What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble | Hacker News Reader

What Hardware startups can learn from Pebble

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93 pointskNawade46 comments

Everybody is claiming that the focus on fitness is what drives smartwatches purchases, and pebble was just too late to it.

Is it just me that stopped looking into smartwatches because they became too fitness oriented?

I loved the focus on productivity and having a watch becoming slower because it had to track an increasing number of health metrics I couldn't care less of actually killed it for me.

Fitness is an early-adopter market too. It's worked better because fitness nuts are incredibly passionate early adopters - build something that appeals to them and you get rapid uptake. But they're still quite limited in number, and that's eventually going to prove problematic for hardware startups that target them, at least if they're funded and burn cash as if they're a mainstream product. We saw Go-Pro hit the wall in mid-2015; Fitbit is next.

I own both an Apple Watch and a Moto 360, and I was really hoping to see the smartwatch market take off - enough that I wasted a year or so on app development for it. IMHO, the problem is that the "whole product" isn't there yet. I think the killer apps for smartwatches will actually be in logistics: replace managers & foremen with software, which interfaces with the line workers via smartwatch. The beauty of a smartwatch in this situation is that you can be doing other stuff with your hands, which you can't do with a phone. Imagine, for example, a retail store with no employees, where you walk in and your watch guides you to the items of interest, displays prices as you try out items, and then lets you check-out by tapping your wristwatch and having it instantly charge your credit card. Or a restaurant where the waiters know instantly when a table is waiting, and never mess up an order.

But that isn't a smartwatch app, that's a complete value chain, and building out the customer relationships and back-end software is non-trivial, probably the majority of the work. Nobody's done it yet, and probably nobody's going to do it until you get a critical mass of customers with smartwatches, so there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.

Please let people work where they're good at: Communicating with people. No need for smart-anything here.

Most people are terrible at communicating with other people. Hell, I suspect that pretty much all of the appeal of the gig economy (from the worker side) is that you don't need to deal with a boss.

I'd go one step further: the pivot to fitness is what killed Pebble.

Pebble's first KS campaign resulted in $10MM in pledges. The second campaign resulted in $20MM. The third campaign resulted in $10MM.

The second campaign revamped the interface and added capabilities for voice input and other "productivity" features. The third campaign added a heartrate monitor, more fitness features and the Core, a separate device specifically targeted at runners.

Also, Pebble only started bleeding money in 2015, which would presumably be when the pivot to fitness started. Pebble had lost the "innovation" advantage to Apple (and the various Android Wear devices that had sprung up before) but had evidently carved out its own highly successful niche.

It's the typical startup problem: they were brilliant at one thing and all their users loved them, but that was too small a niche to justify their investments so they had to expand or pivot and died in the ocean instead of succeeding as a big fish in a small pond.

Don't you think the fact that their product didn't live up to their own hype was the reason their subsequent campaigns didn't product sufficient funding?

Even before they slinked out of the industry their product won't connect properly to iOS.

I think your glowing characterization that their users "loved them" was overblown.

I never had any problems with the Pebble Time and every Pebble user I talked to was very happy with them. Though I have to admit I think most people I talked to were using Android phones, so maybe it's not representative?

I'm in the same boat as you.

I love my Pebbles, but the lack of good basic apps was always a struggle. I use PowerNoter to pull to do lists from Evernote, which is fine -- but not always reliable.

It's a shame to see them go. Everyone I know with Pebbles love them, but they tend to be more technical users who wouldn't get stressed over a few bugs.

All I really want from a smart watch are:

- notifications (of my choosing) - some sort of note / to-do app - multiple timers, alarms, etc - music / media control (even with a companion app) - customizable 'do' button (similar to what IFTTT offers)

Most of these were available in some form, but these should have been released by Pebble themselves as stock apps.

The Pebble Classic v1 did not ship with a lot of functionality for notifications, music and alarm (I remember needing Music Boss for a while), but later on I got all three working (it was permission related). The notifications can be customised. Firmware also did extend such features at the price of less uptime (mine went from 7 to about 3 days).

The lack of a to-do app is a huge one for me. Why? Because the use case of using a smartwatch with a grocery store list is huge for me. I'd use it twice a week, at the very least. Replacing the screen on my phone sets me back 85 EUR. A Pebble cost me ~115 EUR (including duties & S&H). And with all the kids and perky people in the grocery store the question isn't if my phone is gonna drop, its when. It is just so unfortunate that Google Keep doesn't have a public API. There also isn't an abstraction layer for to-do lists (I, for one, am not going to pay for a subscription app like Evernote with a cloud based in US). Preferably I'd self host, and gladly pay a one time fee for such an app.

> Everyone I know with Pebbles love them, but they tend to be more technical users who wouldn't get stressed over a few bugs.

Yeah, that and lack of apps/features perhaps makes the device just not user friendly enough. You can't sell that if you focus on productivity, but you can mask it if you're going for fitness.

There is a keep for pebble that was developed for a while [0]. The developer released the source code, so perhaps it can be modified to work with a custom note API. It still works for me on the original pebble with latest firmware and shopping is the primary reason I still use it.

There is also WatchNote [1] (no longer developed) and Infinite Notes [2].

[0] https://forums.pebble.com/t/android-root-keep-for-pebble-dis... [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.geekasmus.w... [2] https://infnotes.hern.as/#/

Thanks for thinking along, FWIW I hope it may inspire other readers as well. I was aware of option #0 and #1. #0 made me give up -eventually, after retrying- since it requires root because Google Keep has no public API. This is also why I was puzzled #1 claimed it did work (it didn't).

0) Keep for Pebble requires root (root is area 51 for me) 1) WatchNote never worked for me (only sortof, via Evernote, very buggy) 2) Infinite Notes doesn't use Google Keep (offline is nice though since I regularly lose internet access in the grocery store). 3) PowerNoter doesn't use Google Keep (voice command is interesting, but my shopping list isn't saved in English)

Perhaps I should ditch Google Keep as requirement, but the missus is very accustomed to that and doesn't tolerate yet another piece of software for grocery shopping.

What productivity thing would you use a smartwatch for?

I got a Pebble as a hackathon prize and tried to use it for a while, but I wasn't able to find a use for it that I didn't already do with my smartphone, which you must take with you anyways if you have a Pebble. So I'm really curious.

The benefit of the Pebble was that you could get basic information (notifications, notes, time, alarms, etc) without having to reach for your phone. I found it perfect for meetings where I didn't want the client to feel like I was tight on time or rushing things, even if I had to.

It seems silly, but the multiple timers were especially useful for cooking large dinners.

Overall, the Pebble was great because it had fantastic battery life and provided information silently without you having to interrupt a conversation by reaching for a larger device.

>I found it perfect for meetings where I didn't want the client to feel like I was tight on time or rushing things, even if I had to.

Ah, this seems good. Socially acceptable information-checking. I'll keep this in mind as a use for smartwatches, even though I don't need it (yet?).

>It seems silly, but the multiple timers were especially useful for cooking large dinners.

You could also set the phone on a surface somewhere and have multiple timers on it, but I see how carrying them on your wrist makes them more convenient.

Thanks for writing this :)

The vibration is the key for me.

I first got the Pebble because I wanted to know who was calling or texting me while I was on my bike around town. Over the next few years the other features became part of my daily habits. Simple things like responding to texts with canned messages (e.g. 'Ten minutes away' or 'I'll call you in five') allowed me to take a relaxing ride without stressing about missing an important call or message.

My experience is similar to the days before I got a smartphone -- that 'pfft... I don't need that. I can do that when I get back to my desk.'

A subtle point here for me was that I found the vibration of the Pebble v.1 to still be rather loud and to draw the attention of anyone near me to my wrist. It's rarely mentioned, but I think the biggest feature upgrade when I moved on to the Apple Watch was how subtle the "tap" vibration was. It means that I am unfailingly aware of a notification, timer, or alarm firing, and a person I am in conversation with is never aware that it happened. The ability for it to deliver different patterns of taps is also nice, for instance, turn left or turn right are recognizably different tap patterns when using the watch for navigation.

> I found it perfect for meetings where I didn't want the client to feel like I was tight on time or rushing things, even if I had to.

It's funny to read that, because in my culture looking at your watch is a sign of "let's finish" or "I'm in a hurry", while briefly looking at the phone is perfectly acceptable.

But I admit, that people with smartwatches confuse me from time to time, when they look at their watch frequently and are not in a hurry :)

that's the beauty of the vibration. You don't need to look at your watch to get a fifteen minute warning (or whatever you've set it to). The buzz is silent to others, but enough that you'll recognize it.

In my experience, the only silent 'buzz' is from my apple watch - and that's probably because it's not a buzz. My pebble and martian watches both had loud, obnoxious vibrations that were no better in many quiet situations than a beep would have been.

Apple's decision to put so much work in to the 'taptic engine' was a smart one IMHO - wearing any other smart watch now feels like having a moto razr strapped to my wrist when it vibrates.

I bought an original Pebble and wore it 24/7 for a while, tracking my sleep. What I found amusing was that I didn't find the sleep tracking all that useful, nor the notifications and apps - but having a very small LED torch on my wrist which lit up with a wrist-flick was incredibly useful when quietly navigating a dark apartment at night!

If I were building my own smartwatch, I'd give it a bright gesture-activated LED light aimed at my fingers.

In general though, I liked the Pebble, but didn't find it useful. I gave it to my partner, who's a horticulturist and spends a lot of time up to his wrists in soil - he loved it because it let him figure out which notifications were important enough to clean off his hands and pull out his phone, and which could be ignored.

Productivity wise it was mainly good at prioritizing incoming information and calendars.

You can set the pebble to only notify on emails from a particular filter/tag/sender which was great for alerting you to time sensitive emails in meetings and the lab when your hands are full.

Ditto for calendar alerts.

Customizable canned messages were great for this as well.

No I'm not saying it was the perfect productivity tool before. But, of many uses, the only one I was looking up to, was to perfect productivity in some way. I feel that path was dropped too soon.

Same here. I actually chose Pebble as my "brand" explicitly because it was a tool first, and initially had none of the bullshit fitness focus. I was a tad disappointed when they later started focusing their marketing efforts on fitness crowd, but thought - hey, maybe that's what they need to survive/grow. I guess it wasn't enough.

I'm painfully aware I'm too nerdy a person and don't fit well on the market. Shiny toys that provide little utility just don't appear to me. I guess the only way to get a smartwatch I want is to sit down and finally go through that The Art of Electronics 3rd Edition, and then build one myself.

You are not alone. Pebble just forgot their history and got greedy. I wished they just worked on efficiently reading messages, replying. Got the basics right.

> Is it just me that stopped looking into smartwatches because they became too fitness oriented?

What would really matter is some kind of market research. Did Pebble do those? Or did they just follow Apple/Fitbit and bet on the wrong horse? Did they bet on the wrong horse?

> I loved the focus on productivity and having a watch becoming slower because it had to track an increasing number of health metrics I couldn't care less of actually killed it for me.

You appear to assume the two are mutually exclusive. You know you can put off the fit part of the Pebble?

As for the article, the graph backs up what I concluded reading the previous threads:

1) The Pebbles were relatively cheap with low profit margin. (early Kickstarter adopters got the device a bit cheaper than the final price)

2) Pebble did not yield enough volume in sales.

3) People don't buy a new Pebble every year.

4) No resale value (like Apple devices do have).

Add to that

5) Profit margins are much higher for expensive, luxury products.

6) Not deep enough pockets to sustain (other companies have their smartwatch dept on 'life support').

7) Due to its immaturity the smartwatch cannot replace the smartphone as of yet, nor can any other portable device of similar size (ie. a "Google Glass").

8) A perceived 'fitness' niche puts the smartwatch in the position of complimenting the smartphone instead of replacing it. This is only short term beneficial.

9) Is there even a market for a low power, high uptime (juice-wise) smartwatch? Do customers complain they need to refuel every day? How important is it? I'd like to compare this to the zealotry Apple put in size of the MBP, sacrificing horsepower (RAM, battery power, ability to replace hardware such as RAM/battery/SSD) and the quality of the keyboard. This while they already had a brand where size mattered over horsepower; the Air.

Whatever the job is the majority of consumers hire a smartwatch to do is what companies should focus on. Turns out most are interested in hiring a smartwatch to do fitness jobs.

Even if you're not the only one, it might not be a big enough market to get the economies of scale required to turn a startup into a mass-market business

Absolutely true.

But it might also be evidence of how early adopters were forgotten in the attempt to appeal to a greater number of users.

I would also add that, imho, the biggest smartwatches problem is that a watch is still a style choice over a fitness utility tool. I'd rather wear my colourful and inexpensive "Swatch" watches or my grandfathers Rolex over my moto 360

It's probably just too expensive to sustain a hardware startup aiming at a niche in the west these days. Our hope is probably in China.

Agree! IMHO, today smart watches are expensive fitness trackers. Rest all marketed is just meh.

Based on the market, it's just you and couple others, yes.

I think Pebble's CEO simply screwed the moment of selling. He should have sold to Citizen for almost 10x the value a year before. He did not. He burned his cash in the process of making another product.

It was a textbook CEO mistake.

Hindsight is 20/20

He thought he could create more value from his product which he did not. You either can or cannot. A counter-example is that of Mark Zuckerberg. He stuck to his product.

A good CEO has to know the limits of his product/service and stick or sell at the right moment.

I think being a good CEO involves many traits. Obviously he had the wrong impression of where Pebble stood in the marketplace and where the company was headed (ie. he didn't foresee the fitness trend, or thought they could successfully pivot). But I assume he had good reasons for doing what he did. Having multiple $10M+ kickstarter launches is evidence that he understood product needs better than most of us could ever hope to.

I'm sure he regrets the decision to not sell more than ever now, and realizes he was wrong, but to say he was a bad CEO because he didn't sell at the right time is akin to being a "Monday Morning Quarterback Expert" where it's easy to criticize somebody for not acting correctly in the past because the right decision is so obvious now.

That's what I meant by the 20/20 statement.

I understood what you meant, that's why I disagreed. :)

> but to say he was a bad CEO because he didn't sell at the right time is akin to...

My point is exactly this. This, in hardware startups at least, is probably the most important trait of all, at the end of the day. Everything is a wave. You need to take the photos and jump while you are on the top of it, otherwise you are swallowed by it further down the "road".

Knowing when the wave is at its max (before breaking) is as important in surfing as in business, apparently.

actually, we do not know the specifics of the supposed Citizen deal.

There's focus and there are killer apps.

For the Apple Watch, I use it for 3 main things: 1) fitness - it's a great motivator in addition to Strava (I don't record all my activity like walks in Strava). 2) Wunderground complication + timetravel is fantastic 3) Duologin for 2nd factor is much easier than the iPhone.

Pebble failed because Apple made the watch into a iPhone accessory and Apple Watch was better integrated than the Pebble.

Yeah, and once Apple decided to sell their own watch, the hope that anyone else would be able to successfully integrate their smartwatch with the iPhone went out the window, unfortunately.

I hate these stupid ecosystems. There are times I want to use Prime Video on an Apple TV and then stream from a PC or something odd like that. Maybe I want to use an Apple watch with an Android phone..

I really wonder if fitness is a big market. The size of Soda and fast food giants vs. "fitness food" indicates it's a niche industry.

Seems to me that the real issueay be the technology is not good enough/fast enough to provide a seamless substitute to watch/phone functions and the fitness people are really the early adopters who are willing to trade off quirky tech for their niche needs being met

A fitness/diet food that is as cheap as fast food would be amazing! Often my issue is getting sick of a small selection.

People might not remember that pebble didn't try to pivot from a smart watch to a fitness tracker but rather the opposite. They pivoted to a smart watch from a sort-of fitness tracking device (bicycling tracker.)

Peeble certainly wasn't the first smartwatch company.

I have a few Casio and Timex that prove otherwise.

They were just a victim that smart watches aren't really that sustainable long term product.

There is a reason why Japan companies stop selling them in the 90's.

What can regular people learn from Pebble? Don't put your money into crowd sourced products from companies that don't listen to the contributors.

Uh, comparing Apple to Rolex is ridiculous. One is a mass produced piece of plastic retailing for a few hundred dollars, and the other is a status symbol of craftsmanship that, price point wise, is more equivalent to a used car. Smartwatches inherently occupy a niche like Google Glass. Real watches, timepieces, chronographs, are already so well established and up market that, uh, I don't think the conversation is really even comparable.

I fear that the repercussions will be that 'hardware' means longer and more costlier life-cycles, and that the path to 'high flying' is just quicker/easier in software, and that it will make it more difficult to raise money for these kinds of things.

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