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Comment by experimentsin | Hacker News Reader

I note this from Pebble's developer blog, suggesting that a Fitbit-targeting successor to Pebble's app SDK may be a big part of the plan:

"Although this chapter in Pebble’s developer story is closing, our team and ethos have found a new, welcoming home at Fitbit. We can’t wait to have you alongside us for this next adventure. Third-party Pebble developers have a massive opportunity to drive how a Fitbit developer ecosystem will take shape. We hope you’re as excited about seizing this opportunity as we are.

Over the coming months we will be working closely with our new friends at Fitbit, building the foundation for the next great wearable experiences. We want you—our fantastic developer community—to keep playing a crucial role in our success. More information will follow soon, so stay tuned!"

https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2016/12/06/developer-commu...

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This sound like typical post-acquihire PR bullshit. New 'exciting opportunities' and 'building the foundation for the next great wearable experience' does not in any way imply that any useful thing resembling a smartwatch will be created. It doesn't imply there will be a developer-friendly platform.

Nor does this message actually make sense. "We want you—our fantastic developer community—to keep playing a crucial role in our success." There is no "us" and "our success" - they just got bought by another company and are shutting down the whole product line. They are literally a different entity now.

> This sound like typical post-acquihire PR bullshit.

Maybe, but of the major players in the smartwatch or not-quite-dumb fitness tracker markets Fitbit is notable in not supporting any kind of app/face ecosystem. Obviously there's a ton of stuff for the true "smartwatches" from Apple and the assorted Android Wear stuff, there's Garmin with ConnectIQ, the now-defunct Microsoft Band had an SDK for developing Tiles, and then there were Fitbit, Jawbone, whoever made those Bluetooth-connected bands that Aldi had one week, etc. with fitness trackers that have some predefined screens.

Purchasing the IP and hiring a bunch of the software developers from Pebble lets Fitbit probably cut 2 years off of the development timeframe for them to have devices with changeable apps and an ecosystem that lets them have third-party developers. They could undoubtedly get something out faster, but it'd be an immature product and would probably take them another year before it could really be considered good.

I fully expect to see a lot of the Pebble code to make it into Fitbit devices - probably not for a year or more unless they can do some things with the existing hardware, but a lot faster like this than by trying to staff up from elsewhere and develop it all in-house.

No argument over the phrasing. However, an evolution of the Fitbit Blaze device platform hooked up to something inspired by the CloudPebble online SDK doesn't seem implausible.

Given my experience with technology companies (especially startups) so far, I don't really expect that to happen. Though it would be very nice.

I'm trying to figure out if this means "wait for something exiting from fitbit" or "start boycotting fitbit now".

Ideas?

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