14 ms·

Jawbone is being liquidated as its CEO launches a related health startup

227 points by janober 9y ago

adamstober 9y ago
Second time today we see reporting on SF tech startup woes (see SoundCloud as well). In case it's helpful, http://www.layoff-aid.com http://www.layoff-aid.com is avaiiable for SF tech talent affected by downsizing in both cases. What an epidemic.
- riffic 9y ago
  if layoff-aid.com is your site, you should 301 to HTTPS.
  - adamstober 9y ago
    Thank you
    - adamstober 9y ago
      Deployed
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jdavis703 9y ago
  Soundcloud is a German company based in Berlin...
  - seangrogg 9y ago
    But the tech talent in SF was laid off today.
    - luvandp3ace 9y ago
      Anybody know how many were affected?
    - tootie 9y ago
      SF and NY
- perryh2 9y ago
  Hired.com is pretty good too. I'm now happily working at a low-key company that I would've never heard about thanks to Hired.
  - adamstober 9y ago
    Awesome. Haven't used them. Curious to hear how long it took you from signup to signing, and whether or not you were employed while you were searching.
    - perryh2 9y ago
      It took me 14 days from the day my profile went 'live' to the day I signed an offer being unemployed. Most companies scheduled 2 phone screens with me before offering me an onsite interview. The first with a recruiter and the second was usually a technical phone interview. I consistently did 3-4 phone calls per day during the first week and usually 1 full-day onsite interview during the second week. If I had to use their jobs platform while employed, I'd probably quit first or use up vacation time.
w1ntermute 9y ago
Reminds me of these lines from a Hemingway novel: “How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways, gradually and then suddenly.” There have been a lot of startups without a real product that have been propped up by the bubble of easy money over the last 5 years. But sooner or later, the debtors will come calling. If you work at a startup, you owe it to yourself to think carefully about where your company stands - you can be sure that the executives, drunk on their own Kool-aid, won't see any problems until it's too late.
- sbarre 9y ago
  Jawbone has/had plenty of products. I don't understand the relevance of this comment
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    I guess he meant, a real product making money + a profit.
luisjv 9y ago
Recruiters, get to work. A bunch of extremely talented people got laid off today.
elmar 9y ago
It's been a long bumpy road for Jawbone, 20 years is really sad to see it ending like this.
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago
  Yeah I remember seeing the CEO speak at one of YC's events. They even had their doors chained up when they ran out of money many years ago. If I'm remembering correctly they almost sorta died twice prior to today. Resilient but seems they never could get to sustainable profits.
abritinthebay 9y ago
Sad, they were great back in their bluetooth microphone heyday but after I had to return the Jawbone Up 5 times for just basic manufacturing and quality defects (and to their credit they were fast each time) within a few weeks of each replacement... it was clear they were on a terminal decline (this was about 2 years ago). You can't produce bad product that consistently and survive.
- yourapostasy 9y ago
  This, more than any other factor, should warn anyone away from the new company. To give some perspective, older model Jawbone earphones were so good that when the quality in the newer models began its terminal decline, a lot of customers, myself included, were so unbelieving we all kept buying and returning the new models. You can see it from the Amazon reviews. I finally accepted they were not coming back from their decline, and started looking for a new manufacturer. The closest one I could find with the same quality sound that I had come to love from the old Jawbones were $1K USD sets that were super bulky, made for the military. If I knew Jawbone would have tanked their quality so badly, I would have stocked up on more of the older models off of eBay (which were selling for more than retail at one point). I'm hoping a pair of AirPods will bring me back to the wireless earphone user base. If any other Jawbone readers found they experienced the same as I described and found a great replacement, then please reply here.
stingrae 9y ago
The days of consumer hardware company's access to startup capital is over. With so many high profile VC backed (Fitbit, GoPro, Hello, Juicero, Coin, Pearl, ect.) and kickstarted (Lily.ai, Pebble) failures, no one is willing to risk it.
- kilroy123 9y ago
  I think there's still a ton of potential though. The right company just needs to come up with the right formula.
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    I hope there's potential? I thought the Fitbit looked good on certain women. Aesthetics aside, I don't know if I want anything on my wrist other than a nice mechanical watch. I repair watches. I've been following these watches since day one, and just been dissapointed. I just got a Waltham 17 jeweled moment running. The last service was inscribed on the case back. It was last worked on on '62. I washed, and oiled the movement. It's a few seconds fast. It just tells the time, and I like the way it looks. Done. Then again, I'm starting to like the Iwatch. When it first came out, I was very disappointed. But lately? It just doesn't look as bad? It's just looking better? It must be psychological? I still see it's the number one for sale watch on CL though. (My record for sentence fragments.) If anyone cracks the code, they will gave a real successful product. There's a lot of psychology behind a watch. I've noticed men are more interested in timepieces than women. I used to think it was just that women have more fashion choices. Now I don't know the reason.
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago
  > The days of consumer hardware company's access to startup capital is over. So I haven't worked at a hardware start-up but it seemed pretty difficult even before these companies to raise funding versus a pure software play. I'm not necessarily convinced this makes it easier or harder. Is there a specific reason you think it will be harder now? Also, for what it's worth, Fitbit and GoPro are still going. I'm convinced Fitbit can get back on the growth curve as long as they can get a new product out the door that consumers want. Tall order for sure but I don't count them as a failure yet. GoPro want to move to doing software more so than hardware. Considering their software has always considered to be lackluster to borderline terrible I'm less convinced they will turn it around but also not yet willing to say they're a failure.
foobaw 9y ago
A friend of mine quit this company after working there for 3 months. As a PM, she mentioned that it was impossible for her to do any meaningful work. Mind you, this was back in 2014, when they were doing fairly well. She even removed traces of working there from her LinkedIn. Speaks a lot about the company.
- ohazi 9y ago
  > She even removed traces of working there from her LinkedIn. Speaks a lot about the company. Or it tells you that people don't like explaining short employment stints to potential employers, probably out of fear that the potential employer will think they were fired.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - tunetine 9y ago
    You either explain why the startup wasn't a good fit or the three month gap of employment on the resume. I know which I would chose.
    - nkozyra 9y ago
      I don't think anyone would ever bat an eye at a 3 month gap in the resume.
      - lobotryas 9y ago
        I don't "bat an eye", but I always ask about any gap longer than a month to see whether the candidate has an answer and how they explain it. The question is never about the truth for the gap and more to see how they handle the situation.
tokyoSurfer 9y ago
The problem with fitness trackers and smartwatches is that each and every brand keeps adding unnecessary features to the stack. They won't listen to users and keep building devices that have no market. Most of those companies created a product that was good and needed a good amount of work to make it better. But it seems that developers and management felt that simple = bad, and worked their asses off to add useless features. Probably the closest to what people wanted was Mi Band - a bit too simplistic, but close enough. And this opinion is shared by many of people I know. In order to create a successful fitness tracker, create a device with: -distance tracker -steps tracker -waterproof (good enough to swim in swimming pool) -mobile phone notifications, alarms -no screen needed or extremely simplistic screen is OK -battery live of at least 7days -heart rate monitor (do not need to be constant) -good software, small size -make it look simple - let users decide on adding bits to it -sleep tracker that works and learns -use phone and app for making most of the calculation to save battery -the price of $49 This tool would kill the market. As of now, Mi Band is closest, but their software/app is bad and there are some issues with hardware and customisation.
- theli0nheart 9y ago
  The pricing of $49 is the kicker. No one can make the device you're describing for that. Garmin devices (like the Forerunner 935) tick off your feature requirements but are relatively expensive.
  - tokyoSurfer 9y ago
    The Mi Band is close to what I listed for $19. The money should be made on add-ons and upgrades, not the product itself.
  - swiley 9y ago
    I'd be willing to bet that I could.
    - maneesh 9y ago
      Do it. I'd wager on this.
supernintendo 9y ago
Sad to see. I can't speak on their wearables, but I've owned a Jawbone Big Jambox for four years and continue to use it to this day. It may not be the best compared to other bluetooth speakers, but it's a great product nonetheless.
- tpowell 9y ago
  The big jambox is still one of my favorite tech products I've ever owned. I think my red one belongs in MoMA. I finally caved and bought a UE Megaboom for its waterproof abilities, but it still doesn't sound better than my years old jambox. I think think they would have been a great acquisition for Amazon in their heyday.
dankohn1 9y ago
Sorry to come off as a fanboy, but I blew through hundreds of dollars on multiple generations of Jawbone bluetooth headsets that never worked well enough. By contrast, my AirPods work incredibly well.
- draw_down 9y ago
  My Jambox is a frequent pain in my butt, and I only ever use it with one device.
  - orbitingpluto 9y ago
    Removing ALL voice files on the Jambox helps with reliability. (Just keep hard and soft resetting until the voices disappear.)
- vinothgopi 9y ago
  To be honest, bluetooth was not that reliable until recently. With the new 4.x versions of Bluetooth, things are a lot more stable with audio devices. So I wouldn't blame Jawbone alone.
  - awad 9y ago
    Perhaps my memory fails me but weren't Jawbone one of the pioneers in bluetooth?
- bogomipz 9y ago
  Why did you continue to buy generation after generation of a product that you felt was sub-par?
  - dankohn1 9y ago
    The same friend kept buying the Jawbone and telling me how great they were! I've now converted him to AirPods as well.
    - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
soganess 9y ago
The writing has been on the wall for a few months now! They straight up stopped responding too support request, especially if you mentioned that you had a defective up3 or up4. Not exactly the kind of move a company that had hopes for the future would make.
- yabatopia 9y ago
  Exactly. Why shoud the health care industry, patients and physicians, trust a company with such a shitty attitude towards customer support? And why do VC's keep investing in a team with such a disdain for its customers?
luhn 9y ago
I had no idea Jawbone had a wearables line. I only knew them for their Jambox, which is a great product, but it's probably a tough sell now that there are innumerable competitors.
erikb 9y ago
Well, what is it about? "Health startup" is a little broad.
mikestew 9y ago
I love my Jambox. What I love even more is the 20W Anker speaker that I just bought for a fifth of what the Jambox cost. And though physically a bit larger, the Anker sounds tons better. The Jambox was a fine product for its day, but the “decent sounding Bluetooth speaker” problem is now solved, and for not a lot of money. Headsets? I dunno, are Bluetooth earpieces still a thing? That leaves us with fitness trackers, and it doesn’t appear to me that the market for those is all that healthy. (And I’ve heard Jawbone’s quality on those was lacking.) So it seems to me that though Jawbone was innovative and had some great products that pushed the state of the art along (I’m thinking of their headset and speaker), those got commoditized and/or duplicated by others. Like many, I often have a “if only they’d...” opinion to share. In Jawbone’s case, I’m a bit stumped as to what they could have done differently.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  AirPods, Gear IconX, etc are the new Bluetooth earpieces
- rbritton 9y ago
  I vastly prefer the Anker audio quality, but I ran into a situation recently where the Jambox was the only speaker that would work adequately. I purchased a Bluetooth transmitter (the model is not relevant -- all devices I tried behaved the same) that I connected to a streaming audio source (i.e., it can only send data as fast as the audio input is received). Not one modern Bluetooth speaker that I tried, Anker included, was able to play the audio without interruption. Only the Jambox was. My working theory based on my observations of multiple speakers, most of which I returned for refund, is that an internal buffer accounts for the varying perceived connection reliability. The newer speakers were significantly quicker at beginning playing audio after establishing a Bluetooth connection (as observed unscientifically by watching the indicator on the transmitter — all connect using the same audio codec). The Jambox was the slowest by at least a factor of 4-5x. In my theory, this delay was a direct result of a larger audio buffer. In my environment, I believe that 2.4 Ghz interference is a probable culprit. This is a fairly typical suburban neighborhood with most homes containing a dual-band Comcast wireless router. As a result, the 2.4 Ghz spectrum is very crowded, but since I cannot control the channels in use by other people and the fact that Bluetooth is frequency hopping, I can’t work around it.
iamleppert 9y ago
"Jawbone Health is at the forefront of revolutionizing primary care for millions of patients worldwide. Combining more than 20 years of proprietary wearable technology with clinically relevant signals, Jawbone Health connects patients and physicians like never before with continuous, data-driven dialogue." How exactly is a company that just started from the ashes of a glorified bluetooth speaker company revolutionizing primary care medicine? It really bothers me when snake oil tech CEO's spout this kind of rubbish.
- charlieflowers 9y ago
  Right? I found myself wondering what the wearable technology of 20 years ago really was. A skinny, awkward teen with a 50 pound CRT TV strapped to his back?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Twenty years ago we already had PDAs and palmtops. The Atari Portfolio is from '89, and fits in a pocket. That tech was used to create wrist-mounted computers: http://edgarmatias.com/papers/chi96/ http://edgarmatias.com/papers/chi96/ Most weren't commercially viable, but the tech has been around for a long time.
jorgemf 9y ago
A lot of users had to replace their band like 3 or 4 times in the first months. Then the band only last for 6 or 8 months. No business can survive like this.
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EToS 9y ago
Im not surprised tbh, I've had 2 defective Jawbone Up's and the first took approx 12 months for a refund to be issued. Also had a defective jambox product. I think ultimately the product quality was not there, and they got found out in the marketplace.
bigato 9y ago
I just received yesterday a Jawbone UP4 wrist band. I switched it on and it upgraded its own firwmare via cellphone without asking. Now it just doesn't work at all unless it is connected to a usb port or charger. I read through all their support suggestions and tried what was possible to no avail. The "soft reset" and "secondary reset" suggested just doesn't happen; the band leds won't respond as described. Jawbone support is non-existent at this point, and their support web forms won't even work. So I am returning this to Amazon for a refund. Yeah, I should have done some proper research before buying this. Unluckily, this seems to be the only wrist band which have the perfect combination of functionality and form factor that I wanted. I just wanted this to work. And it even works as a NFC payment thing! Only amex though. I'm leaning towards a Fitbit Alta HR now, but I would really prefer it to be discrete and without a display at all.
- yock 9y ago
  > Yeah, I should have done some proper research before buying this. I could understand this reaction if you were unsatisfied with a frustrating-but-functional experience. Don't beat yourself up too hard for buying something without thoroughly researching whether or not it actually works.
Havoc 9y ago
Not surprised. I'm in the market for a fitness band & the comments & reviews on the jawbone stuff is a blood bath. Sounds like they were shipping a lot of broken stuff. Probably not a very sustainable business model

227 points by janober 9y ago

Second time today we see reporting on SF tech startup woes (see SoundCloud as well). In case it's helpful, http://www.layoff-aid.com http://www.layoff-aid.com is avaiiable for SF tech talent affected by downsizing in both cases. What an epidemic.

riffic 9y ago
if layoff-aid.com is your site, you should 301 to HTTPS.
- adamstober 9y ago
  Thank you
  - adamstober 9y ago
    Deployed
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jdavis703 9y ago
Soundcloud is a German company based in Berlin...
- seangrogg 9y ago
  But the tech talent in SF was laid off today.
  - luvandp3ace 9y ago
    Anybody know how many were affected?
  - tootie 9y ago
    SF and NY
perryh2 9y ago
Hired.com is pretty good too. I'm now happily working at a low-key company that I would've never heard about thanks to Hired.
- adamstober 9y ago
  Awesome. Haven't used them. Curious to hear how long it took you from signup to signing, and whether or not you were employed while you were searching.
  - perryh2 9y ago
    It took me 14 days from the day my profile went 'live' to the day I signed an offer being unemployed. Most companies scheduled 2 phone screens with me before offering me an onsite interview. The first with a recruiter and the second was usually a technical phone interview. I consistently did 3-4 phone calls per day during the first week and usually 1 full-day onsite interview during the second week. If I had to use their jobs platform while employed, I'd probably quit first or use up vacation time.

w1ntermute 9y ago

Reminds me of these lines from a Hemingway novel: “How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways, gradually and then suddenly.” There have been a lot of startups without a real product that have been propped up by the bubble of easy money over the last 5 years. But sooner or later, the debtors will come calling. If you work at a startup, you owe it to yourself to think carefully about where your company stands - you can be sure that the executives, drunk on their own Kool-aid, won't see any problems until it's too late.

sbarre 9y ago
Jawbone has/had plenty of products. I don't understand the relevance of this comment
- charlesdm 9y ago
  I guess he meant, a real product making money + a profit.

luisjv 9y ago

Recruiters, get to work. A bunch of extremely talented people got laid off today.

elmar 9y ago

It's been a long bumpy road for Jawbone, 20 years is really sad to see it ending like this.

BinaryIdiot 9y ago
Yeah I remember seeing the CEO speak at one of YC's events. They even had their doors chained up when they ran out of money many years ago. If I'm remembering correctly they almost sorta died twice prior to today. Resilient but seems they never could get to sustainable profits.

abritinthebay 9y ago

Sad, they were great back in their bluetooth microphone heyday but after I had to return the Jawbone Up 5 times for just basic manufacturing and quality defects (and to their credit they were fast each time) within a few weeks of each replacement... it was clear they were on a terminal decline (this was about 2 years ago). You can't produce bad product that consistently and survive.

yourapostasy 9y ago
This, more than any other factor, should warn anyone away from the new company. To give some perspective, older model Jawbone earphones were so good that when the quality in the newer models began its terminal decline, a lot of customers, myself included, were so unbelieving we all kept buying and returning the new models. You can see it from the Amazon reviews. I finally accepted they were not coming back from their decline, and started looking for a new manufacturer. The closest one I could find with the same quality sound that I had come to love from the old Jawbones were $1K USD sets that were super bulky, made for the military. If I knew Jawbone would have tanked their quality so badly, I would have stocked up on more of the older models off of eBay (which were selling for more than retail at one point). I'm hoping a pair of AirPods will bring me back to the wireless earphone user base. If any other Jawbone readers found they experienced the same as I described and found a great replacement, then please reply here.

stingrae 9y ago

The days of consumer hardware company's access to startup capital is over. With so many high profile VC backed (Fitbit, GoPro, Hello, Juicero, Coin, Pearl, ect.) and kickstarted (Lily.ai, Pebble) failures, no one is willing to risk it.

kilroy123 9y ago
I think there's still a ton of potential though. The right company just needs to come up with the right formula.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  I hope there's potential? I thought the Fitbit looked good on certain women. Aesthetics aside, I don't know if I want anything on my wrist other than a nice mechanical watch. I repair watches. I've been following these watches since day one, and just been dissapointed. I just got a Waltham 17 jeweled moment running. The last service was inscribed on the case back. It was last worked on on '62. I washed, and oiled the movement. It's a few seconds fast. It just tells the time, and I like the way it looks. Done. Then again, I'm starting to like the Iwatch. When it first came out, I was very disappointed. But lately? It just doesn't look as bad? It's just looking better? It must be psychological? I still see it's the number one for sale watch on CL though. (My record for sentence fragments.) If anyone cracks the code, they will gave a real successful product. There's a lot of psychology behind a watch. I've noticed men are more interested in timepieces than women. I used to think it was just that women have more fashion choices. Now I don't know the reason.
BinaryIdiot 9y ago
> The days of consumer hardware company's access to startup capital is over. So I haven't worked at a hardware start-up but it seemed pretty difficult even before these companies to raise funding versus a pure software play. I'm not necessarily convinced this makes it easier or harder. Is there a specific reason you think it will be harder now? Also, for what it's worth, Fitbit and GoPro are still going. I'm convinced Fitbit can get back on the growth curve as long as they can get a new product out the door that consumers want. Tall order for sure but I don't count them as a failure yet. GoPro want to move to doing software more so than hardware. Considering their software has always considered to be lackluster to borderline terrible I'm less convinced they will turn it around but also not yet willing to say they're a failure.

foobaw 9y ago

A friend of mine quit this company after working there for 3 months. As a PM, she mentioned that it was impossible for her to do any meaningful work. Mind you, this was back in 2014, when they were doing fairly well. She even removed traces of working there from her LinkedIn. Speaks a lot about the company.

ohazi 9y ago
> She even removed traces of working there from her LinkedIn. Speaks a lot about the company. Or it tells you that people don't like explaining short employment stints to potential employers, probably out of fear that the potential employer will think they were fired.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tunetine 9y ago
  You either explain why the startup wasn't a good fit or the three month gap of employment on the resume. I know which I would chose.
  - nkozyra 9y ago
    I don't think anyone would ever bat an eye at a 3 month gap in the resume.
    - lobotryas 9y ago
      I don't "bat an eye", but I always ask about any gap longer than a month to see whether the candidate has an answer and how they explain it. The question is never about the truth for the gap and more to see how they handle the situation.

tokyoSurfer 9y ago

The problem with fitness trackers and smartwatches is that each and every brand keeps adding unnecessary features to the stack. They won't listen to users and keep building devices that have no market. Most of those companies created a product that was good and needed a good amount of work to make it better. But it seems that developers and management felt that simple = bad, and worked their asses off to add useless features. Probably the closest to what people wanted was Mi Band - a bit too simplistic, but close enough. And this opinion is shared by many of people I know. In order to create a successful fitness tracker, create a device with: -distance tracker -steps tracker -waterproof (good enough to swim in swimming pool) -mobile phone notifications, alarms -no screen needed or extremely simplistic screen is OK -battery live of at least 7days -heart rate monitor (do not need to be constant) -good software, small size -make it look simple - let users decide on adding bits to it -sleep tracker that works and learns -use phone and app for making most of the calculation to save battery -the price of $49 This tool would kill the market. As of now, Mi Band is closest, but their software/app is bad and there are some issues with hardware and customisation.

theli0nheart 9y ago
The pricing of $49 is the kicker. No one can make the device you're describing for that. Garmin devices (like the Forerunner 935) tick off your feature requirements but are relatively expensive.
- tokyoSurfer 9y ago
  The Mi Band is close to what I listed for $19. The money should be made on add-ons and upgrades, not the product itself.
- swiley 9y ago
  I'd be willing to bet that I could.
  - maneesh 9y ago
    Do it. I'd wager on this.

supernintendo 9y ago

Sad to see. I can't speak on their wearables, but I've owned a Jawbone Big Jambox for four years and continue to use it to this day. It may not be the best compared to other bluetooth speakers, but it's a great product nonetheless.

tpowell 9y ago
The big jambox is still one of my favorite tech products I've ever owned. I think my red one belongs in MoMA. I finally caved and bought a UE Megaboom for its waterproof abilities, but it still doesn't sound better than my years old jambox. I think think they would have been a great acquisition for Amazon in their heyday.

dankohn1 9y ago

Sorry to come off as a fanboy, but I blew through hundreds of dollars on multiple generations of Jawbone bluetooth headsets that never worked well enough. By contrast, my AirPods work incredibly well.

draw_down 9y ago
My Jambox is a frequent pain in my butt, and I only ever use it with one device.
- orbitingpluto 9y ago
  Removing ALL voice files on the Jambox helps with reliability. (Just keep hard and soft resetting until the voices disappear.)
vinothgopi 9y ago
To be honest, bluetooth was not that reliable until recently. With the new 4.x versions of Bluetooth, things are a lot more stable with audio devices. So I wouldn't blame Jawbone alone.
- awad 9y ago
  Perhaps my memory fails me but weren't Jawbone one of the pioneers in bluetooth?
bogomipz 9y ago
Why did you continue to buy generation after generation of a product that you felt was sub-par?
- dankohn1 9y ago
  The same friend kept buying the Jawbone and telling me how great they were! I've now converted him to AirPods as well.
  - 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

soganess 9y ago

The writing has been on the wall for a few months now! They straight up stopped responding too support request, especially if you mentioned that you had a defective up3 or up4. Not exactly the kind of move a company that had hopes for the future would make.

yabatopia 9y ago
Exactly. Why shoud the health care industry, patients and physicians, trust a company with such a shitty attitude towards customer support? And why do VC's keep investing in a team with such a disdain for its customers?

luhn 9y ago

I had no idea Jawbone had a wearables line. I only knew them for their Jambox, which is a great product, but it's probably a tough sell now that there are innumerable competitors.

erikb 9y ago

Well, what is it about? "Health startup" is a little broad.

mikestew 9y ago

I love my Jambox. What I love even more is the 20W Anker speaker that I just bought for a fifth of what the Jambox cost. And though physically a bit larger, the Anker sounds tons better. The Jambox was a fine product for its day, but the “decent sounding Bluetooth speaker” problem is now solved, and for not a lot of money. Headsets? I dunno, are Bluetooth earpieces still a thing? That leaves us with fitness trackers, and it doesn’t appear to me that the market for those is all that healthy. (And I’ve heard Jawbone’s quality on those was lacking.) So it seems to me that though Jawbone was innovative and had some great products that pushed the state of the art along (I’m thinking of their headset and speaker), those got commoditized and/or duplicated by others. Like many, I often have a “if only they’d...” opinion to share. In Jawbone’s case, I’m a bit stumped as to what they could have done differently.

wlesieutre 9y ago
AirPods, Gear IconX, etc are the new Bluetooth earpieces
rbritton 9y ago
I vastly prefer the Anker audio quality, but I ran into a situation recently where the Jambox was the only speaker that would work adequately. I purchased a Bluetooth transmitter (the model is not relevant -- all devices I tried behaved the same) that I connected to a streaming audio source (i.e., it can only send data as fast as the audio input is received). Not one modern Bluetooth speaker that I tried, Anker included, was able to play the audio without interruption. Only the Jambox was. My working theory based on my observations of multiple speakers, most of which I returned for refund, is that an internal buffer accounts for the varying perceived connection reliability. The newer speakers were significantly quicker at beginning playing audio after establishing a Bluetooth connection (as observed unscientifically by watching the indicator on the transmitter — all connect using the same audio codec). The Jambox was the slowest by at least a factor of 4-5x. In my theory, this delay was a direct result of a larger audio buffer. In my environment, I believe that 2.4 Ghz interference is a probable culprit. This is a fairly typical suburban neighborhood with most homes containing a dual-band Comcast wireless router. As a result, the 2.4 Ghz spectrum is very crowded, but since I cannot control the channels in use by other people and the fact that Bluetooth is frequency hopping, I can’t work around it.

iamleppert 9y ago

"Jawbone Health is at the forefront of revolutionizing primary care for millions of patients worldwide. Combining more than 20 years of proprietary wearable technology with clinically relevant signals, Jawbone Health connects patients and physicians like never before with continuous, data-driven dialogue." How exactly is a company that just started from the ashes of a glorified bluetooth speaker company revolutionizing primary care medicine? It really bothers me when snake oil tech CEO's spout this kind of rubbish.

charlieflowers 9y ago
Right? I found myself wondering what the wearable technology of 20 years ago really was. A skinny, awkward teen with a 50 pound CRT TV strapped to his back?
- deleted 9y ago
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- icebraining 9y ago
  Twenty years ago we already had PDAs and palmtops. The Atari Portfolio is from '89, and fits in a pocket. That tech was used to create wrist-mounted computers: http://edgarmatias.com/papers/chi96/ http://edgarmatias.com/papers/chi96/ Most weren't commercially viable, but the tech has been around for a long time.

jorgemf 9y ago

A lot of users had to replace their band like 3 or 4 times in the first months. Then the band only last for 6 or 8 months. No business can survive like this.

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EToS 9y ago

Im not surprised tbh, I've had 2 defective Jawbone Up's and the first took approx 12 months for a refund to be issued. Also had a defective jambox product. I think ultimately the product quality was not there, and they got found out in the marketplace.

bigato 9y ago

I just received yesterday a Jawbone UP4 wrist band. I switched it on and it upgraded its own firwmare via cellphone without asking. Now it just doesn't work at all unless it is connected to a usb port or charger. I read through all their support suggestions and tried what was possible to no avail. The "soft reset" and "secondary reset" suggested just doesn't happen; the band leds won't respond as described. Jawbone support is non-existent at this point, and their support web forms won't even work. So I am returning this to Amazon for a refund. Yeah, I should have done some proper research before buying this. Unluckily, this seems to be the only wrist band which have the perfect combination of functionality and form factor that I wanted. I just wanted this to work. And it even works as a NFC payment thing! Only amex though. I'm leaning towards a Fitbit Alta HR now, but I would really prefer it to be discrete and without a display at all.

yock 9y ago
> Yeah, I should have done some proper research before buying this. I could understand this reaction if you were unsatisfied with a frustrating-but-functional experience. Don't beat yourself up too hard for buying something without thoroughly researching whether or not it actually works.

Havoc 9y ago

Not surprised. I'm in the market for a fitness band & the comments & reviews on the jawbone stuff is a blood bath. Sounds like they were shipping a lot of broken stuff. Probably not a very sustainable business model