings.
  - DiabloD3 10y ago
perseusprime11 10y ago
If the are getting out of fitness trackers and jambox, what is remaining?
- untilHellbanned 10y ago
  VCs running for the exits.
jbeales 10y ago
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.
dumdedum 10y ago
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
msh 10y ago
> 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?
jrockway 10y ago
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
- jambo 10y ago
  It's probably not for you, given the speedmaster & the biking, but I like my Withings Activite. Looks like a normal analog watch with a activity level dial, and integrates with Apple Health via Withings' app, which is nicely designed. Regular watch battery. Edit: I would also be interested if anyone knows of an automatic (mechanical) watch with a pedometer complication. Seems like it wouldn't be too far off from the power-reserve dials that some fancy automatics have.
andyfleming 10y ago
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?
zxcvvcxz 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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-heart-rate-tracking-is-dangerously-inaccurate-lawsuit-claims.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12086337/Fitbit-h...
  - MBCook 10y ago
    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.
morsch 10y ago
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.
douche 10y ago
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.
rasz_pl 10y ago
Im sure $15-20 Xiaomi Mi Band fitness trackers have nothing to do with it.

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

rhizome 10y ago
I use my phone as a cycling computer and only need a $50 heart-rate monitor to make it as fully featured as I need.
- kbaker 10y ago
  Sorry for the offtopic, but can you explain a bit more about your setup? Which phone app do you use while cycling? Android or iOS?
  - en4bz 10y ago
    Not OP but I personally use Strava [1] for Running/Cycling and a Wahoo HR Monitor [2]. Strava works on Android and iOS and is free. Wahoo HR monitor is only $50 and works great. [1]: https://www.strava.com https://www.strava.com [2]: http://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/hr.html http://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/hr.html
    - jrockway 10y ago
      I'm going to throw in my recommendation for this HRM: http://www.scosche.com/rhythm+ http://www.scosche.com/rhythm+ Works with Ant+ or Bluetooth. As accurate as the chest band, but much easier to put on. No CR2032 batteries to deal with.
    - rhizome 10y ago
      Did you consider the Polar H7? Seems to get a lot of love and it's about the same price.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    I just switched to Strava after using MyTracks for years. It's fine. Android. I don't use an HRM yet, but I'm about to get one, and that'll be it unless I decide to get a cadence sensor.
canistr 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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.

abritinthebay 10y ago

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 10y ago
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...

nichochar 10y ago

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.

dang 10y ago

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

mynegation 10y ago

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

ecesena 10y ago
Same exact experience. I had my jawbone, had it replaced for free, now broken again. I still use it for sleep tracking/alarm. I have a Fitbit brand new still in its package that I will never open and wear, too wide and unaesthetic for my taste.
canistr 10y ago
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.
habiteer 10y ago
To me, the perfect balance between aesthetics, reliability and functionality is the Withings Activité. I've used both Fitbit and jawbone up previously. And I'm incredibly satisfied with my Withings watch.
Animats 10y ago
If it's breaking just because it was flexed or got wet, they're doing something wrong. Flexible printed circuits [1] have been around for decades. The problem may be that they had to use commodity surface mount ICs, instead of getting ones with bigger pads that could take more stress. [1] http://www.flexiblecircuit.com/product-category/flex-printed/ http://www.flexiblecircuit.com/product-category/flex-printed...

jevinskie 10y ago

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!

kennywinker 10y ago

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 10y ago
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.

Wonnk13 10y ago

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.

sametmax 10y ago
Ok, I bough a suunto last year, and I have been hesitating between it a a garmin. It's not a big deal, eventually what ever does the job is good enough, I just want to run. But as a geek I like gadget review :) So, why do you prefer garmins ?
imaffett 10y ago
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.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  For a triathlete I am loving my Garmin 735. It's fitness tracker plus run bike swim tracker with wrist heart rate.
- braythwayt 10y ago
  > lol... every triathlete is "pretty competitive” I think the only uncompetitive triathlete is someone who goes for a ride, takes a tumble into a wet ditch, and has to walk their bike back onto the road. Every single triathlete I’ve met has been fixated on gear, performance, and age-group rankings.
- DiabloD3 10y ago

perseusprime11 10y ago

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

untilHellbanned 10y ago
VCs running for the exits.

jbeales 10y ago

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.

dumdedum 10y ago

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

msh 10y ago

> 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?

jrockway 10y ago

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

jambo 10y ago
It's probably not for you, given the speedmaster & the biking, but I like my Withings Activite. Looks like a normal analog watch with a activity level dial, and integrates with Apple Health via Withings' app, which is nicely designed. Regular watch battery. Edit: I would also be interested if anyone knows of an automatic (mechanical) watch with a pedometer complication. Seems like it wouldn't be too far off from the power-reserve dials that some fancy automatics have.

andyfleming 10y ago

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?

zxcvvcxz 10y ago

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 10y ago
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-heart-rate-tracking-is-dangerously-inaccurate-lawsuit-claims.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12086337/Fitbit-h...
- MBCook 10y ago
  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.

morsch 10y ago

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.

douche 10y ago

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.

rasz_pl 10y ago

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