Hacker News Reader

Comment by poisonborz | Hacker News Reader

It baffles me how a niche product that everyone loved could fail like this. Smartwatch competition seems like a barren field compared to smartphones, and Pebble had things no other rivals could do - double the battery life, true always on display and a great open platform. The functionality was there, an the hardware was good enough. It would be really interesting to see what actually failed - much smaller companies with niche products like Flirc.tv are chugging along well.

I can only hope that someone picks the torch up and makes a Pebble successor - the userbase is still there, without any matching product to choose.

View on HN

Pebble made a bet on more growth than that niche userbase could provide.

It turned out the only functionality a significantly larger userbase than Pebble's early adopters found interesting in a wearable device was fitness tracking related. They pivoted too late to accommodate that.

Nailed it, imho. I wrote a very long unpublished blog post, but this is basically the tl;dr

I LOVE my pebble. I wish you would do a 2.0 to just address that niche instead of pumping it up with investor $$. Most current mainstream options are still "smartphones-strapped-to-wrist" as you call them.

Which is why I'm having a hard time finding a replacement for my Pebble. Everyone out so much emphasis on fitness capabilities that they forget the usability part.

The timeline concept on the Pebble was great, and no one currently come close to it.

If I'm going to wear a watch, it better excel at telling time and show me time-related events in a clean way.

what was the timeline concept? (as someone who has never got into smartwatches in general)

Pretty much what I wanted, plus fitness tracking.

I love the timeline, showing my calendar appointments, seeing notifications(and being able to use some of the Android notification commands on them), fitness tracking, but most important of all, battery life, I love not having to recharge my Pebble every day.

I liked the idea of Nokia Steel HR for instance, but there's little screen real estate for a smartwatch to show me notifications and appointments in a proper way.

IMO one reason Pebble failed was that the writing was on the wall once the Apple Watch launched: if you're not in the ecosystem, you're going to be weak by comparison. Case in point, a Pebble watch can receive notifications on an iOS device, but can't act on them. It has a microphone, but can't use Siri. As Apple expands the watch platform and doesn't let Pebble in, they become less and less competitive. The picture is much better on Android given its open nature - even after the death of Pebble you can use Gadgetbridge to keep going. But you can see how Pebble became something that investors looked at warily - they weren't in control of their destiny.

It's a huge shame. IMO, the Pebble Time Round[1] is still the best looking smartwatch created by anyone so far. And it has a longer battery life than the Apple Watch and (most?) Android watches.

[1] https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gt5yu-N_VKNyf4pzH1f_NqbhrMU=...

This is the type of product that really needs a lightweight company to produce it. Sure, the initial sales can probably recover money used to pay a development and design staff, but that doesn't keep their paycheck going indefinitely. In order to employee a decent development team you need to constantly churn out new products, or have a larger product portfolio (which is why Samsung, for example, can still sell smartwatches, because those devs can get assigned to other projects between product revisions).

What Pebble needed to be successful was to have the product design teams completely outsourced from the beginning, so that initial development (and each revision costs) could be budgeted against expected sales, but once that is done, the development team (outsourcer) would then continue work for other customers. Instead of being on Pebble's payroll.

You may be right, but then the software and general platform would not have been of the same quality for sure.

I wonder if it would be possible to approach a potential outsource that is growing, with your own team, and have them re-badged to the outsourcer with them dedicated to your project for its duration? Then the outsourcer can re-deploy those resources internally as needed later on.

This is kind of what happened at a company I used to work for -- they wanted to outsource IT, but keep their workers employed. So they found a company expanding in the area, re-badged us, and those of us that didn't stay dedicated to the original company after the transition were deployed to other contracts. The outsourcer then got an increase in pre-vetted high quality staff without the whole onboarding expense.

I loved my Pebble because it helped disconnect me from my phone. My phone's ringer got turned off, and I could rely on wrist vibrations and read alarms and text messages from my wrist. This lead to me getting 1/2 hour of my day back, because I would stop accidentally reading the news, opening Reddit, or playing a mobile game.

But it's much easier to monetize a product that forces more screen time on you, and keeps you more distracted. Does the Apple Watch get subsidized by Apple because of the App Store? Pebble could have gone that route, but it didn't feel like the customer they were targeting.

The main problem was that they ran out of runway while waiting for manufacturers and suppliers to line up and meet their demand. The software was solid, but for hardware products, that's less than half the picture. You need to worry about coordinating with suppliers, factories, and all these other logistical issues to produce a product a scale. If a supplier is unwilling to meet your demand, you're basically screwed and are left waiting indefinitely, unless you immediately pivot on your hardware design.

Niche does not scale to worldwide ambitions. Plus competition, such as Amazfit Bip for $59 with 45 days battery life.

Having never heard of this before, I 100% thought you were just blending brands and words together--Amazon/Fit/Bit--and throwing out an absurd tech spec--45 days of battery--but I just looked it up and it's real. Wow.

Edit: Except it's $99

I believe my Pebble 2 was $99....

Can confirm, mine was approximately US$59 from the Xiaomi shop here in Hong Kong, with full English support etc. I don't know what, if anything, the US model has to justify a 40%+ price bump...

GearBest has it for $60: https://www.gearbest.com/smart-watches/pp_1126414.html

I don't know what "Lite" means, but there's also this listing at $72 for maybe the fancier version: https://www.gearbest.com/smart-watches/pp_668632.html

It says $63 until I click on it but the discount is lower on the product page than the search results.

The hardware looks quite good, but do I want to give Xiaomi (an entity controlled by the PRC) access to my web browsing history, identity, contacts, calendar, files, location, calling history, SMS, etc? (these permissions are requested on Android by the associated app).

You can install Gadgetbridge on Android, the Bip is supported.

I wish Amazfit/Xiaomi will step up and provide a solid SDK beyond fitness stuff.

Thank you for posting this. I heard about it and never researched it. It looks amazing and it could be something to replace my Pebble once it stops working.

I am still getting a lot of compliments for Pebble, people often think it is an Apple watch. So Amazfit could be good replacement if I ever need one.

honestly, i don't they they were aesthetic enough. everyone I saw was incredibly ugly. I think most smart watch companies had this problem and by the time some had solved it, the novelty had worn off.

I bought a second hand moto 360 and got tired of having to charge it and my phone for what was practically the same return.

Obviously this is your opinion, but I will counter with mine..

I think the Pebble Time Steel [0][1] is actually the only good looking fully-functional smartwatch on the market, even to this day..

The Apple Watch looks like a wrist computer (yeah I know), and most of the other ones out there are either HUGE (I'm not into massive watch faces), or also look clunky and un-appealing. Or they are very blatantly "sport watches". I want a watch I can wear to work (where I have to dress up somewhat), or wear out at night..

Combine that with once-a-week charging, and I'm still super sad that mine will one day stop working and there won't be anything I can do about it. :-(

[0]: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41Jn9cYI1QL... [1]: http://i.imgur.com/Wqbaibt.png

Ditto Time Round. It's the only smartwatch that doesn't look/feel like a giant brick.

I have a Huawei Watch which is round, all-black and has a black steel band [0]. It fits in at work or basically any social situation. I ended up building my own watch face, which is quite subtle and mostly black. Mainly bought it because it was the first round one I liked (round, without 'flat tire' LCD).

Primarily use for seeing my agenda and message notifications, and to see the time.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/qr20Cdn.png

Hmm that's not a bad looking watch.

I may have to look into it when someone shuts off the servers and forces my functional Pebble to take its Long Walk..

Although that looks like an LED face, which probably means bunk battery life..

It's AMOLED. I can get somewhere between 1.75 and 2.75 days, depending on how much I actively use it (and presumably, how much my movements cause the full face to light up). According to Watchmaker, my face has an OPR [1] of 5.5% bright, and 1.3% dim (idle) mode, and I leave it in 'always on' mode (where it is in the 'dim' mode most of the time). If you use a watchface with more stuff on the screen, battery decreases. If you change the face to turn off instead of dim, you get a lot more.

I've never had trouble getting through a full day and most days it has 50-60% left. If I'm not wearing it, I stick it on the charger (magnetic) which is always sitting beside my bed. I will say if I travelled a lot, the extra hassle of worrying about charging it and not forgetting/losing the charger would probably make me not bother with it, but I only am away for more than a night a handful of times a year (and either bring the charger, or wear a different non-smart watch).

[1] https://plus.google.com/102436534884531510368/posts/R2878L81...

Thank you for providing this extra detail..

I do travel enough that I would need to bring the charger with me it sounds..

But yeah so far it's one of the nicer looking smart watches I've seen aside from my Pebble..

Agree, but I think they were getting better in the later models. I use a pebble se with a eulit palma pacific watch band and it blends away very well compared to the original pebble. I’m actually afraid of switching to an Apple Watch since it’ll be heavier.

Photo since everyone else is doing that: https://imgur.com/a/Y38D

I realize this is more of a “thin and sporty” swatch aesthetic than a metal svelte aesthetic.

Fixed link: https://imgur.com/a/Y38zD

The Fitbit Ionic looked like it could be a spiritual successor [I'd presumed - without evidence - that that was where the Pebble team ended up].

It doesn't yet look open enough (or quite cute enough) to persuade me, but I'll be keeping an eye on OS/ecosystem updates and hardware revisions.

The SDK part of the Ionic is what was built by the Pebble team, and it's a really pleasant-to-use SDK -- developing stuff is super easy to do. They've also actively courted all the former Pebble developers to port their apps over, so a lot of the popular Pebble apps are already ported to the Ionic.

That said, I did prefer the Pebble hardware to the Ionic hardware -- I miss my reflective LCD.

Probably drowned in trying to support so many SKUs. Trying to segment their product beyond the ability of startup capital in a new and small market. Supply chain complexities, inventory burden, and too many subtly different models for a new (mainstream) customer to easily understand.

See here for a summary of all the models and options they were supporting: http://gadgetsandwearables.com/2017/10/23/best-pebble-watch/

Consumer hardware seems to be the Everest of startup endeavors. Congrats to the founder for moving forward in his career!

What baffles me is that someone who basically flopped is made a partner in a YC.

[Edit:] Oh, I see. In the SV land driving a company into the ground is a win!

I would think someone who has founded a company that failed would have learned quite a few worthwhile lessons to teach to up-and-coming startups, no?

When you are shopping for a legal adviser do you go with the one who lost his biggest case?

The premise is the same: he lost so he can teach quite a few lessons that he learned while losing.

How about this? Would you hire a football player that made it to the national team but performed horrible (and was fired by the manager) on that stage as a coach for your team - the one with the aspiration for Champions league?

How about a doctor? Would you go to the one whose patients died vs. the one whose have not?

Why is it different for VC partners?

You can probably know very well why you lost, but you can't know for sure at all why you won. Startup founder at conference: "By the following lotto numbers to repeat my success!"

A dude who had to take a hardware company through all the shit required from the bottom up into a time where now people can finally actually start doing hardware companies is going to know so much about how to help companies in ALL regards, dude was one of the most successful trailblazers, even if the trail died out. Hardware is fucking hard from every aspect and he knows about every aspect, that's why people will want his help.

I'm not disagreeing with your point, but your analogy isn't good. The best heart surgeons actually are the ones with the highest failure rates because they are the only ones prepared to take on the riskiest operations. I would imagine this is also true of the best lawyers.

I think it is. His failure rate is 100% of the single attempt he made.

Someone investing into US treasury would have made more money than they made giving him money. That's the only objective way that we currently have to establish a success or a failure of a company executive and his or her knowledge and smarts.

This baffles me too, especially when reading that he didn't had a long term vision all these years. That is not only textbook bad but very irresponsible.

Same for the argument that there was a ton of learnings when Pebble failed. Yes, maybe but how is that relevant to other startups? Even for the hardware space, if someone seemingly never managed to get the production pipeline going and never had a vision for the products, how much worth is the advice then? Failing fast and often is not applicable here. Heck, I got a more or less failed startup, I probably can tell you some stuff but definitely not, how everything works or how to be successful.

SV is a strange place. It feels, it's more important how much money you have (raised) then how successful your company was/is.

I am so glad you wrote this, as I was thinking the same thing. I am big fan of Pebble and it still has loyal following. Botching that, no matter Apple and others, is really not something that would recommend someone.

It's not about winning or losing, it's about the friends you make along the way. Important friends, ones who will take your call, as many of those as you can get.

Yeah this is exactly what I was thinking as well. I feel like there are enough successful startups that there would probably be better candidates. I know HW is hard but it seems weird they picked him when their sell-off for $40 million barely covered their debt.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com