12 ms·

Fitbit Files IPO

115 points by uptown 12y ago

eroo 12y ago
Devices in millions [2011,2014]: 0.2, 1.3, 4.5, 10.9 Revenue in millions [2011,2014[: 14.5, 76.4, 271.1, 745.4 Paid active users in millions [2011,2014]: NULL, 0.6, 2.6, 6.7 I realize they sell more than just pedometers, but their core product is a 3-axis accelerometer that calculates a dubious step count w/o really actionable insights. Imagine what this can be once there start to be useful applications/more of the data.
- readme 12y ago
  The step count is not really dubious. The fitbit app also renders data from the pedometer in a very useful way and enables you to set goals. Fitbit is definitely useful for monitoring activity if your goal is to manage calories in/calories out and keep track of your heatlh.
- mkopinsky 12y ago
  Step counts are fairly accurate. From the Flex less so than their other devices, but still not too bad. Nike Fuelband is pretty bad. Pretty good figures at the link below. Case MA, Burwick HA, Volpp KG, Patel MS. Accuracy of Smartphone Applications and Wearable Devices for Tracking Physical Activity Data. JAMA. 2015;313(6):625-626. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.17841. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2108876 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2108876
- hbhakhra 12y ago
  Believe me, I thought the FitBit was a stupid device when I heard about it, but then I got one for free from work. Having it on your wrist all day and tracking all your activity really did make a difference for me and for my friends that have it - to the point where I convinced friends to get the FitBit. The effectiveness of the FitBit, just by my anecdote, is that it tracks all your steps, even for little things such as walking to the bathroom, and shows you your total activity. Second, is when at the end of the day your are close to your target, its easy to convince yourself to go for a little walk to reach the target. Without tracking, you wouldn't have done that extra walk at night. I do agree with sentiments of others that the lock-in of data is pretty annoying, but the device and app work great for what they do.
  - MBCook 12y ago
    > Second, is when at the end of the day your are close to your target, its easy to convince yourself to go for a little walk to reach the target. Having an external locus of control can make a huge difference for some people when it comes to exercising more or eating better. It helped for me. > ...but the device and app work great for what they do. That was NOT my experience with the app. I think it's pathetic they decided to try to be their own ecosystem instead of being part of HealthKit, but that's not their big sin. In the two or so years I used a Fitbit the app only got worse. Food logging was repeatedly changed, losing features, and getting harder and harder to use. They later changed exercise entry to make it work better for runners and harder for everything else. They took FOREVER to update from iOS 6 style interfaces to iOS 7. But the big thing, the KILLER thing, was that all my data was corrupted by a bug they knew about and refused to fix. There was an option to adjust your daily calorie goals based on activity (or something like that). Having that on used to be the default, but it caused all sorts of problems. I only found that out after noticing tons of my old data had almost exactly the same calorie count each day. Like within 10 calories. After numerous support emails (their support system was terrible) I was finally told to turn that option off. They knew it caused issues, that's why they started turning it off by default. But they didn't tell people who had it on about the issues it caused or detect if they were hitting the bug. They fixed it for new users and left older users screwed. So I have 2+ years of useless fitness data in FitBit. It doesn't matter if it can be exported for free or put in HealthKit, the data is junk. I don't remember having a single positive interaction with FitBit over support or other problems. They were at best neutral. My opinion of them went lower and lower and lower over time.
    - click170 12y ago
      To be fair, they make it nearly impossible to get your data out of their servers to do anything interesting with anyway. Which is another huge failing on their part IMO.
      - mkopinsky 12y ago
        They have a resilient, stable API. We use it for a number of clinical trials evaluating incentives for walking, and it works fairly well. Better than most of their competitors.
- jkestner 12y ago
  As a response to both you and epmatsw, their core product could be their store of data. That's why they're not opening up to HealthKit integration. Granted, they're making their money from hardware as part of a really polished complete experience, and the data is only a moat against customers leaving. But I'd be interested to know how they plan to leverage the data as watches and phones cut off their hardware sales. They could go more pro with sport-specific solutions, or the data could inform a next-generation leap in UI.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  I find the automatic sleep tracking in the charge pretty valuable. And now there is the resting heart rate tracking. Also their step tracking firmware is one of the best. The aria is also useful.
epmatsw 12y ago
I used to be pretty on the FitBit train, but I don't think that I'm in their camp any more. Refusing to integrate with Healthkit, purposefully building their challenges feature to reject data input through their APIs, and charging for access to raw data are enough to ensure that I'll never buy one of their products again. Kind of a shame, their hardware, dashboard, and app are all pretty great :(
- coryl 12y ago
  Isn't Apple also rejecting apps that integrate with "competing devices"?
  - RKearney 12y ago
    No, that is simply not true.
    - djloche 12y ago
      They are, and it's been their policy to do so since Day 1, but they haven't enforced it widely. edit: Clearer: Apps that work with other watch platforms are now in conflict with Apple's policy of not mentioning a competing platform, because now Apple has a watch platform. It makes sense from an Android-iOS sense, because the systems aren't compatible, so no real need to mention it. But if the entire purpose of your app is to connect an iPhone to a watch, your option is the App Store. What will the developers put in the description? "This is an app that connects your iPhone to...well, Apple won't let us tell you! Check out our website to learn more about our app." Apple should update their policies and implementation of such to specify this as "mobile phone platforms".
      - lotso 12y ago
        No, their policy is to reject apps that have an app store description mentioning competing platforms.
        12y ago
walterobm 12y ago
Reading the "Risk Factors" in the From S-1 always proves to be educational. Thanks to the SEC the disclosures tend to be very candid (if not partially shrouded by legalese) and a good indicator of the structural weaknesses of a company. For FitBit the lack of subscription revenue (1% of total), the litigation following product recalls, and the uncertainty from complying with FDA regulations seem particularly noteworthy.
- bgilroy26 12y ago
  + Apple just released a product with similar features https://www.apple.com/watch/technology/ https://www.apple.com/watch/technology/ Ctrl-f 'Accelerometer'
- misteredison12 12y ago
  The problem is competition. FitBit's only hope, in my opinion, is to create an Android-based/compatible multifunction device that becomes the competitor to the Apple Watch.
  - jkestner 12y ago
    On the other hand, they present a cross-platform alternative. I bought Fitbit's scale because it had a Windows Phone app, something that Apple or Samsung won't give me.
    - misteredison12 12y ago
      I just don't think a pedometer gets the job done. I think the winners in this space will be much broader, multifunction devices. Something like I expect to see out of Apple Watch 3.0.
      - jkestner 12y ago
        An interesting comparison is Misfit. They sell pedometers but also offer a free app for Pebble and Apple Watch. How do they intend to make money? Selling Shine to people who are interested in the jewelry aspect? Getting people into their ecosystem and selling them the bed sensor or other future specialized sensors?
djloche 12y ago
2014 was an incredible year for them revenue/profit wise, and the first 3 months are already showing impressive growth. 2013 - 271M revenue, 51M loss. 2014 - 745M revenue, 131M profit. Q1 2014 - 108M revenue, 8M profit. Q1 2015 - 336M revenue, 47M profit. These are fantastic numbers - I don't blame them deciding to go public now.
- misteredison12 12y ago
  The only way an IPO makes sense is if they're going to raise money to compete with the Apple Watch or to move into a completely different product category.
  - Narkov 12y ago
    ...or to get out.
vtail 12y ago
I used to be a Fitbit fan, but now I switched to Garmin Vivofit (and later Vivofit 2) and never looked back. My data is open, I have a battery that lasts a year+(!), a watch and an HR monitor (with a strap) in one device.
- DenisM 12y ago
  That's two devices, not one - a watch, and a strap.
  - vtail 12y ago
    Yes, but everything other than HRM is available in the vivid it itself.
sremani 12y ago
Between Apple Watch from lifestyle perspective and Microsoft Band from fitness functional perspective, FitBit is being squeezed. They can still be profitable, but if Microsoft continues to refine and hone Band, FitBit is in serious trouble.
- ben1040 12y ago
  I'm really curious what the second or third iteration of the MS Band looks like. I tried one on and the whole hw/software combination right now seems like a public beta. But it's showing they've got some really good ideas. What I'd really like is a stress management feature from one of these sensor bands that can glean more info from my daily life. It seems like a perfect fit for MS to look at my Outlook calendar for the day and my heart rate and then point out to me a meeting that may have gotten heated.
- natch 12y ago
  If anything my new watch is making me more open minded about wearing stuff on my wrists. Since the Apple Watch lacks sleep monitoring (of course, since it's off being charged during sleep time), I've been considering buying something that does do sleep monitoring. Point being, the squeeze may go both ways.
- beartime 12y ago
  Like the Zune right? MSFT has no track record in personal hardware, FitBit will eat their lunch
Sirey4 12y ago
Reading through the comment thus far, I'm seeing a lot of negative sentiment towards the product. In the end, the demographic of the type of people on Hacker News is still vastly different from the majority. I don't think it matters that refusing to integrate with Healthkit or rejecting data through their API matters. Check out the App Store. The Fitbit app is usually in the top 100 apps, let alone tops in the health category. Some of you are bringing up the Apple Watch or products from Garmin and such, but again these are completely different. I recently got a Charge HR myself from fitbit and the requirements for me were some base functionality, acceptable battery life, and above all size and lightness. I've had the Charge HR for about 3 months and I hardly notice it except when I'm in competition with friends on the Fitbit app. I've had more than just a handful of friends also getting Fitbits because of the ecosystem. I'm a believer, and barring a ridiculous price after the IPO, I'll likely be an investor.
ucha 12y ago
With revenue tripling every year and projected net income around or over 200M this year, I wouldn't be surprised if Fitbit was valued at a P/E over 50. They would be worth $10+ B which is a huge surprise to say the least.
- snomad 12y ago
  GoPro currently has a P/E of 65. (Somewhat similar in that it is a niche product focused on one activity).
- visarga 12y ago
  They put a product out a little before the curve, but now all cell phones can run accelerometer logs in background and there are more prestigious and advanced smart watches. Maybe if they played nice and opened their API / allowed devs to play with the damn thing, they could compete more with Apple, which does the same for its products.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
_nullandnull_ 12y ago
I'll buy their stock. I have bought four Fitbits for my family and they all love them.
fotbr 12y ago
Having (very briefly) owned a fitbit flex (I think -- it's the one that got recalled for giving people a rash), does anyone know of a similar device with fairly high time resolution, that does NOT require an account, subscription, or connection to a website/service to work? Specifically, something you can pull the data directly off the device in some usable form? OS requirement for the device connection is irrelevant, I've got the common ones (ios, osx, android, windows, linux) covered.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
RossP 12y ago
I like the Fitbit hardware (I use a Surge and love running with it) and their software is decent, but their customer service is atrocious. I found a bug triggered by hitting the "Pause" button during a run. Effectively the device paused on the display, but the underlying data they use to build maps, calculate pace, etc keeps calculating. So if you run for 10 minutes, pause for 10 when you unexpectedly meet a friend, then run for 10 minutes all of your stats are based on a 30-minute run which isn't what most runners are interested in. I documented this in excruciating detail (including showing errors in their .TCX file exports) and sent it off to their helpdesk. First response: "That is a carrier issue, but don't worry we are still counting your steps.". There was no acknowledgement of the content I'd sent or the attachments I'd included. Second response: Insisted it was a carrier or GPS issue, and not a software bug. Third response: They asked me to call their 800-number. After I declined due to being in Australia, they replied and insisted that the call would be free, because it's to an 800-number. Fourth response: THey are "Blessed" I contacted them. No acknowledgement of understanding of my issue. It seems clear that their customer service team are not familiar with day to day use cases of their products, particularly the high-end running watch. The free phone call stuff is amusing but hints at a team that aren't aware of who their customers are. Again, I like my Surge watch and their software is pretty good. Integration to Strava is great. But there's a pretty good chance they'll be overtaken by a future Apple watch with GPS in it. [Edited to be less snarky]
- brlewis 12y ago
  Can you get in touch with me personally? I'd like to escalate your case. At fitbit.com I'm blewis.
  - RossP 12y ago
    Thank you for responding, I've sent through some details about my case.
mikestew 12y ago
I dunno, this kind of reminds me of the Flip video camera. Great little device, inexpensive. I bought one. Shortly after, cell phones became just as capable of being fits-in-a-pocket video recorders. Maybe not HD, but good enough. (Though some would argue cell phones had nothing to do with the demise of Flip. [0]) I see a similar pattern with FitBit. It's a 3-axis accelerometer with some firmware and software. Someone smarter than me could probably get something working in a weekend (though weekend prototype to production is admittedly a long road). Worse, plenty of things have accelerometers in them. My iPhone. Your Samsung phone. My Pebble watch, which uses the Misfit app to count steps and track sleep without requiring that I actually buy a Misfit device. Some garage outfit may not put Fitbit out of business, but larger device manufacturers might be just one software update away from doing so. Fitbit will have to have some serious value-add to stave off competitors, I think. Maybe I'm wrong, probably am. But I won't be buying their stock. [0] http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/the-tragic-death-of-the-flip/?_r=0 http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/the-tragic-death-o...
- BinaryIdiot 12y ago
  If I would have gotten to the comments section before you I would have written your post (though with probably more mistakes). I don't understand what their next device or app is because I can't see them staying and competing for the exact reasons you said. Yet I even use their devices right now. Curious what the future holds for them. I feel like they have to pivot or innovate and I haven't seen any hints of that yet. Then again I could be horribly wrong.
- krschultz 12y ago
  FitBit has a brand. You can't build that in a weekend. In fact, you don't need to build one at all. AliBaba returns over 14k results for "fitness tracker", and I imagine many of them are exact FitBit clones. However, consumer product businesses are about way more than just the product itself. Marketing matters. Distribution matters. Apple bought Beats not because they couldn't create headphones, but because they wanted the brand. FitBit is Beats for "3-axis accelerometers with some firmware and software that you wear around your wrist".
ejain 12y ago
So they want to raise $100M, but the more interesting question is at what valuation?
swagmeister 12y ago
Fitbit is now the underdog. I'm excited to see where this ends up now that the market is willing to give them cash to fight Apple, Google, and Microsoft
pinaceae 12y ago
FitBit is to Apple Watch/Android Wear as TomTom/Garmin is to Smartphones with GPS. They're fucked, erm, 'disrupted'.
visarga 12y ago
Are they still here? My FitBit is almost useless for me. It rots in a drawer. When I bought it I had trouble using it with my Samsung S4 - unsupported phone because Bluetooth something yada yada. Maybe they evolved since. Their website was ugly and hard to use. Their apps too, and they banned specific phone models and countries from installing the app. Very vexing to be left out on purpose, after buying the damned thing. Sleep tracking? I had to TELL it when I went to sleep and woke up (the magical five-times-tapping). So, basically, it's the same thing I could do with a notepad and a pen on the nightstand. I use my phone to track my calories since.
- dokuda 12y ago
  > it's the same thing I could do with a notepad and a pen on the nightstand. I think you might have misunderstood the sleep tracking feature. It also tracks when you're awake or restless while you're sleeping so you can understand if you slept well or not. Last time I checked, my notepad and pen didn't do that.
  - visarga 12y ago
    True, about tracking agitation during sleep.
cdcarter 12y ago
Many of the comments on this thread have been about their Surge product and comparisons to the Apple Watch. Though the Surge is their "flagship", in reality I see the One and Zip a LOT more. For people who aren't interested in a smart-watch or wearable (and believe me, there are many people who don't believe in the value of one yet) the Fitbit One fills a great market between a high end fitness tracker, and a cheap free pedometer that you got from work.
source99 12y ago
Can someone explain the purpose of step counting? From all the academic research I have seen regarding nutrition and exercise getting a few thousand extra steps will have no meaningful affect on your weight and health. Is the pedometer really just a psychological trick to get people thinking about their weight and health more often which leads to people actually eating less?
- ejain 12y ago
  It is a "psychological trick", especially when combined with other incentives like badges, leaderboards or rewards. Keep in mind that many people struggle to get even a few thousand steps. Beyond that, it's a great status symbol, or at least it was, until the Apple Watch came out :-) Also, the data can be interesting, both for researchers, and for yourself--if you're the kind of person who wonders e.g. if getting a lot of steps late in the evening rather than in the morning affects your sleep...
wrd 12y ago
When it comes down to it the wearable fitness tracker market has essentially no barrier to entry. Can someone else make a similar device? Yes. Is there any reason someone has to use FitBit? No. Can someone else operate more efficiently? Probably. Does another company out there in the same space have better customer loyalty than FitBit? For sure. This all spells major trouble for FitBit. Apple could easily achieve a much better economy of scale than FitBit and in the long run win a war of attrition. Even if Apple doesn't succeed in this space, the fact that the barriers to entry are low suggests that FitBit will never be wildly profitable. Any competitive advantage it currently has will not last.
jeremiahlee 12y ago
To all the commenters using intraCapitalization: it's "Fitbit" not "FitBit".

115 points by uptown 12y ago

eroo 12y ago

Devices in millions [2011,2014]: 0.2, 1.3, 4.5, 10.9 Revenue in millions [2011,2014[: 14.5, 76.4, 271.1, 745.4 Paid active users in millions [2011,2014]: NULL, 0.6, 2.6, 6.7 I realize they sell more than just pedometers, but their core product is a 3-axis accelerometer that calculates a dubious step count w/o really actionable insights. Imagine what this can be once there start to be useful applications/more of the data.

readme 12y ago
The step count is not really dubious. The fitbit app also renders data from the pedometer in a very useful way and enables you to set goals. Fitbit is definitely useful for monitoring activity if your goal is to manage calories in/calories out and keep track of your heatlh.
mkopinsky 12y ago
Step counts are fairly accurate. From the Flex less so than their other devices, but still not too bad. Nike Fuelband is pretty bad. Pretty good figures at the link below. Case MA, Burwick HA, Volpp KG, Patel MS. Accuracy of Smartphone Applications and Wearable Devices for Tracking Physical Activity Data. JAMA. 2015;313(6):625-626. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.17841. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2108876 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2108876
hbhakhra 12y ago
Believe me, I thought the FitBit was a stupid device when I heard about it, but then I got one for free from work. Having it on your wrist all day and tracking all your activity really did make a difference for me and for my friends that have it - to the point where I convinced friends to get the FitBit. The effectiveness of the FitBit, just by my anecdote, is that it tracks all your steps, even for little things such as walking to the bathroom, and shows you your total activity. Second, is when at the end of the day your are close to your target, its easy to convince yourself to go for a little walk to reach the target. Without tracking, you wouldn't have done that extra walk at night. I do agree with sentiments of others that the lock-in of data is pretty annoying, but the device and app work great for what they do.
- MBCook 12y ago
  > Second, is when at the end of the day your are close to your target, its easy to convince yourself to go for a little walk to reach the target. Having an external locus of control can make a huge difference for some people when it comes to exercising more or eating better. It helped for me. > ...but the device and app work great for what they do. That was NOT my experience with the app. I think it's pathetic they decided to try to be their own ecosystem instead of being part of HealthKit, but that's not their big sin. In the two or so years I used a Fitbit the app only got worse. Food logging was repeatedly changed, losing features, and getting harder and harder to use. They later changed exercise entry to make it work better for runners and harder for everything else. They took FOREVER to update from iOS 6 style interfaces to iOS 7. But the big thing, the KILLER thing, was that all my data was corrupted by a bug they knew about and refused to fix. There was an option to adjust your daily calorie goals based on activity (or something like that). Having that on used to be the default, but it caused all sorts of problems. I only found that out after noticing tons of my old data had almost exactly the same calorie count each day. Like within 10 calories. After numerous support emails (their support system was terrible) I was finally told to turn that option off. They knew it caused issues, that's why they started turning it off by default. But they didn't tell people who had it on about the issues it caused or detect if they were hitting the bug. They fixed it for new users and left older users screwed. So I have 2+ years of useless fitness data in FitBit. It doesn't matter if it can be exported for free or put in HealthKit, the data is junk. I don't remember having a single positive interaction with FitBit over support or other problems. They were at best neutral. My opinion of them went lower and lower and lower over time.
  - click170 12y ago
    To be fair, they make it nearly impossible to get your data out of their servers to do anything interesting with anyway. Which is another huge failing on their part IMO.
    - mkopinsky 12y ago
      They have a resilient, stable API. We use it for a number of clinical trials evaluating incentives for walking, and it works fairly well. Better than most of their competitors.
jkestner 12y ago
As a response to both you and epmatsw, their core product could be their store of data. That's why they're not opening up to HealthKit integration. Granted, they're making their money from hardware as part of a really polished complete experience, and the data is only a moat against customers leaving. But I'd be interested to know how they plan to leverage the data as watches and phones cut off their hardware sales. They could go more pro with sport-specific solutions, or the data could inform a next-generation leap in UI.
mahyarm 12y ago
I find the automatic sleep tracking in the charge pretty valuable. And now there is the resting heart rate tracking. Also their step tracking firmware is one of the best. The aria is also useful.

epmatsw 12y ago

I used to be pretty on the FitBit train, but I don't think that I'm in their camp any more. Refusing to integrate with Healthkit, purposefully building their challenges feature to reject data input through their APIs, and charging for access to raw data are enough to ensure that I'll never buy one of their products again. Kind of a shame, their hardware, dashboard, and app are all pretty great :(

coryl 12y ago
Isn't Apple also rejecting apps that integrate with "competing devices"?
- RKearney 12y ago
  No, that is simply not true.
  - djloche 12y ago
    They are, and it's been their policy to do so since Day 1, but they haven't enforced it widely. edit: Clearer: Apps that work with other watch platforms are now in conflict with Apple's policy of not mentioning a competing platform, because now Apple has a watch platform. It makes sense from an Android-iOS sense, because the systems aren't compatible, so no real need to mention it. But if the entire purpose of your app is to connect an iPhone to a watch, your option is the App Store. What will the developers put in the description? "This is an app that connects your iPhone to...well, Apple won't let us tell you! Check out our website to learn more about our app." Apple should update their policies and implementation of such to specify this as "mobile phone platforms".
    - lotso 12y ago
      No, their policy is to reject apps that have an app store description mentioning competing platforms.
      - 12y ago

walterobm 12y ago

Reading the "Risk Factors" in the From S-1 always proves to be educational. Thanks to the SEC the disclosures tend to be very candid (if not partially shrouded by legalese) and a good indicator of the structural weaknesses of a company. For FitBit the lack of subscription revenue (1% of total), the litigation following product recalls, and the uncertainty from complying with FDA regulations seem particularly noteworthy.

bgilroy26 12y ago
+ Apple just released a product with similar features https://www.apple.com/watch/technology/ https://www.apple.com/watch/technology/ Ctrl-f 'Accelerometer'
misteredison12 12y ago
The problem is competition. FitBit's only hope, in my opinion, is to create an Android-based/compatible multifunction device that becomes the competitor to the Apple Watch.
- jkestner 12y ago
  On the other hand, they present a cross-platform alternative. I bought Fitbit's scale because it had a Windows Phone app, something that Apple or Samsung won't give me.
  - misteredison12 12y ago
    I just don't think a pedometer gets the job done. I think the winners in this space will be much broader, multifunction devices. Something like I expect to see out of Apple Watch 3.0.
    - jkestner 12y ago
      An interesting comparison is Misfit. They sell pedometers but also offer a free app for Pebble and Apple Watch. How do they intend to make money? Selling Shine to people who are interested in the jewelry aspect? Getting people into their ecosystem and selling them the bed sensor or other future specialized sensors?

djloche 12y ago

2014 was an incredible year for them revenue/profit wise, and the first 3 months are already showing impressive growth. 2013 - 271M revenue, 51M loss. 2014 - 745M revenue, 131M profit. Q1 2014 - 108M revenue, 8M profit. Q1 2015 - 336M revenue, 47M profit. These are fantastic numbers - I don't blame them deciding to go public now.

misteredison12 12y ago
The only way an IPO makes sense is if they're going to raise money to compete with the Apple Watch or to move into a completely different product category.
- Narkov 12y ago
  ...or to get out.

vtail 12y ago

I used to be a Fitbit fan, but now I switched to Garmin Vivofit (and later Vivofit 2) and never looked back. My data is open, I have a battery that lasts a year+(!), a watch and an HR monitor (with a strap) in one device.

DenisM 12y ago
That's two devices, not one - a watch, and a strap.
- vtail 12y ago
  Yes, but everything other than HRM is available in the vivid it itself.

sremani 12y ago

Between Apple Watch from lifestyle perspective and Microsoft Band from fitness functional perspective, FitBit is being squeezed. They can still be profitable, but if Microsoft continues to refine and hone Band, FitBit is in serious trouble.

ben1040 12y ago
I'm really curious what the second or third iteration of the MS Band looks like. I tried one on and the whole hw/software combination right now seems like a public beta. But it's showing they've got some really good ideas. What I'd really like is a stress management feature from one of these sensor bands that can glean more info from my daily life. It seems like a perfect fit for MS to look at my Outlook calendar for the day and my heart rate and then point out to me a meeting that may have gotten heated.
natch 12y ago
If anything my new watch is making me more open minded about wearing stuff on my wrists. Since the Apple Watch lacks sleep monitoring (of course, since it's off being charged during sleep time), I've been considering buying something that does do sleep monitoring. Point being, the squeeze may go both ways.
beartime 12y ago
Like the Zune right? MSFT has no track record in personal hardware, FitBit will eat their lunch

Sirey4 12y ago

Reading through the comment thus far, I'm seeing a lot of negative sentiment towards the product. In the end, the demographic of the type of people on Hacker News is still vastly different from the majority. I don't think it matters that refusing to integrate with Healthkit or rejecting data through their API matters. Check out the App Store. The Fitbit app is usually in the top 100 apps, let alone tops in the health category. Some of you are bringing up the Apple Watch or products from Garmin and such, but again these are completely different. I recently got a Charge HR myself from fitbit and the requirements for me were some base functionality, acceptable battery life, and above all size and lightness. I've had the Charge HR for about 3 months and I hardly notice it except when I'm in competition with friends on the Fitbit app. I've had more than just a handful of friends also getting Fitbits because of the ecosystem. I'm a believer, and barring a ridiculous price after the IPO, I'll likely be an investor.

ucha 12y ago

With revenue tripling every year and projected net income around or over 200M this year, I wouldn't be surprised if Fitbit was valued at a P/E over 50. They would be worth $10+ B which is a huge surprise to say the least.

snomad 12y ago
GoPro currently has a P/E of 65. (Somewhat similar in that it is a niche product focused on one activity).
visarga 12y ago
They put a product out a little before the curve, but now all cell phones can run accelerometer logs in background and there are more prestigious and advanced smart watches. Maybe if they played nice and opened their API / allowed devs to play with the damn thing, they could compete more with Apple, which does the same for its products.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

_nullandnull_ 12y ago

I'll buy their stock. I have bought four Fitbits for my family and they all love them.

fotbr 12y ago

Having (very briefly) owned a fitbit flex (I think -- it's the one that got recalled for giving people a rash), does anyone know of a similar device with fairly high time resolution, that does NOT require an account, subscription, or connection to a website/service to work? Specifically, something you can pull the data directly off the device in some usable form? OS requirement for the device connection is irrelevant, I've got the common ones (ios, osx, android, windows, linux) covered.

deleted 12y ago
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RossP 12y ago

I like the Fitbit hardware (I use a Surge and love running with it) and their software is decent, but their customer service is atrocious. I found a bug triggered by hitting the "Pause" button during a run. Effectively the device paused on the display, but the underlying data they use to build maps, calculate pace, etc keeps calculating. So if you run for 10 minutes, pause for 10 when you unexpectedly meet a friend, then run for 10 minutes all of your stats are based on a 30-minute run which isn't what most runners are interested in. I documented this in excruciating detail (including showing errors in their .TCX file exports) and sent it off to their helpdesk. First response: "That is a carrier issue, but don't worry we are still counting your steps.". There was no acknowledgement of the content I'd sent or the attachments I'd included. Second response: Insisted it was a carrier or GPS issue, and not a software bug. Third response: They asked me to call their 800-number. After I declined due to being in Australia, they replied and insisted that the call would be free, because it's to an 800-number. Fourth response: THey are "Blessed" I contacted them. No acknowledgement of understanding of my issue. It seems clear that their customer service team are not familiar with day to day use cases of their products, particularly the high-end running watch. The free phone call stuff is amusing but hints at a team that aren't aware of who their customers are. Again, I like my Surge watch and their software is pretty good. Integration to Strava is great. But there's a pretty good chance they'll be overtaken by a future Apple watch with GPS in it. [Edited to be less snarky]

brlewis 12y ago
Can you get in touch with me personally? I'd like to escalate your case. At fitbit.com I'm blewis.
- RossP 12y ago
  Thank you for responding, I've sent through some details about my case.

mikestew 12y ago

I dunno, this kind of reminds me of the Flip video camera. Great little device, inexpensive. I bought one. Shortly after, cell phones became just as capable of being fits-in-a-pocket video recorders. Maybe not HD, but good enough. (Though some would argue cell phones had nothing to do with the demise of Flip. [0]) I see a similar pattern with FitBit. It's a 3-axis accelerometer with some firmware and software. Someone smarter than me could probably get something working in a weekend (though weekend prototype to production is admittedly a long road). Worse, plenty of things have accelerometers in them. My iPhone. Your Samsung phone. My Pebble watch, which uses the Misfit app to count steps and track sleep without requiring that I actually buy a Misfit device. Some garage outfit may not put Fitbit out of business, but larger device manufacturers might be just one software update away from doing so. Fitbit will have to have some serious value-add to stave off competitors, I think. Maybe I'm wrong, probably am. But I won't be buying their stock. [0] http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/the-tragic-death-of-the-flip/?_r=0 http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/the-tragic-death-o...

BinaryIdiot 12y ago
If I would have gotten to the comments section before you I would have written your post (though with probably more mistakes). I don't understand what their next device or app is because I can't see them staying and competing for the exact reasons you said. Yet I even use their devices right now. Curious what the future holds for them. I feel like they have to pivot or innovate and I haven't seen any hints of that yet. Then again I could be horribly wrong.
krschultz 12y ago
FitBit has a brand. You can't build that in a weekend. In fact, you don't need to build one at all. AliBaba returns over 14k results for "fitness tracker", and I imagine many of them are exact FitBit clones. However, consumer product businesses are about way more than just the product itself. Marketing matters. Distribution matters. Apple bought Beats not because they couldn't create headphones, but because they wanted the brand. FitBit is Beats for "3-axis accelerometers with some firmware and software that you wear around your wrist".

ejain 12y ago

So they want to raise $100M, but the more interesting question is at what valuation?

swagmeister 12y ago

Fitbit is now the underdog. I'm excited to see where this ends up now that the market is willing to give them cash to fight Apple, Google, and Microsoft

pinaceae 12y ago

FitBit is to Apple Watch/Android Wear as TomTom/Garmin is to Smartphones with GPS. They're fucked, erm, 'disrupted'.

visarga 12y ago

Are they still here? My FitBit is almost useless for me. It rots in a drawer. When I bought it I had trouble using it with my Samsung S4 - unsupported phone because Bluetooth something yada yada. Maybe they evolved since. Their website was ugly and hard to use. Their apps too, and they banned specific phone models and countries from installing the app. Very vexing to be left out on purpose, after buying the damned thing. Sleep tracking? I had to TELL it when I went to sleep and woke up (the magical five-times-tapping). So, basically, it's the same thing I could do with a notepad and a pen on the nightstand. I use my phone to track my calories since.

dokuda 12y ago
> it's the same thing I could do with a notepad and a pen on the nightstand. I think you might have misunderstood the sleep tracking feature. It also tracks when you're awake or restless while you're sleeping so you can understand if you slept well or not. Last time I checked, my notepad and pen didn't do that.
- visarga 12y ago
  True, about tracking agitation during sleep.

cdcarter 12y ago

Many of the comments on this thread have been about their Surge product and comparisons to the Apple Watch. Though the Surge is their "flagship", in reality I see the One and Zip a LOT more. For people who aren't interested in a smart-watch or wearable (and believe me, there are many people who don't believe in the value of one yet) the Fitbit One fills a great market between a high end fitness tracker, and a cheap free pedometer that you got from work.

source99 12y ago

Can someone explain the purpose of step counting? From all the academic research I have seen regarding nutrition and exercise getting a few thousand extra steps will have no meaningful affect on your weight and health. Is the pedometer really just a psychological trick to get people thinking about their weight and health more often which leads to people actually eating less?

ejain 12y ago
It is a "psychological trick", especially when combined with other incentives like badges, leaderboards or rewards. Keep in mind that many people struggle to get even a few thousand steps. Beyond that, it's a great status symbol, or at least it was, until the Apple Watch came out :-) Also, the data can be interesting, both for researchers, and for yourself--if you're the kind of person who wonders e.g. if getting a lot of steps late in the evening rather than in the morning affects your sleep...

wrd 12y ago

When it comes down to it the wearable fitness tracker market has essentially no barrier to entry. Can someone else make a similar device? Yes. Is there any reason someone has to use FitBit? No. Can someone else operate more efficiently? Probably. Does another company out there in the same space have better customer loyalty than FitBit? For sure. This all spells major trouble for FitBit. Apple could easily achieve a much better economy of scale than FitBit and in the long run win a war of attrition. Even if Apple doesn't succeed in this space, the fact that the barriers to entry are low suggests that FitBit will never be wildly profitable. Any competitive advantage it currently has will not last.

jeremiahlee 12y ago

To all the commenters using intraCapitalization: it's "Fitbit" not "FitBit".