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If you own a Fitbit (I do), it's great news. Fitbit have done an unmatched job of destroying the device already. I was honestly considering buying a different d
by zamalek 7y ago
If you own a Fitbit (I do), it's great news. Fitbit have done an unmatched job of destroying the device already. I was honestly considering buying a different device already.
They don't support Spotify, or really any music app except the one (which I don't remember). Their subscription service provides no real value at all. Their devices track heart rate and nothing else. They simply don't innovate at all.
- sakopov 7y agoI haven't used Fitbit since the first iteration of the product, but why would you want Spotify on a device that tracks your fitness level?
- kylemuir 7y agoWhen I was big into running I wanted a smart watch that could play my music and connect to my headphones without needing to take my bulky phone with me Other reasons for wanting spotify is a remote control. When I had my pebble and my phone was in my pocket I'd often use it to skip songs, drop the volume a bit, etc without having to pull out my phone each time
- seansmccullough 7y agoIt's really nice to listen to music while running without your phone with an Apple Watch, it would be a really compelling feature for Fitbit to also support this functionality.
- verst 7y agoI'm a marathoner and need to go on long training runs. My Garmin running Watch has music (Spotify) which I can play via Bluetooth. I don't want to carry around a phone during prolonged vigorous exercise. Spotify integration makes a lot of sense for fitness watches.
- megaremote 7y ago> I'm a marathoner Ok, but listening to music is cheating.
- verst 7y agoIt isn't. And I only listen to music during training not races
- zeta0134 7y agoI do not own a Fitbit, but on my older Pebble, the music integration feature allows me to play/pause the music, switch tracks (to skip that one song in the playlist I should really remember to remove), and adjust the volume. When I'm working out or doing yardwork, it's handy to have access to these things on my wristwatch rather than trying to fiddle with the phone in my pocket. It's sounds like the most minor convenience, but I use it all the time. If that were to be limited to only a tiny number of apps (and not the Android bluetooth thing, which picks up whatever happens to be playing; usually VLC in my case, sometimes Spotify) it would be a lot less useful.
- wlesieutre 7y agoI used to have a Pebble and being able to do music control with hardware buttons was great. I could push those buttons through my coat sleeve while wearing gloves.
- aerique 7y agoSuch a loss.
- wlesieutre 7y agoI wonder how technology development would be different if the people designing it lived somewhere with weather
- seltzered_ 7y agoI still use a pebble 2 se, and notably the pairing of music controls and shortcuts is amazing. Without having to look at the screen, sleeves still covering the device, you can: - Hit the back button a couple times to make sure I'm back on the watchface/home screen - Hold down a button to shortcut into an app (e.g. music controls, music boss) - Play/pause, control volume, go forwards/backwards (or 30sec skip in some podcast apps). Hoping I can continue to use the device. Have any competitors come close in matching pebble's button UX?
- 7y ago
- dkonofalski 7y agoAs someone who has owned multiple Fitbit devices that all stopped working within the first year, good riddance. The only thing that's still working is our Aria scale and that's basically worthless now that Fitbit holds that data hostage and you need to use third party apps to sync it with anything useful (like MyFitnessPal, Apple Health, or anything else).
- breck 7y agoThis isn’t correct. Their devices track sleep (amongst other things beyond heart rate), which IMO is the #1 killer app. I have a Versa 2. They support Pandora. I have not tried the subscription yet but plan to. I definitely would like more innovation too, but IMO it’s still the best in class. I switched from the Band after MS discontinued. I had (and returned) an Apple Watch because of lack of good sleep tracking.
- JakeTheAndroid 7y agoYeah, sleep tracking is really the only thing I use mine for to get a decent idea of my cycles and at least understand how long I was sleeping. It's not perfect, but for the price and form factor it's doing an amazing job.
- insulanus 7y agoOh man. I'm definitely on both sides of the fence. After Fitbit bought Pebble, they made the ecosystem poorer. The Pebble tech team was stronger than the team that absorbed them. Fitbit customer service is excellent, but their warranty is bad, and their build quality seems poor. My Fitbit Ionic (about $300) stopped working one month after the 12 month warranty ran out, and they offered me a 20% discount on my next purchase. They haven't lit up the SiO2 sensor on the Ionic after (3?) years. Google is great at a lot of things, but how invested are they in being a supplier of a niche, always connected device that collects personal data every second of the ... Wait a second! Things might be looking up for Fitbit devices! (But maybe not the users)
- e40 7y agoA friend, who got me interested in the devices, had the same issue. His died. Mine, I stopped using, when it detected I was asleep for 3 hours one night and I was definitely up and using my phone for the entire time. The only reason I got it was to monitor my sleep. It is apparently useless for that.
- jjoonathan 7y ago> My Fitbit Ionic (about $300) stopped working one month after the 12 month warranty ran out My Fitbit Ionic stopped working 6 months into the 12 month warranty and they flaked on the warranty anyway. Many Ionics were secretly sold without the manufacturer's warranty. The problem turned out to be a shorted capacitor. My secretly-warranty-less ionic was sold during the Great Capacitor Shortage. Coincidence? Maybe. I doubt we'll ever know. https://photos.app.goo.gl/tpQ8CmtaZjJGCEUo6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/tpQ8CmtaZjJGCEUo6
- wrkronmiller 7y agoHow can a device be sold to an end-user without a warranty? Was the device sold by a third party or something?
- jjoonathan 7y agoYep, I bought it new in a sealed box from an Amazon third party store with prime shipping a week or two after product launch. Fitbit said they "had" to refuse my warranty on account of having purchased the watch from an "unauthorized re-seller" because of clones, but their software already checks serial numbers for duplicates and rejects clones, so that sounds like an excuse. Incidentally, my next watch was a Garmin, and while I tried to buy it from the official Garmin store on Amazon I found a 3rd party store on the receipt, so I contacted Garmin and ask them if this would invalidate my warranty. They said it would not. They made good on that promise two weeks ago when a fatigue crack showed up in the plastic frame. tl;dr Fuck Fitbit, Go Garmin!
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoWhy would one connect a FitBit to Spotify? Honest question.
- RandomBacon 7y agoListen to music with a tempo that matches your workout (heartbeat).
- snazz 7y agoNearly all other products competing in the “smart watch” category allow you to use the watch as a music source for wireless earbuds. It’s a very nice feature if you’re doing some activity where bringing your phone is impractical (like running).
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoMy fitbit stopped charging 3 months after I bought it. It's been collecting dust in the drawer since.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Alupis 7y agoAlso Fitbit still doesn't have support for chest-strap heart rate monitors! They said a long way back they were looking into releasing their own - fine. But still no chest-strap! Chest-strap is required for serious (and safe) training near your peak heart rate - and it's a ton more accurate for regular exercise too. All the other fitness watches support pretty much any chest-strap you can buy. They've standardized... but not Fitbit. Not to mention you still can't export exercise data out of Fitbit. Some apps can send data into Fitbit... but good luck getting things out.
- jschwartzi 7y agoFitbit isn't really made for serious fitness enthusiasts. If you look at its feature set and design, it's trying to give the average person a way to get data about how fit they are in the range between not fit and average. The sleep tracking, water tracking, automatic workout tracking, and other simple features are more for the average person than for a marathon runner. So it doesn't surprise me that they don't support chest straps because most people don't want to do zone training, they just want to know whether they're getting exercise that will EG condition their heart.
- Alupis 7y agoThe problem is, you get a Fitbit as a casual person just getting into exercise - and before you know it, you've outgrown Fitbit! That's not a great business model. They should have devices that either scale with you, or different models with feature-sets that target different ranges of users. The people that are active and stick with fitness tracking are exactly the ones that are most likely to purchase new devices over time - either as replacements or upgrades. Instead, they switch to Garmin or some other more "serious" fitness tracker. That's a crying shame for Fitbit... the original fitness tracker. Supporting chest-straps, or selling their own chest-strap, doesn't mean a casual users needs to buy one. But it does mean a growing serious fitness enthusiast can continue to use Fitbit, buying new devices over time. From my experience, Fitbit still has the most polished App. It's a darn shame you can't get more out of Fitbit devices though.
- burnte 7y agoSpotify literally comes preinstalled on the Versa 2.
- tus88 7y agoSo why is it great if Google destroys it even further? If only by eradicating what privacy you might have left on the device.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- criddell 7y agoI gave up on Fitbit after they made it clear that they won't let users put their data into Apple Health.