I worked for one of the major fitness apps and we partnered with Intel on a couple integrations years back. I never understood the huge investment in stand alo

I worked for one of the major fitness apps and we partnered with Intel on a couple integrations years back. I never understood the huge investment in stand alone wearables/tech outside of apple/google. The writing was on the wall (for me at least) from day one. It is/was hard enough for a fitness app to breakthrough without adding complex hardware and supply chain to the mix. 1) Hardware unitaskers at scale (not niche/pro markets) do not seem to ever win, platforms do. Why pay $100 for a "connected" pedometer when I can pay $300 for a do-everything watch from a massive established brand. Platforms have the scale to get better and better while everyone else struggles and falls behind. 2) (Real) Retention on fitness wearables in general is terrrrrrible (relative to other products). After about 30 days, the novelty/initial behavior change wears off unless you have a chronic or serious need to track. People may report using them...but getting value is different from "clipping on". tl;dr fitness is fucking hard. 3) I think fitness/health is the killer app. But its a fully commoditized utility by now. Its "contacts" or "notepad" but for tracking...so its not really blowing anyone's mind, its table stakes. And fitness is a "thing I should do" not a "thing I want to do" for most people -uphill behavioral battle vs. e.g. putting an awesome camera in a phone I just have to click to open.