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I somehow don't see the fit. Pardon the pun. Their watches though popular are completely self sustained, as in not connected devices. No link to the phone, can

I somehow don't see the fit. Pardon the pun. Their watches though popular are completely self sustained, as in not connected devices. No link to the phone, cannot install Android on them most likely. So they are buying it purely for their experience making watches and not for their products. Also, I wonder how much Google will want to invest in devices that are not connected to their ecosystem and might neglect existing products which will simply dilute the brand. Could be a good thing for Fit though, as I don't see that as a growing business over time.

jplayer01 7y ago
> Their watches though popular are completely self sustained, as in not connected devices. No link to the phone, cannot install Android on them most likely. So they are buying it purely for their experience making watches and not for their products. Either that changes and Fitbit is tied into the ecosystem (which sucks because I like Fitbit as it is), or the brand (and its products die) as the engineers are put to work building something else.
henryfjordan 7y ago
The Versa 2 has bluetooth and talks to a phone. You can see texts and even send them back (though typing is a pain). There's also Alexa in the watch if you care to enable it. That said Google has Android Wear and a whole line of watches already so I also don't see the benefit except to squash some competition.
notatoad 7y ago
>No link to the phone wut? being linked to your phone is literally the whole point of a fitbit. it syncs your recorded fitness data back to the phone, and displays notifications from the phone on your wrist.
soulofmischief 7y ago
I figure they just want the data.
throwaway5752 7y ago
Foothold into wearables market with established brand, manufacturing footprint, and presumably some expertise in regulatory environment. If they can pair with Pixels and stream back raw data, I hear that Google is pretty good with data analysis. Wearables + cloud is in early innings. Apple Watch afib detection is a shiny trinket but, at least to my understand has negligible clinical value in and of itself.
AgloeDreams 7y ago
You are weirdly offbase. Their most popular product, the Versa, is a connected smartwatch. It is absolutely about the brand. Fitbit sells like hotcakes despite that their product is remarkably bad compared to others. (The versa is rather badly rated.) The story here is Google buying them, throwing WearOS on them/a google watch with Fitbit branding, and EOLing the entire Fitbit lineup.
jakobegger 7y ago
My first guess is that this is about data. Fitbit collects a lot of GPS tracks that may be useful for mapping purposes.

jplayer01 7y ago

> Their watches though popular are completely self sustained, as in not connected devices. No link to the phone, cannot install Android on them most likely. So they are buying it purely for their experience making watches and not for their products. Either that changes and Fitbit is tied into the ecosystem (which sucks because I like Fitbit as it is), or the brand (and its products die) as the engineers are put to work building something else.

henryfjordan 7y ago

The Versa 2 has bluetooth and talks to a phone. You can see texts and even send them back (though typing is a pain). There's also Alexa in the watch if you care to enable it. That said Google has Android Wear and a whole line of watches already so I also don't see the benefit except to squash some competition.

notatoad 7y ago

>No link to the phone wut? being linked to your phone is literally the whole point of a fitbit. it syncs your recorded fitness data back to the phone, and displays notifications from the phone on your wrist.

soulofmischief 7y ago

I figure they just want the data.

throwaway5752 7y ago

Foothold into wearables market with established brand, manufacturing footprint, and presumably some expertise in regulatory environment. If they can pair with Pixels and stream back raw data, I hear that Google is pretty good with data analysis. Wearables + cloud is in early innings. Apple Watch afib detection is a shiny trinket but, at least to my understand has negligible clinical value in and of itself.

AgloeDreams 7y ago

You are weirdly offbase. Their most popular product, the Versa, is a connected smartwatch. It is absolutely about the brand. Fitbit sells like hotcakes despite that their product is remarkably bad compared to others. (The versa is rather badly rated.) The story here is Google buying them, throwing WearOS on them/a google watch with Fitbit branding, and EOLing the entire Fitbit lineup.

jakobegger 7y ago

My first guess is that this is about data. Fitbit collects a lot of GPS tracks that may be useful for mapping purposes.