Fitbit is now officially part of Google | Hacker News Reader

Fitbit is now officially part of Google

blog.fitbit.com

293 pointsblinky88376 comments

I'm sure the sentiment here will be very much against this acquisition, but keep in mind that Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business without this. It is tough for a company like Fitbit to compete with Apple & Samsung.

This should lead to more competition by making it possible for Fitbit to compete with Apple. If it doesn't then the acquisition was a failure for Google anyway - Fitbit's current market share is not acceptable for a company like Google.

The reason why it's difficult for them to compete with Apple and Samsung isn't readily apparent to me. There still seems to be a large hole in the smartwatch market for a GOOD Android-compatible smartwatch. There are a lot of options, but, to me, none of them are as polished or feature-heavy as the Apple Watch. It doesn't seem that one of these companies would need access to any special internal APIs or anything to be competitive, so I don't see what Google could add other than lots of money and SWE hours.

If Google wants to compete in this space they should have been forced to build it themselves. IMO letting Fitbit die would have been better for users privacy-wise.

I'm a long time Fitbit user and I think their products are great. From that perspective I'm just happy that they will survive.

> so I don't see what Google could add other than lots of money and SWE hours

That matters.

> IMO letting Fitbit die would have been better for users privacy-wise.

Have you seen what some companies do when they are on the brink of insolvency? They start firing engineers, best practices lapse, and they start monetizing everything.

And have you seen the EU data privacy conditions?

And finally, of the companies that could have bought them, which has a better record of keeping their users' data private then Google?

But also, as a Fitbit user, if I wanted all my data deleted I could do that, but I absolutely do not. I want it kept private, supported, and crunched by a company like Google to our mutual advantage.

Fellow long time FitBit user and agree with everything you said.

Furthermore, I pay for FitBit Premium and would strongly encourage Google to always keep FitBit a paid product/service and never monetize it via ads.

I don't have any expertise in this area, but my hunch from what I saw with Apple vs WhatsApp, is that in the long run sticking with paid products and not switching to Ads is better for success. Also, likely a lot harder to build up a base of paying users and if you throw that away would be a colossal mistake.

Anyway, I'm not a business expert but am a passionate FitBit user and very happy about this acquisition because just like you I was worried for their survival.

Again, Apple has a much better track record than Google when it comes to privacy. I can’t believe I’m defending them here, but honestly they’ve been the only tech giant that hasn’t sold out every bit of your personal info they had to make a quick buck. I suppose Netflix might be the other one but (a) I don’t know for a fact and (b) they aren’t exactly the fitness brand.

The killer feature for me which lead me to me switching away was Fitbit Pay. They just don't have the take up by banks that the competition (Apple and Samsung) have. Maybe that would have changed, but if they integrate Google Pay instead, I may switch back.

I much prefer contactless payment with my phone anyway. I usually find it very awkward trying to position my wrist near the NFC reader on the terminal.

I’ve always thought they should put the NFC chip on the bottom of the wrist rather than on the top - that seems like a much less awkward position.

> There still seems to be a large hole in the smartwatch market for a GOOD Android-compatible smartwatch.

In order for there to be a market, both sides have to exist: sellers and buyers. I'm not convinced Android users have the appetite for multi-hundred-dollar accessories the same way Apple users do, and given Apple's engineering skill and vertical integration, nobody is going to sell a smartwatch that's as good for less.

I’d buy the top-end Apple Watch today if it was compatible with my Android phone; as-is, the slate of compatible watches are too poor for me to bother with any of them.

Though, I’m one person, so that doesn’t invalidate your point.

Garmin seems to find plenty of customers willing to buy high end smart watches that cost even more than Apple watches. Many of those Garmin devices are paired with Android phones.

As one data point I just spent $1300 on a new top end Garmin watch and use it with Android.

What about the spot it started out in? A watch that keeps track of some vital signs. I don't want an Android-compatible smartwatch. I don't want a smartwatch at all. I want a simple "health" device.

I got a new fitbit for Christmas because I couldn't even initialize it without installing their app on my smartphone. I don't want their app on my phone. I don't want it to report all my info to their servers. I don't want it to have access to my gps location, which is might be reporting in. My old fitbit doesn't need any of that at all, and I don't see the need for a new one (that would meet my needs) to, either.

I agree with you here, a simple health tracker is awesome. But also it seems to me that Google has a massive incentive to get as much data about you as possible. Which means releasing devices that collect as much biometric (and location) based data as possible, and setting defaults (just like Maps location history being turned on by default) that will automatically send all of this to Google servers. And as usual with Google, the vast majority will probably be sending their health data to Google unwittingly.

Unpopular opinion here, but I think the Fitbit versa (from 2018) was/is better than Apple Watch (latest) in significant ways, even when paired with iPhone.

I replaced my versa with Apple Watch when the versa died. I don’t necessarily regret it, but it didn’t feel like an upgrade and came with significant downsides.

In particular, Fitbit gives far more control over notifications, especially for built-in apps like messages. Fitbit makes media controls easily accessible - on Apple Watch, they’re always moving and hard to get back to especially during a workout. My main use case is skipping podcast commercials, so not being able to do that quickly is a problem.

Battery life was much better on the versa. It also charged faster, so it would almost always be done charging after a shower, Apple Watch only sometimes is.

Tldr there is definitely room to deliver a better product than Apple’s. Whether or not Google is capable of doing that is a different question that I won’t address.

I love my Versa 3. I charge it for ~20 minutes every couple days, and I've literally never seen it below 50%.

>...media controls easily accessible - on Apple Watch, they’re always moving and hard to get back to especially during a workout.

Swipe right from workout screen.

(Finger moves right to left... not sure if that is swipe right or left :)

Thank you so much! I’ve had my watch for 4 months, I don’t know why I didn’t see that earlier. I have been going to the app switcher this whole time.

One other thing is the big (non knob) button brings up three apps and somehow I have it so now playing is always one of them. Can’t remember how I set that up though. (Doesn’t help when someone keeps texting me and I want to stop the audio.)

Yeah, just picked up a Fitbit Sense since it's on sale at Costco. It's almost great, but has some serious flaws. The capacitive button is dumb. Not allowing me to upload music is dumb. The processor is slightly underpowered or the software needs optimizations because occasionally it has serious lag when swiping on the watch face. Having the watch accidentally turn on with full brightness while I'm trying to sleep just sucks.

Other than that, it's a pretty nice device. Unfortunately it requires a subscription to get the most out of it.

I have a Fitbit and I love this acquisition. I want to be able to put my fitness data in the rest of the Google ecosystem. The more data Google has on me, the more use I get out of Google's tools.

I really don't care that it has tons of data on me, Google has been super responsible of my data and its uses. The risk/reward is 100% worth.

The assurance that it's not going to be used for Ads is the only thing that makes this acceptable. Instead of it being on some random fitbit server on someone's Cloud, it'll be held securely on Google servers.

Really though, how long do we expect that arrangement to last? The Facebook WhatsApp thing makes it pretty clear to me that they can afford to walk back on that arrangement as soon as they feel they can afford to take the PR hit. For something with as small of a market share as Fitbit, I suspect that won't take very long at all.

Google/Fitbit has a legally-binding commitment for ten years.

However, there are probably ways they can leap around that. For instance, new devices and a new platform, using the Fitbit talent and technology, but marketed as a new thing, could probably be used for advertising. Then they just need to get everyone over to their new health platform.

I also think a ten year commitment is a very poor concession for the EU to have extracted: It just means they're punting off society being harmed a while. For a company that will likely be around in 100 years or more, IBM-style, that's not a good concession.

> I also think a ten year commitment is a very poor concession for the EU to have extracted: It just means they're punting off society being harmed a while. For a company that will likely be around in 100 years or more, IBM-style, that's not a good concession.

I agree, but if they were in the business of extracting significant pro-consumer concessions, I can see some weird incentives building up: imagine a dystopian future in several decades where the only semi-pro-consumer companies are the goliaths that have decades’ worth of accumulated concessions, and consumer startups nearly-universally act in their own financial interest, making them unusable for people who care about their data/privacy/ads/etc., and regulators who are unwilling to burden startups with regulations that restrict them from competing with AmaGoogleFlix.

Are you sure about that?

If you click through to the EU site

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...

and read "Google's Commitment" on ads:

> Google will not use for Google Ads the health and wellness data collected from wrist-worn wearable devices and other Fitbit devices of users in the EEA, including search advertising, display advertising, and advertising intermediation products. This refers also to data collected via sensors (including GPS) as well as manually inserted data.

So this only covers European Economic Area, and it only covers Google Ads.

that's some next level abusive relationship whitewashing.

"google/apple data control monopolies are killing products i like. But that is fine because that makes those products cheap for google/apple and i love them."

The above user is only talking about their personal desires and opinions about Google. They don't speak on behalf of anyone else and don't pass judgement if G is 'good' or 'bad' for society as a whole.

You are claiming that their thoughts are only the result of abusive conditioning.

IMO, that's an extremely arrogant position - "oh, if you disagree with me, it must be because you are not smart enough to actually think for yourself"

I read this honestly expecting a /s at the end.

If you told me this was a failed attempt at obvious sarcasm now, I'd totally still believe you.

What has Google done with your data ? Even I was expecting a /s at the end of your comment.

isn't it more "what have they done" with your data that makes you think this needs to be /s?

It reads like sarcasm but it's more a sign that our views do not leak out of our echo chamber.

I have a friend who works for the government and laments at how much red tape there is to acquire or link any dataset and wishes for more data acquisition.

To be fair, her use cases were sincerely benign - being able to target people who qualify for more welfare/govt assistance, and being able to make the govt website more helpful/discoverable for support.

Though she definitely subscribes to her data being used for helpful purposes from bigtech

But that’s the thing. I work for a bank. If I had unlimited access to all transaction data without needing to request elevated access and jumping some more hoops, it would greatly speed up my daily work.

But...it would also greatly increase the damage any hacker could do.

Same applies to Google. It’s super convenient to have everything “on Google”. Until the day Google is exposed/hacked/turns evil. Then it’s a disaster.

Hoping the above won’t happen is not a strategy but a gamble.

> Until the day Google [...] turns evil

You mean this hasn't already happened?

I hear it's the least evil of the FAANGs. And then there are oil companies etc. I think relative to the average company Google's doing alright.

Now I'm curious what Apple and Netflix has done to deserve being considered as more evil than Google.

I'm not really trying to come out against Netflix here, but I personally think their desire to compete with every other way one could spend their time doesn't have human's best interests at heart. I recognize the agency (most) everyone has to spend their time as they will, but I don't like how I feel mentally if all my free time gets sucked into consuming content. YMMV

But YouTube is ok?

At least Netflix asks you every few hours if you’re still alive. YouTube will happily play you videos forever.

And they’re only a sliver of the company.

> YouTube will happily play you videos forever

That's actually not true, at least in playlists. I regularly get the "Are you still watching" or whatever it is for YouTube when I put on music playlists.

YouTube also now has the ability to toggle Autoplay from the player, whereas that setting is more hidden in Netflix.

In my experience Netflix only checks if you're alive for certain content, not all. I believe it has to do with the licensing model, if they're paying someone for the right to stream that episode they want to check you haven't fallen asleep. So I'm pretty sure it's a money-saving technique, not concern for your wellbeing.

I didn't say that. The GP specifically asked about Apple and Netflix phrased in such a way that Google was already assumed to be 'evil'. I was just giving my 2 cents about how even benign seeming services have their own considerations.

> Hoping the above won’t happen is not a strategy but a gamble.

Life's a gamble. Crossing the road on your way to work is gamble. Heck it's a gamble that you won't be taken out in the next 12 months by an insidious disease.

The bet I have placed personally is that Google is better at looking after my personal data that I am - so for example I use gmail instead of my own email server.

The difference is you can stop crossing the road and the risk is gone. You can‘t „unexpose“ your data to any company as they most probably will fail to delete your data (or then start to collect again).

Expected /s as well, but at home I often hear the "I don't work for the CIA" argument against privacy paranoia so I'm not surprised.

I agree with this at least to some degree.

I think you'll find a lot of smart tech people do, but don't post on HN because it disagrees with the prevalent view so you just get downvoted, or called an astroturfer.

At first I thought this would be a paid positive troll, but then the post went so far into absurd fandom I figured you couldn't make this up if you tried.

Lol, I totally agree. I actually believe that they care a lot about protecting my data -- more than any other data caretaker. Probably because if they abuse our data it would be financially costly. But that's the beautiful thing about capitalism...

Apple has entered the chat. I am sure you’ve heard the argument before: Google is an advertising company. Using your data to sell you products is why they have your data. The more they can get, the higher their profits.

Apple is a hardware company. They don’t want your data and store it begrudgingly because to them it’s nothing but liability. Whenever they can, they will encrypt your data in a way they can’t access in order to not be liable. Their devices are the product, not you.

Based on the above, which company would you trust more?

Based on what you wrote I would say Google, because they have so much more to lose. That data is really really valuable to them, whereas to Apple it isn't really.

exactly this ^! remember thefappening? Imagine what shitstorm would be if that would happen to google...

The point isn’t which protects your data better from outside breaches (though I would argue Apple does a better job of protecting its phones), but how they use your data and who they can expose it to. Apple provides storage. Google sifts through your data to help them direct you towards products from which they can get kickbacks. It’s not some external entity that you have to worry about. It’s the company to whom you send all your data. And this isn’t conjecture. The only reason Google collects all that data is so they can advertise to you better. The only question is whether you trust that they’ll keep that data usage on the right side of your personal ethical line in the sand. I don’t think Google would sell your dick pics to a third party to make a quick buck. But I also wouldn’t put it past them to use them to figure out what kind of porn you like and help sex toy manufacturers to target you in their ads.

It could be that I've blocked ads in my network or my extreme hate for ads lead to have unpopular opinion about it.

Every company uses my data for analytic purposes. Ads that I do see in google play are almost same as I see in apple store. Both take my data and try to serve me the best. In fact, I don't think it's necessary evil but what bothers me is pretending that one company save my data better or make me believe they don't analyse my data.

Everybody does it, who says it does not analyse your data, he is lying.

You know apple has news-advertising and searchads that is based on iAds[1] ? Trust me, they need your data to work properly!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd

If Apple decided to downsize and focus on their core competency, which part of the company do you think they would deem essential to their business? I am sure they make decent money on all their stuff but Apple has also taken a public stance on privacy and their devices aren’t seemingly backdoored as seen in the LEAs trying to get help unlocking them and being told by Apple that they can’t help.

Look it all comes down to trust and I see way fewer reasons to trust Google than Apple. Both deserve a baseline measure of mistrust, but Google has all the incentive to spy on you while Apple has little to none. And when it comes to investigations of “why do you have this data in the first place?” Google’s answer is “we need it to advertise” while Apple’s can only be “we need it for this specific service” and if they fail to show why, they are liable. Google and Facebook have a virtually identical business model: collect, aggregate, advertise. If you don’t trust Facebook, why would you trust Google?

> Apple has also taken a public stance on privacy and their devices aren’t seemingly backdoored as seen in the LEAs

No idea what LEA stands for but apple did not encrypt after FBI complain: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

> dropped plans to let iPhone users fully encrypt backups of their devices in the company's iCloud service after the FBI complained that the move would harm investigations

If you are referring to FBI-Apple dispute, if apple is complying with Chinese government, it will comply with USA government. That is how things are.

I'm not defending google, far away from it. They are not much better but they protect user data exactly because apple make fun of them. They now do extreme measures just to protect the privacy so they will not destroy their reputation even more.

The point is that it’s not their data and they shouldn’t have it in the first place. It’s your data. I mean do what you want, but I believe your logic here is based on fundamentally incorrect initial assumptions.

Neither.

Apple is attempting to steal the concept of computing and turn it into a protected, arcane art.

You can't even run your own software on a device you own. That's a sure sign of a company that loves you and has your best interests at heart.

Apple is just as cutthroat as any. They only want your money.

Last I checked your Google Home wasn’t exactly open either :)

They are both cutthroat but Apple specifically has taken a stance on privacy.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-advertising/apple-c...

Apple makes 2 billion a year on advertising projected to go up to 11 billion in 5 years. While a fraction of total rev, I don’t think it’s correct to round off 2 billion and say they are somehow not an advertising company as well. (You don’t have to be just 1 type of company)

DuckDuckGo makes 100% of its revenue from advertising. How you advertise matters, no?

That’s exactly my point. Put DDG into your original post. It refutes your own argument which was based solely on how google is an ads company and Apple is a hardware company.

Except Google has a proven track record of collecting way more data than is reasonable for it and sharing it with partners. DDG was created partially in response to Google’s flagrant disregard for privacy. Apple on the other hand was the one phone manufacturer who straight up told the FBI that it’s latest phones cannot be unlocked by them because of the full device encryption they used.

> I want to be able to put my fitness data in the rest of the Google ecosystem. The more data Google has on me, the more use I get out of Google's tools.

It's good to be able to integrate that information. It's bad to be forced to let Google integrate that information. I dislike it because Google isn't known for letting users choose.

I'm replying in agreement that this is also my opinion. Google could do bad things with my data in the future, but, to date, there is no company I trust more. Contrary to a very vocal crowd on HN, rankings of most loved brands show that many people like Google https://morningconsult.com/most-loved-brands-2020/

Liking a company != trusting a company with your data.

I would argue there is a correlation between liking and trusting. Not just data specifically, but overall trust. I'd think data would fall under the umbrella.

I have an Android phone and use multiple fitness apps/services. Google Fit would be the natural place for me to aggregate all that, so I'm sold on the utility of that. Sadly I think it's at risk of being Google abandonware. I don't recall them ever having added functionality, but I recall at least one time functionality disappeared (they removed the website where you could view your data). The app seemed to keep getting simplified over time.

No company with surveillance capitalism as their business model should be allowed access to health data from an acquired company without the user explicitly opting in.

However, I sincerely doubt Fitbit would have been worth anywhere near as much under those conditions.

This is the moral razors edge companies have to walk on nowadays.

Do they sell their company out and get rich, or do they stick to their principles and safeguard their users data?

I don't have the right answer. What I do know is when you're facing down a multi-million dollar payout, principles tend to get tossed out the window.

Fitbit doesn't sell medical devices. The data they gather is health related but legally it's not "protected health information".

Google can now cross reference your historic heart rate against your ad exposure. I'm pretty sure they will responsibly use that info to tune them out for your enjoyment.

They also know what you searched, watched or visited before and after having sex.

There's a lot of info they can pull out of that little device.

The database they bought is worth every penny.

> Fitbit was getting killed and would likely have gone out of business

If this is a reason for acquisition, then why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar?

We're fast approaching a dystopian Snow Crash world of all-powerful corporations, and you people are cheering it along.

How can these both be true?

- it's bad all US legacy media is owned by 5 corporations. - it's good for FB, Apple, Amazon and to buy up all adjacent business.

I don't see how sharing data is a good argument for unchecked consolidation of power. I'm pretty sure Fitbit could export an open standard data format, and Google could consume one. But I guess rich people wouldn't be able to get even richer if they did that.

>If this is a reason for acquisition, then why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar?

Because what Google wants to buy is their marketshare and existing userbase. I very much doubt fitbit has any tech or products google couldn't make themselves in a few months. The longer fitbit sucks compared to their competition the lower that becomes.

This, and they want to hire the talent that built the product. If Fitbit were already a sinking ship for too long most senior folks would have left.

Great point.

Hard to continue developing a product when the most talented people in the company have gone elsewhere already. They need the human capital in order to make sure it stays afloat and they get the requisite knowledge transfer.

Then its anybody's guess what will happen. Google's track record of buying technology and then doing something better with it is not encouraging at all.

> Google's track record of buying technology and then doing something better with it is not encouraging at all.

Err...what? Earth, Maps, Docs, Waymo, Android, YouTube, WebRTC, Flights, Deepmind all come from acquisitions.[1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

They haven't done much better with many of these. And I suspect these would also have succeeded independently of Google.

> very much doubt fitbit has any tech or products google couldn't make themselves in a few months.

Considering how absolutely dreadful Google's hardware (pixel line, pixel watch) is nowadays, and how unfinished all of their software is, no, Google would not be able to make any of that in a few months.

Hahaha I literally laughed out loud at this. Google making products. Have you seen how they make products? They have killed more physical products than they have delivered. They discontinue them more frequently than an average person throws out a napkin. Their first gen products are usually overpriced trash (Google Glass? Nexus Q?). If Google could pump out electronics with the speed and quality of someone like Anker or Amazon they’d be buying half of Europe for cash right now. I don’t pretend to know why they can’t but empirical evidence shows that it takes them several years and at least a product generation to put out something useful. For them to put out a fitness tracker or a smart watch in a few months that would be remotely competitive with the Apple Watch is just not in the cards.

They nailed the Nexus 7, but that was a while ago (2012 and 2013)

EDIT - never mind, Asus made both of those

All the Nexus devices were made by third parties, it's when they switched to Pixel branding that they started designing them in-house.

Were you thinking of the 2012 Nexus 7 with the poor-quality NAND that went bad within a couple years, rendering the tablet useless? Or the 2013 that had phantom/unregistering input due to (IIRC) general build-quality and flex issues?

Asus did make both, but I'm not sure either was as good as you recall, sadly.

The Nexus 7 was way ahead of the competition at the time. It was fast, had a great display and cheap. I used mine for 6 years before it stopped working. Unfortunately google didn’t build on its success.

2012 Nexus 7 was the best tablet there was at that time. Yes it started working really slow after few years, but I still have it in my drawer, unfortunately something went wrong after 7 years and it either doesn't charge or the screen died.

They have an entire hardware division that regularly churns out quite high quality consumer hardware: nest. They also have a pretty big hardware group that makes high performance servers and specialty hardware (TPU servers among other things). They have a few other hardware divisions as well.

Google would have absolutely no issue creating quality fitbit devices. Whether or not the market would be there for them to stay in long term, I don't know.

Nest was an acquisition so not the best example.

Nest was acquired and was already a mature and popular product. They by no means built it from scratch. And enterprise server products are probably outside the scope of what we are talking about, which is consumer electronics. I can build you a pretty decent server pretty quickly. I wouldn't know where to start to create a smart watch that had good battery life, great screen, great app ecosystem, great sensors, and didn't cost over $400. As far as I know, no consumer electronics Google product had launched and was an instant success. All the first product reviews I've ever read sounded like this: "it's a great first start and as a nerd who knows about these things I enjoyed some innovative parts of it, but it's not ready for prime time. Maybe next year they'll have a more polished product."

> Nest was acquired and was already a mature and popular product. They by no means built it from scratch.

Sure, but they did come in and add real innovation to the product; for example, adding a secret microphone that wasn't disclosed to the customer.

Wow is this real? Crazy Google!

Google's pixel phones were initially pretty well received, especially the camera

The same hardware division that came up with Brillo, sorry Android Things, never mind, it is gone now after 3 years anyway.

Or those wonderful Android Watches, sorry wearOS, never mind, they aren't getting proper updates for ages now.

Glass was never a finished product. It was sold as a dev kit that non-devs snapped up.

> Glass was never a finished product.

Seems to be a finished-ish enterprise product now.

https://www.google.com/glass/start/

Right. My point exactly. Google releases half baked consumer goods, then kills them later if they aren't a hugely important strategic line (like the Nexus/Pixel) or not a runaway success. The idea that Google could build a fitness tracker or smartwatch from scratch in a matter of months and it would be better than what FitBit currently has to offer just seems silly.

Counter-example : Chromecast.

The device that overheats when playing 1080p videos ? Or the one that freezes when just launching Youtube ?

The Chromecast works well most of the time. The ways it fails is ridiculous.

Hmm, I did have minor issues, but IMHO it's much better than your average gadget (the first Chromecast at least). And it's dirt cheap, I think I got it for 4€ ? (though that's because Google subsidizes it).

I did have some issues recently with being unable to pair it with specific Samsung phones, but it's a combination of it getting old and I assume issues with Google killing software (I don't want your Google Home !).

In a way I have worse issues with my Pebble Time… which Google now owns, to my displeasure. (But it is probably more open, so I have better chances fixing the issues myself in the long term…)

>Because what Google wants to buy is their marketshare and existing userbase.

Personally, I'm curious how that worked out for them. The announcement of this purchase, and how they handled Nest, is what made me stop using my Fitbit.

Google also wanted the Fitbit patents for IP litigation protection.

My favorite part of snow crash was the corporate mergers with public entities like the library of congress. That one's probably safe for now, but I wonder if we'll see corporate mergers with small local governments when they start to default on their debts.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/citizen-coup...

"Imagine there was no such thing as a library, and that members of the current neoliberal policy consensus were to sit down today and invent it. They might create complicated tax expenditures to subsidize the poor purchasing and reselling books, like the wage support of the earned income tax credit. They might require people to rent books from approved private libraries, with penalties for those who don’t and vouchers for those who can’t afford it, like the individual mandate in the latest expansion of health care. They might come up with a program where they take on liability for books that go missing from private libraries and thereby boost profits for lenders themselves, like federally backed private student loans. Or maybe they’d create means-tested libraries only accessible to the poor, with a requirement that patrons document how impoverished they are month after month to keep their library card. Maybe they’d exempt the cost of private library cards from payroll taxes, or let anything calling itself a library pay nothing in taxes."

If someone invented the concept of a library today wouldn't it sound, you know, kinda socialist?

Oh, very.

Only if the state owned all the pens and paper. I guess those are the means of production for authors?

More like Liberal Capitalism.

> why wouldn't G*gle wait until they were "killed" so they could come in and buy their business for pennies on the dollar?

The company waiting for this to happen missed out on the deal.

Fitbit is able to export the semi-open FIT file data format.

https://www.thisisant.com/

If we do enter the Snow Crash mega corp/gated burb future I want to become a Deliverator for the pizza mafia.

I'm also not for this. I wasn't for nest either. I now trust the device on my wrist less.

> We're fast approaching a dystopian Snow Crash world of all-powerful corporations, and you people are cheering it along.

Walmart is uniquely set up to become the first FOQNE.

It's good when companies I want to work with who or give me free candy are winning. They're my team!

It's bad when Nazis and Nazi-adjacent folks don't get a platform because they're my... uh...

They want their brand recognition, brand loyalty, market share, and specifically they want a watch to compliment their Pixel phones to counter growth of Apple Watch (which locks people into buying iPhones). All those reasons are better now than later

You've hit the nail on the head here. The only arguments in favour of these are money-oriented and therefore celebrating the fundamental move towards a dystopic future (insofar as it isn't already here, which is debatable to a painful degree).

Nobody wins here, except for a very small group of already outrageously powerful and rich people. Any regular human being will at best gain nothing from this and at worst have all of their information inserted into the Google silo.

> This should lead to more competition by making it possible for Fitbit to compete with Apple.

Fitness trackers are too basic. I can't wait to see if the Oneplus smart watch is any good. https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/22/22196180/oneplus-smartwa...

Does this count as more competition though?

It may provide simple price competition, but I don't think price competition is a main reason for the anti-monopoly sentiment you are referring to. This is more about centralisation/decentralisation, data aggregation.

Google and Apple (or any other big tech pairing) pairing don't compete as strongly as we would like. Even ignoring the fact I don't want a stronger google, I also don't think this will provide meaningful competition to Apple at all.

I assume it's because every product I've bought from them was terrible quality hardware wise. The Aria scale just randomly can't upload weights, also it will randomly just turn on for a whole day thinking you are trying to weigh yourself and will stay in that mode until it kills the batteries. I've had multiple of their bands and they all lasted less than a year before they had something break. At my work we gave every employee a Fitbit charge hr, and within 6 months half of them had the band separate from the sensor. I had another Charge HR that one day turned off and then never turned back on after 3 months of use.

I wanted to like them, but the quality of the product was lacking, and I'm happier with the Apple Watch.

It wasn't just Apple and Samsung that were killing Fitbit. Garmin also took a lot of the fitness market.

>Fitbit to compete with Apple

Fitbit is/was a mosquito, they could never surive an 'all out war' with Apple. Fitbit does not compete with Apple. Google does.

The problem is that once Google gets their hands on our sweet data (in the off chance you don't have an android phone), then they will definitely put that data in 'good use'.

I see some (marketable) benefits though... Fitbits can be tracked. Imagine walking past a store, a sensor with 'talk' with your fitbit, and pull your G-ad profile and a screen will display the ad you missed to see on your gmail. And this is what I need to see. Walking past a sex shop and being flashed this huge wierd looking dildo with lights and lasers, because Google 'knows' I enjoy sex and Star Wars (not combined though).

And all that thanks to my FitBit bracelet :) (my android phone is security-hardened enough to not run in the background and/or transmit 'stuff')

One thing that confuses me is why this data needs to be stored within the internet at all.

Why can't I have an entirely offline driven system? Data stays local, no ability to upload it online at all, and all processing is done without ever needing the internet.

That's a key criteria if I ever was thinking of getting a smart wearable, I'm not going to generate even more data that can be profited from and potentially used against me.

It's increasingly looking like storing data is a huge responsibility (although, if it is ever leaked, sadly humans don't tend to see prison time for this crime).

What we need is a clause that says "if this data ever touches the internet whether accidental or otherwise the CEO goes straight to jail, are you sure about this?".

Sadly, I think society as a whole is just "used" to this by now and a second thought is rarely given, disappointing this merger was approved, especially when the EU is investigating several "anti trusts", why give them even more power?

Oh well, I'll see you fellow HN readers on the next "major data leakage from misconfigured MongoDB and nobody is punished" thread.

What really disappointed me about the fitbit was that it required it to be tethered to the phone and my account before it would function as a pedometer.

It seems broken that I also have to have a phone, app store access to get a device to drive the pixels for data it already has.

Every piece of hardware that does this is effectively "app store locked", your phone is now your software dongle for your hardware.

See the section "Don't have a mobile device available?" on https://www.fitbit.com/setup for desktop apps.

Some functions, like sleep tracking, are too computationally intensive to do on a wrist computer.

Thats neat. But the device would only pair and should have some sort of functionality out of the box.

Such functions can be done on a more powerful mobile computer, but that still doesn't justify the requirement for having an account/Internet connection available.

That wrist computer has a lot of compute power, suggesting sleep tracking needs more is a rather extraordinary claim. Not having decent UI far is more credible.

DJI stuff, including the totally offline stuff like the Osmo Action, Osmo Pocket, and their handheld gimbals also work this way: you have to provide email/create an account to "activate" them to even use them.

It's the reason I got an Apple watch 3 as a sport watch: all the other options seemed to want to upload everything online.

> if it is ever leaked

or when

Arguing for jail, aka literally locking a human being in a cage, for any non-violent offense, let-alone getting hacked because your employees mad a mistake, is mindblowing to me.

I'm as irritated as you at data leaks from negligence, but jail? I thought jail was not supposed to be for "punishment" but rather to protect the public from someone too dangerous to allow free, and even then it should mainly target "rehabilitation."

You're now talking about using it clearly just for punishment (which I would argue we do all over the place, totally inconsistent with it's stated purpose). This is before we discuss whether jail is torture. Even if the "jail" is well regulated to prevent thing like violence and sexual abuse, it's terrible to lock a person in a cage. There are plenty of studies about the effects that has on a person's mind. Then you consider that you're soft blackballed from employment (and therefore society) when you get a "record" and can't pass a background check, and that the positive feedback loop leads to a life of poverty, crime, and suffering that is avoidable.

Please consider the significance of what you are arguing for here.

Well in that case the person would be going to jail because he can't be trusted with not exposing private information, so another form of protection

Jail is used for a lot of "non-violent" crime, such as fraud if the judge/court thinks it's warranted. Jun Ying, Equifax's previous CIO did 4 months in jail and another did 8 months of home confinement.

Handling data is a privilege, not a right, and can come at a huge cost. Just look at Parler for example, they weren't even stripping EXIF data which depending on how you look at is is either great for those involved to be tracked and arrested or a terrifying oversight that will lead to huge repercussions...

Data can end lives, this has been proven time and again, it's just as dangerous as a knife or gun in certain circumstances and the crime of having it leaked must have an appropriate punishment

Are you against jail-time for all non-violent white collar crimes or just negligence in the realm of technology companies?

Please don't assume that anyone with a different view hasn't considered the significance of their position.

Yes, I am against jail for non-violent crimes. I'm open to modern non-medieval ideas even for violent crimes. I don't have the answers there, but I wish there were more people caring about this. So far it seems to be only the far left (I don't consider that an insult) and anarcho-capitalists, but I wish more people that fall into the middle somewhere (like myself) would think about this. Usually people don't think about stuff that affects strangers all that much until it affects them or a loved one. That's a people problem in general and I don't know how to solve it either.

Let's say someone steal a billion dollars through fraud and hide it. What should be done? Should they just walk free?

There's a difference between non-violent crimes (white collar crimes usually) and victimless crimes (possessing a small amount of controlled substances).

First things first, they could pay back the $1 billion?

First of all, that's not a deterrent, though. If I can steal your money and all I have to do is return it if you catch me, I'll keep doing it. So you need some sort of punishment on top.

Which brings us to the second point... At minimum you should be fined, at least to cover interest gained while you held the money, probably more to cover emotional distress and otherwise.

Plus, at those kinds of sums, we're somewhere into "stole pension money territory" where we're only a few minutes away from "old lady took her own life after losing life savings".

So things are a lot murkier than they might seem.

I also expected the money is hidden away, such that the the legal system cannot get it back. Money can be laundered away. These are smarter criminals, not ones that just robbed a bank for cash and have it under their beds.

Not even the most liberal societies on Earth, usually the Scandinavian ones, go as far as you describe. And they do have a prison system meant for prevention of recidivism and reintegration into society.

What you're saying is closer to an utopian ideal or who knows, something at least 50 years from now, in the future? :-)

Less utopian than people who cannot imagine themselves committing a violent crime (either because they are not physically imposing, or because the tiny gains of violent crime wouldn't make a dent in their monthly nut) thinking that the people who actually commit the crimes that they themselves consider committing might not be all bad.

White collar crime kills more people than violent crime by multiple orders of magnitude.

I'm generally supportive of more understanding sentencing, but I do think you're failing to consider how theft can be as damaging as violence (sometimes worse).

If someone breaks their spouse's ribs through domestic abuse, you'd apparently agree they need to be imprisoned.

But if someone steals someone else's identity and entire savings, ruins their identity, robs them of the ability to get another job or take out loans, which then results in them being unable to pay for medical treatment for their child, who dies, followed by their own suicide, I'd argue that's a far more tragic outcome, resulting from what you're categorizing as a "nonviolent crime". I'd argue that the latter crime is much more damaging, and should perhaps be treated as such in the justice system.

I am against jail for anyone that is not a danger to others, That danger can be Physical or danger to their property.

"White Collar" crimes absolutely could entail jail time if the offender has proven themselves to be untrustworthy and would continue to commit said crimes if allowed to be free

Jail should be used to protect the population from offenders, far too often however it is used for many other purposes including to punish people for "victimless" crimes or for being poor (like the inability to pay parking ticket)

Is there any deterrent benefit from potential jail time?

Companies with armies of lawyers are pretty good at establishing plausible deniability, so the "because your employees made a mistake" argument, while you advanced it in good faith, is constantly exploited as an excuse.

I honestly don't know. I worked with a company once that had regulatory burdens. They were young enough that they hadn't yet hired the first IT person, let alone a security team, so it was just regular devs trying to comply. Needless to say when I came in (as a regular dev that happens to specialize in security) I waved the red flag and pointed out the possible jail time to the executives, and they were not concerned, even though the laws explicitly lay out that "because your employees made a mistake" was unequivocally not an excuse (and this has held up in court by the way). I'm being ambiguous intentionally here so I can't give details.

But regardless whether there is a deterrent benefit, I think the reality is that jails effect non-executives and normal people (especially the closer to poverty you get) far more than they ever would executives. A much better approach IMHO would be to develop alternatives and phase out incarceration altogether (or at least as much as possible) by rolling them out broadly, would be a better, more humane solution.

I use Suunto fitness tracker and all my data is under the protections of the company which is located in Finland. Since they are a member of the EU, GDPR rules apply to personal data retention as well as other privacy data laws they also have.

It may not be much, but I feel a lot more at ease using their products than what Fitbit is going to be handing over to Google.

Apple's health data is all stored offline, unless you have iCloud enabled for health data, in which case it's end-to-end encrypted and only used so devices can sync. You can choose to share certain data for their research programs.

The answer as to why other companies store data online should be obvious: There's a business can for having access to that data.

Look into Gadgetbridge and the devices it supports. I ended getting a Mi Band 5 for $35 off of amazon. No data sent beyond the phone. The band works without a phone too.

Fitbit is very much a social network, where you can challenge your friends etc. It is very much a selling point to the device. So in the case of Fitbit the user data being online is vital.

Sounds like they were about to go out of business without an acquisition, so I'm not sure how vital it was: it wasn't working to create a profitable business in the first place.

Over a very long period of time, they might have gone under; but their financials weren't terrible, almost 500M in revenue a year, and turning a gross profit every quarter. They just weren't returning shareholder value. The fact is that the Apple Watch is a cultish item, and people within that ecosystem are going to buy a complimentary device. That effectively leaves the others fighting for scraps. Most people just use their Apple Watch as a fitness device without utilizing the other features, but they are willing to pony up regardless.

You should make it. I'll buy one!

>Why can't I have an entirely offline driven system?

Because that's less profitable for the corporate data barons.

You can use Garmin devices that way. They keep all logs forever and behave like USB storage when connected to a PC.

I wonder how engineering integration works for an acquisition this size (Wikipedia: ~1694 employees). Google interviews test for very specific things so it's unlikely every engineer in Fitbit would have passed. Fitbit's big enough that I doubt you'd re-interview every engineer and doing that would scare engineers away, but Fitbit's not big enough where you'd let Fitbit continue to do their own thing for a long period of time. Would you just convert every engineer into the Google leveling system best you can and see how it shakes out over time in performance review? Do these things get talked about during acquisition talks?

I'm guessing at the specific knowledge some of these employees have is valued, and they probably wouldn't take kindly to having to study for a coding test just to keep their job.

I'm guessing they automatically hire some, and interview others who are maybe less core to the business. They can always layoff later if it doesn't end up being a fit.

> They can always layoff later if it doesn't end up being a fit.

Such a fucked up thing that that's legal in some parts of the world. "Ah I don't know if we should hire these people or not, let's just hire them now and if we don't need them, fire them later. We can tell them a week before or something" just fills the air with smug MBAs not understanding that some people work for a living, not for fun.

> Such a fucked up thing that that's legal in some parts of the world.

It's legal basically anywhere in the United States, as most states follow at-will employment laws. Is it even surprising that young people (20s-30s) job hop every 2-3 years?

They've been talking about a 100% transient (read: contract) worker population for some time now.

A lot of the developers I know rotate between contracting and FTE work. They're FTE timeframes line up with your assertion. They stay at one place, get some new tech knowledge, work a few projects and then move on after a few years.

The think the age range has greatly expanded though since most of my group is in their mid 30's now. Maybe more people are starting to contract younger so to them, they see it as a more normalized work career than some other people who want to get one gig, settle in and be there for 20+ years?

I've actually had it brought up as a negative in an interview that I stayed somewhere for 5+ years.

I take it you’ve never dealt with conflicting cultures post-acquisition. I have and it was extremely frustrating fighting with people to follow and respect the parent company’s conventions. At some point you realize that someone is so set in their ways they are affecting the team’s deliverables.

> It was extremely frustrating fighting with people to follow and respect the parent company’s conventions

This post is a tutorial on how not to handle an acquisition! It's generally a bad sign for an acquisition if staff from the parent company say words like that they are "fighting to impose the parent companies culture and conventions"!

It's an acquisition, but companies are made of people, and just because a parent company does something one way doesn't mean that it will fit the company they have acquired.

Take the acquisition of Disney & Pixar. Steve Jobs stated that he wouldn't sign up to the acquisition if it meant that Disney culture would be imposed, because “Disney’s culture [would] destroy Pixar and distraction will kill Pixar's creativity". The whole structure of how the acquisition was planned was to ensure that Pixar maintained creative control and autonomy, and wasn't bulldozed by Disney Corporate.

I've lived through an acquisition too - the real factor to success is to listen and learn from each other, and build a shared way of working. Unless you are buying a failing company, you have to appreciate that they are doing something right and know their own company more than you do. And if it means you use tabs and they use spaces, that's fine.

More common is the situation where neither company has that perceptive of leadership or a culture worth fighting for. Just disagreements and conflicts.

Why should it be illegal?

Consent is a two-party thing. Both parties must consent to a transaction for the transaction to be consensual.

> I'm guessing at the specific knowledge some of these employees have is valued, and they probably wouldn't take kindly to having to study for a coding test just to keep their job.

Genuine Q: even if the employees don't take kindly to it, does it matter?

Well yeah, otherwise they leave and take their friends with them. If that happens to enough of the engineering department Google is left with just a pile of IP and trademarks, and will have to scramble to fill those positions with internal talent (who will obviously not be as experienced in this specific field as the aqui-hires).

Acquiring the talent is a big part of these acquisitions, and it makes sense for Google to try to keep them happy.

None of our engineers had to do a coding test to get their Google offer. :)

More seriously -- I can't really talk about this in great detail. What I will say is the obvious: Google engineers have been hired in the past at Fitbit and vice versa. Leveling systems aren't perfect, and there's no perfect translation, but there is a rough mapping that can be derived by existing data. One special person even worked at Fitbit, went to Google, later came back to Fitbit, and is now at Google again. We didn't need to interview everyone to build a mapping.

My first reaction: 1.7k employees at Fitbit? Wow, SV has gone crazy.

I don't understand the fear of Google from FitBit users in these comments. Google has a clear user agreement with how they use your data, including not selling it - and they rely on users trusting them. I'd rather my data be with one of the tech giants than a unprofitable start up

While you’re right that your data might be safer with Google, the fear or unease is with Google having even _more_ data on people. Too much data in the hands of one company.

I think the concern centers more around Google's horrific customer service and wanton axing of services.

Things change, i thought my Whatsapp data was safe from TheZuck.

Unless there's a guarantee that breaking the user agreement results in a fine that exceeds the money they got by breaking the agreement, the user agreement is mostly worthless.

I agree with this. I was worried about FitBit ever since the Apple Watch came out and decimated FitBit's profits.

But Google acquiring them makes me feel like they'll last a long time, and I won't have to switch ecosystems yet again (I was coming from Microsoft Band).

I would have loved it if FitBit could have remained independent, but basically impossible in today's messed up competitive environment.

"clear" and "user agreement" aren't two words I'd expect to see together. There is always more to the fine print.

I don't understand the fear of Facebook from WhatsApp / Oculus users in these comments. Facebook has a clear user agreement with how they use your data, including not selling it - and they rely on users trusting them. I'd rather my data be with one of the tech giants than a unprofitable start up.

It is true I'd rather my data be with Facebook than a unprofitable startup, which was made clear, so pretty pointless copy and paste

Then you have been proven wrong by history since Facebook went back on their word in both cases meaning you can't trust them or Facebook for that matter to do any better than a startup company profitable or not.

It isn't just the data people fear. It is the product support, hardware decisions, and lifetime of the product. One, they have been become known for not making great hardware quality (See recent Pixel line issues). Besides Pixel lineup, there have been multiple hardware issues so they are not known for quality. Two, they have been known to screw up hardware features and do their own thing, see Nest lineup. This can be seen as a good thing and as a risk. An example of this is they like to 'beta test' new features on the customer to try to get an edge on the competition. But it can backfire and provide a worse user experience. I am referring to the Pixel 4 with Soli sensor that killed the battery. There have been other instances where they add a new feature on Android or WearOS to only drop support later. Look at the Google Cardboard, dead. Even WearOs they had to rebrand. Third, they are known for dropping support for a product after what 3 years? Just look at https://killedbygoogle.com/ I use to be a huge Google fan in terms of both software and hardware. Their software is still great. But the competition is catching up. So where does that leave Google in the market? I realized that the Android phones from other hardware vendors are a lot more impressive and cheaper. So will I buy a new fitbit after the first 4 I had broke before Google? I don't think I will any time soon until Google's reputation has changed my mind when it comes to hardware.

I agree - I'd be more hopeful for Fitbit with other tech giants (microsoft/apple)

Google = 0 customer service, 0 help. They are an ad agency and a B2B company. Good luck solving any problem as a singular user.

Also enjoy the paperweight when they kill your Google account for whatever random reason (we won't even tell you why and no appeals, have fun!)

This reads like a Google shill wrote it, but if not:

1) the fear of Google owning data is that they will be able to target us more and more. As if our internet behavior data wasn't enough, now they have our biological data.

2) the fact that they don't sell it misses the point because in fact they are the party we don't want the data to get to (along with Facebook et all). And you can bet your ass they'll sell it when they strapped for cash.

3) I would definitely not rather my data he with a tech giant who can map it with all my other data that they currently have.

Not selling it doesn't matter to me because the company that I'm afraid of ending up with my data -- ie the company I don't want others to sell their data to -- is Google itself.

You have to ask yourself, why don't we want companies to sell our data in the first place? What's wrong with a third party having it? Its out of fear of them abusing that data. So then you have to ask yourself, what counts as abuse? To me, its any time a company uses the data against me, in order to make me spend money or buy products. This is EXACTLY what Google does with my data. They use it to find out what the best adverts to serve me are, that give the highest likelihood that I will click on them and buy something. Given the amount of garbage adverts they have, I do not trust Google for a second: I've seen plenty of Google and Youtube adverts for outright scams, exploitative garbage like Raid Shadow Legends, have heard reports of malware being served, etc. As long as Google happily serve these adverts on their network (and they don't even respond to reporting the adverts, as plenty of HN submissions have shown), I don't believe they can be trusted, in general and certainly not with my data.

Therefore, I do not want Google to have any data on me and that's why I am against this and other acquisitions.

Besides just the data, its also Googles record for shutting down services they buy and their non-existent customer support.

> To me, its any time a company uses the data against me, in order to make me spend money or buy products.

Genuine question - have you had many experiences where you bought something due to a highly targeted ad and shortly after regretted the purchase?

Not knowingly, in that I don't remember ever clicking on such an advert and then purchasing something. But its impossible to tell if they've primed me to buy something later.

But just because I try to be vigilant and also try to block adverts, doesn't mean that I should be ok with them having my data. Just because they haven't figured out a way to trick me yet doesn't mean they won't later or that they won't become even more egregious later. Besides, its a business model I find unethical, so I want to distance myself from it as much as possible, and them not having data on me is part of that.

Got it. Yeah, I find highly-targeted ads to be creepy as well, and started using ffx with adblock for all browsing. I use Chrome for logged-in web use (gmail, fb, etc).

I don't get relevant ads anymore, but instead I get lowest-common-denominator ads. It's... worse!

I don't like the idea of targeted ads, but the consequence feels pretty minimal I have to say. The worst thing that happens is I buy a product that I turn out not to be happy with / wasn't worth the money?

If regretted purchases were rampant it'd be a problem worth solving, but it doesn't seem to be.

Just some thoughts I've been exploring. I'm not exactly planning on going back to wilfully being tracked.

It’s not really about regretted purchases for me than it is about giving some corporation that power over us. Additionally, the internet has become a cesspool if advertising and google is a huge part of causing that. It’s also that google is serving adverts for scams, malware or just exploitative garbage.

I also feel that while you and I may be doing ok avoiding this stuff, many people don’t including old people and children. That’s not ok. I know that’s off topic here, but the more data google and about us, the less likely it will be that we can protect ourselves or others from this.

There are many cases where Google has used dark patterns to gather data from users. Now, the ToS may mention those cases clearly, but that's not an excuse for the Google's behavior.

Recent examples: Google tracking users per Chrome installation ID [1], Chrome exempting Google sites from user site data setting [2], Chrome experimenting with silently proxying user traffic through their servers [3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22236106 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24817304 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25337995

Does anyone trust user agreements anymore? Give it couple years, they'll either renege or it'll turn out that they found a loophole and been screwing everyone all that time.

Google doesn't sell personal information in the same way that Amazon doesn't sell cloud computing, and Microsoft doesn't sell software.

Also, Google has the capability to do much more damage with my personal information than most other organizations on earth.

Ultimately, I don't trust them, and I can't opt out of their data collection. (Yes, I've seen their opt-out page. It doesn't stop them from building ad profiles when I browse third party sites, mapping my back yard, discriminating against me with ReCaptcha, mapping my wifi ssid location without my consent, or doing countless other things I'd rather they not do, and that I never gave them permission to do.)

This. If you read HN comments, only big tech like Google, Amazon and Facebook are after your data, and every single other company is amazing. I’ve worked at FAANG and small companies, and there’s waaay more shady business at small, struggling companies.

But I do understand that shady stuff at big companies have bigger blast radius, as they have more users, and often more diverse data, but I trust them way more than random startup.

Any statement made by the leader of an acquired business unit should be read like a letter burning in a bonfire - they may mean it at the time, but they have no real power to make it true in the future.

Translation: Google now has access to all your fitness and health data and will be integrated into Google Fit.

No thanks and no deal.

Exactly. They say it as if joining Google was a positive. No it it isn't. Just tell the truth: you sold Fitbit and made bank. No issue here.

It is a positive. For the owners and all the investors!

I have been using an app called Fit-to-fit to sync my heartrate and sleep data from Fitbit to Google Fit for years. This saves me some trouble so I'm excited! Any idea when this will be delivered?

This thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10932968 gets a lot scarier now. My response then was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10933325

  Dear Customer,

  We are sorry for improperly sending out the "Broken
  Heart" alert to you on January 21, 2023.  We should
  have sent you the "She's Pregnant" alert.  In the
  future, please ensure both you and your dating partners
  are running the same OS version.  Thank you for your
  understanding.

  sorry,
  FizzyBaneFitness

substitue Google Fitness now

Five or six years ago, I would have said, "Great! Now my Fitbit will be better integrated with Android and my Google ecosystem. Plus it will inject some much needed stability into a faltering company, to bolster the quality and advance their products. Yay!"

Now I think about the fact that I just looked someone up on contacts.google.com, then added a visit with them to calendar.google.com, and talked with them about it via gmail.com. They know so much about me already, and now they'll have my health history.

The only silver lining is that their security is probably better, and my data is less likely to be hacked and stolen.

But otherwise... Looking forward to a nice Linux/open software fitness watch, from a Kickstarter or other effort, so some of us can take better control of our data.

> Looking forward to a nice Linux/open software fitness watch

Haven't bought one yet, but the PineTime watch from Pine64 seems nice. There's apparently already a FOSS os/firmware or two as well.

I have one, and I think it's progressing fast. Being nearly on-par with Mi Band ~4 is not far. The more people join the community, the faster the progress gets.

Like Pebble, who was first bought by Fitbit and now Google?

A 5 year old Pebble time steel is still better than anything Fitbit has made

Pebble Time Steel, could be argued is better than anything anyone has made. Companies adding amoled screen drains battery, complicated OS to jam as many widgets as possible renders them hard to use.

Garmin arguable comes closest, but they're expensive as they have GPS trackers and other features, but I don't find their OS intuitive.

Quite. Note that Google have been mailing "welcome" messages to people who... deleted their Fitbit accounts before the acquisition, so that's off to a good start.

I had a Fitbit Charge 3, and had to replace it about 3 times IIRC in a little over a year period. The 3rd replacement happened a week after the warranty expired, which to their credit they still replaced it. But it once again died shortly thereafter, at which point I just bought an Apple Watch. Mainly for the ECG function -- my wife had bought me the Fitbit after I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, so I figured I'd rather have something that could help me check more than just my pulse to determine if I was out of rhythm.

Interesting. In my experience it used to be the case that my FitBit would break once or twice a year—and like you they would always replace it. But I've noticed a trend toward reliability.

My Versa 2 has been operating like a champ since the day I got it when it came out. I push it too the limit in the outdoors with activities like surfing, snorkeling, et cetera.

Every year I buy the Apple Watch thinking this will be the year I switch. But again, just returned it on Friday. Hardware is super impressive, but it just feels like putting an iPad on my wrist. I don't want a computer on my wrist I just want to be healthy. And the battery life on the Versa 2 is just so much better. I put it on and only have to take it off about once a week for an hour to charge.

My Versa 2 started dying as soon as I got it would just lag every time you tried to interact with it (touch screen, button, gestures). Eventually it degraded so much that it would even stop measuring activity at random. Apparently it's a known hardware issue, even if it really felt like a software issue.

This all happened during the first lockdown, so I had to wait weeks for the stores to open and get it replaced.

But the replacement is going strong, I've had it for 9 months now.

I've had quite a few Fitbits break, which is frustrating, but their redeeming quality is their willingness to replace over and over again.

When it breaks, they generally offer a free replacement or the option to buy a newer version at half price, so since my first in 2016, I've had six or seven — three or four replacements and two half-price upgrades. (Charge HR replaced once or twice, Blaze replaced once, and Charge 3 replaced once.)

I suspect I'm still a profitable customer, but I suspect they'll become a lot stingier eventually.

My main concern with switching to a different brand is that I'm worried that they're be more breakable and less readily replaced. (Also, I'm on Android, so there are too many options and I can't decide.)

What is a good lightweight 24/7 heart rate and sleep tracker that's not a Fitbit? I have an Apple Watch but the Fitbit's sleep tracking is way better and I keep it on for days (whereas I charge my Apple Watch overnight). I am super happy with my Fitbit but given Google I assume it will be "sunset" within a year or two so I want to switch early.

I've heard good things about the Oura Ring https://ouraring.com/. It tracks sleep and has a 7 day battery life.

Oura ring is good. Tracks heart rate and sleep satisfactorily. I heartedly recommend.

The Garmin Forerunner 45/245 might fit that bill. I'm wearing one right now and only notice it because its riding up on my wrist from my sweater.

And as a bit of a metric nerd the Garmin data exports rock.

Oh, and I haven't charged it in over a week.

After having seen how difficult it is to get an Oura in the UK, I might investigate this first - thanks!

Sure thing! The forerunner 45s is the cheaper option in the forerunner lineup, BUT it doesn't have standard lugs.

There is also the Venu and Vivoactive lines with touch screens, but their battery isn't nearly as good as anything in forerunner's camp.

Has something made it more difficult? :o I ordered a Oura ring in the UK about a year ago, and it was just a standard online purchase.

I use the Oura Ring and really like it for sleep tracking. It also tracks heart rate, but with a caveat which is it doesn’t track while you’re moving quickly, so it’s not really an exercise tracker. (Something about how it’s tiny sensors work)

My combo is Apple Watch by day, Oura Ring by night. I don’t often wear them together.

Very happy with the setup and would recommend.

Thanks for reminding me about the Oura ring, I've seen a few people say they've been happy with it on Twitter in the past year, it sounds like an ideal place to start - thanks! :)

I'm in all the Subreddits, and the Garmin users seem pretty happy with those products.

Disclosure: I also own Garmin Stock, but am a FitBit user (owned FitBit stock too but sold when the GOOG acquisition was announced).

> I am super happy with my Fitbit but given Google I assume it will be "sunset" within a year or two

I work for Fitbit. I don't speak for Fitbit, but now that the deal is closed I can share my own opinions and ask my own questions.

What makes you think Google wants Apple to have the only good smart watch? That would be the main effect of sunsetting Fitbit.

Nest still exists after their 2014 acquisition by Google, and Nest is not as important to any other part of Google as Fitbit is to Android. Why would they be more inclined to sunset Fitbit?

They have a very clear history of buying companies, carving out what they need from it and reselling it (Boston Dynamics, Motorola, HTC, etc).

Chances are that Fitbit won't be around 2-3 years from now, hence no real reason to invest in a product from them now.

Like everyone who has an account on HN, I'm aware that there are companies acquired by Google that no longer exist. But some -- Android, youtube, Nest, etc. -- still exist. What makes you think Fitbit will fall in the former category? Random probability?

Usually the hardware companies they kill off eventually, Nest being the outlier.

I'm not saying that they'll 100% kill off Fitbit, but it's very likely. Google already does hardware and software that does a lot of the same stuff, no point in having 2 brands.

I don't know, I used to resist people's comments about Google shutting everything down, but I find myself on that side of the fence more often these days. With that said, I would be surprised if Google shut Fitbit down. Wearables seem to be big business when done right, and Fitbit is the best thing outside of Apple watches (not counting Garmin, they are in an upper tier imo). I think it's in Google's best interest to properly integrate Fitbit into their company and help it grow.

As I understand it, the bits they carved out of HTC and motorola are what became Pixel. It's not like they stopped producing phones.

> That would be the main effect of sunsetting Fitbit.

That's very debatable, considering the smartwatches from Samsung, Fossil, Garmin...

Google has a perception problem. Even if I can't logically defend how I feel about their likelihood of killing a product, it doesn't mean that image hasn't been built up over time by their actions. That's branding.

That aside, if they end up tying Fitbit accounts to Google accounts, the whole jig is up anyway, because no-one wants to buy a hardware product whose operation depends upon not having Google shut your account down with no recourse other than to raise a stink on sites like HN.

> What makes you think Google wants Apple to have the only good smart watch?

Wear OS shows how little Google care about good smart watches. It's six years old and still bad, if they wanted it to be good they would've fixed it years ago.

FTR making a good smart watch is a hard problem. Acquiring a company that's already put in the hard work is more resource efficient than scaling that mountain yourself.

Xiaomi Mi Band.

The mi bands seem great if you want something very basic. Super cheap but still retains a lot of the features of premium smart watches.

Only issue I noticed was the heart rate monitor was wildly inaccurate but this was on a much older version (the 2 I think, maybe the mi band 5 has fixed this)

Yeah the heart monitor on my Mi Band 2 isn't very accurate, even when I "press" the band to my wrist. It came out in 2016 so I'm assuming the 5 will feature a much more modern sensor suite.

Do these phone home to Xiaomi?

Withings Scanwatch [0]

[0]: https://www.withings.com/de/en/scanwatch

Whoop has a lot of cool data and is lightweight but has no display, no GPS, and they lock you in with a subscription fee. I

If someone from Fitbit is reading this: It is asinine that the data from my wearable has to go to my phone, up to the cloud, and back down to my phone for display.

I wanted to switch mine from 12hr to 24hr clock format.

I couldn't do it on the watch itself. I couldn't do it on my phone from the app. The only solution was to log in to fitbit.com in a browser, change a setting there, then re-sync my device via the app.

Sounds like ANY device or peripheral - the data is more valuable that anything else. On acquisition - the exit strategy is to have a pile of data.

I think regulation is the only way to change this because it's a gravy train.

I would pay more for a device that didn't save to the cloud and only saved locally but could still give you nice graphs and whatnot in an old-fashioned desktop program. They can have a website that you can upload to that makes things visible to your friends, as long as it's opt-in only. I wouldn't use it because I wouldn't trust it, though.

This sort of thing is as dead as a doornail, unfortunately.

With Garmin watches you don't have to pair it to a phone or set up Wifi. You can just plug it into your computer and download the data. There exist a number of open source tools. I've only used GPXSee for looking at the GPS data, which actually let me see "correct" swimming distance data where Garmin was using some algorithm that didn't make any sense.

I mostly use the web ui but loading the data into one of the open source offline tools is on my to-do list. There's actually some analytics/reports I want to generate that Garmin doesn't provide, so I might end up doing it purely to write some reports.

(Although the peace of mind I would get knowing that I could pull the plug on my Garmin account whenever I want would be nice.)

Though it isn't perfect. When Garmin had the outage last year I unpaired my phone which actually reset some of the configuration I had done on the watch, which was really annoying.

It is not 'asinine' if you're worried about cost, size, and weight. An all in one device is going to be larger, heavier, and cost more than device that relies on a smart phone.

The GP is complaining about the phone -> server -> phone data path of the wearable -> phone -> server -> phone workflow for generating a nice graph. Presumably they think uploading the data to the server should be optional for backup/social purposes and not a part of just viewing the collected data.

Exactly. And even if it does eventually get uploaded, I might be using my devices not in a data connected area. It's just a lazy architecture.

Edit, may not be entirely laziness: see this response to my question - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25787066

As I remember, my FitBit HR holds less than 10 days' worth of heartbeat data, and can't be uploaded to the phone without the phone having connectivity to FitBit's servers. Also, extracting large amounts of data from the FitBit tends to time out and require a full retry. On more than one occasion, I was on vacation with my wife in a foreign country and only got a local SIM card for her. This resulted in me turning off automatic sync (to avoid battery drain from all the failed attempts). This resulted in me relying on manually sync'ing my FitBit data when I had WiFi, which resulted in my forgetting. This resulted in data loss.

Also, I seem to remember long syncs timing out so many times in a row that I just had to factor-reset my FitBit HR to clear its data buffer. This happened more than once. It really needs an incremental sync.

When I got my FitBit HR, my wife was interested in using my original FitBit. I proceeded to update its firmware right before I gave it to her, but the firmware update seems to have timed out and broken the FitBit. I recovered once with a factory reset, but a second firmware update attempt bricked it.

Honestly, IoT devices need minimal firmware in non-brickable ROM that checksum the firmware in flash before jumping to the firmware in flash. If the checksum fails, then make a light blink and go into a recovery mode that implements a minimal Bluetooth or HTTP firmware update, preferably incremental, requiring minimal state, and recoverable/restartable if that minimal state gets corrupted. Back in the day, I bricked a WRT54G router by using Firefox to upload the firmware instead of Safari or I.E. (It was a known non-deterministic issue, apparently. I'm guessing a corner-case in the router's handling of chunked HTTP encoding.) Not even the trick of shorting two adjacent pins using an x-acto knife could get the recovery TFTP server to come up.

Also, during the first year warranty period, my FitBit HR died twice, presumably due to being splashed so much with salt water during dragon boat race practice. I know it says not to go swimming with it, but you should really avoid excessively splashing it with seawater. When my FitBit HR died a third time shortly after the warranty period, I gave up on FitBit for a while.

Yes, I understand that and I've given some of the reasons why.

Another reason is that the alternative of syncing your device with a computer doesn't work with most of the population. They either aren't familiar with tech enough or they don't own a computer. The rest get annoyed with the lack of convenience vs automatically uploading everything via your phone's bluetooth

Each device should be as capable as possible. There are features not implemented on the wearable, and there are features not implemented on the phone, as someone else pointed out, they could not change a basic setting from the phone or the wearable.

I understand there's a feature set trade off, I don't necessarily want a wearable that connects to the internet itself.

Ok, then it already exists. Buy Apple. The main trade off is price.

This was my major beef with Pebble... which was purchased by FitBit... which is now owned by Google, meaning all that Pebble data is now Google's.

Reading, and I guess I'll take the time to explain why it works this way. Unfortunately I have to keep it at fairly high level. Long story short, we don't trust the transport mechanisms by which our customer's data gets from their wrist to our backend. As such, we securely encrypt it on the device and that encrypted payload can only be decrypted once it's on our servers. At that point it becomes available to be fetched over secure APIs.

We've considered other ways of doing this that will preserve our requirements to keep customer data private and unable to be tampered with. We will likely make it more flexible in the future, but this is the scheme that has worked since the company was founded, almost 14 years ago.

Thanks for the explanation! Key escrow is hard, eh?

What about...just providing a desktop app to receive all the data and do all the computation needed? Or the same thing in your phone. What are the exact dangers of these two approaches? And dangers to whom?

Then they would have those keys. Phone security has gotten a lot better in 14 years, but it hasn’t always been great, and desktop security is still not so awesome.

Whenever I think of Fitbit I think of Pebble and get sad. I wish there was a Pebble replacement.

If you liked Pebble, you'll probably be excited about Watchy: https://watchy.sqfmi.com

Also, how about PineTime? https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/

Doesn't look like it's for sale for end users.

You can absolutely buy it as an end user, but the catch is that it doesn't pass the grandma test, you need to be a bit more tech-savy.

No OS. Monochrome. No case, not waterproof, nonstandard strap loops through PCB.

It's kinda cool but it's no Pebble, or any kind of daily driver watch.

So true. All Fitbit did after the acquisition was shelve all of Pebble's tech. Pebble, to this day, still has the best smart watch screen. Those refresh rates were crazy.

Don't worry, Google just killed the Pebble App from the playstore, so you can be more sad now.

I guess it means that if Google blocks your account due to a false positive on an unrelated service, you can no longer use you watch.

This is my biggest concern, not even the data. Google locks your account and your entire life is disrupted!

I considered going to China, but decided against because of my reliance on Google services.

Really? For just that reason? I live and work full time in China and we use G Suite and Slack with a good VPN (there are some similar Chinese services but none are nearly as good).

Sometimes I can’t watch a YouTube link if I’m away from home and the VPN isn’t working on 4G, but that’s as bad as it ever gets these days.

Which is crazy to me...Google is...

Your photo manager

Your search engine

Your document storage service

Your health monitor

Your contacts list

Your video hosting facility

Your calendar

Your document editor

Your location history

Your music engine

And I have no doubt I'm missing a load here, point being why the fuck has the EU not stepped in at this point and said "woah buddy, you're a tad too big to be this unregulated".

The EU needs to enforce stricter regulation across all Google products, such as making it illegal to "ban" or lock out an account by means of an AI facility without human resolution within 6 hours or less (6 hours is a maximum, anything above incurs an hourly fine).

These must be regulated like a public service, because the risk of losing access to an online account can be devastating.

The onus, however, is on YOU to diversify, have redundant email addresses (forward+store a copy) so in the event one is RIP you are not boned entirely.

Not to mention:

Your password manager

Your 2FA authenticator

Your notes manager

Your domain name provider

Your cloud provider

Your browser

Your operating system

Your smart home

Your phone number

Your mobile ISP

Your analytics provider

And, should you post too many emojis in a YouTube comment, you'll lose access to all of these things.

I was about to buy a new fitbit as my current one is basically dead after 4 years. But the way Google handles things they buy doesn't inspire confidence. I guess I'll investigate others and probably end up with an Apple Watch.

I'm waiting for PineTime, personally. My significant other just switched from a Fitbit Ionic to an Apple Watch SE and definitely likes the upgrade.

Battery life is your biggest loss if you leave Fitbit, almost nobody was making smartwatches as battery efficient.

How long do they last?

Personally, Ive been using Garmin smartwatches for a few years now and they last about a week, with O2 sat scanner enabled over the night. Definitely been happy with them.

New Fitbits are similar. (Battery life in all devices decays over time.)

Your Apple Watch or Google Wear OS will give you a day or two.

I get 24-36 hours on my Colmi P8 (same hardware as PineTime), with step tracking and heart rate monitoring turned off.

The PineTime is a huge downgrade from pretty much everything on the market. It's only good, at least for now, as a platform to prototype on.

> The PineTime is a huge downgrade from pretty much everything on the market.

Not really, no. Very popular Mi Band 1 up to Mi Band 5 are very much on-par in terms of hardware. The software just has to catch up and that's probably coming.

If the project is successful, a PineTime 2 with some minor HW upgrades would be doable. Then it would take much less time because now there's a community and software out there that can be reused.

RIP Pebble. Their watches lasted over a week on a single charge. Fortunately, my Pebble Time Steel is still ticking, but it's only a matter of time before it breaks somehow. I already cracked the screen. :(

That doesn't sound very impressive, my Fitbit Charge 3 lasts a week or two easily.

My new and fresh Pebble did that too. But after 3 years, it's lost a lot of charge on the battery, so it's more like 4-5 days now.

I’m not sure the pine time will be powerful enough to actually use. Iirc it has a 64mhz cpu and 3.5mb storage space. It looks like more of a toy for developers than something you would use normally.

The mi band might suit your needs better.

> The mi band might suit your needs better.

The Mi Band 4 has a 96MHz MCU and not a lot more storage.

> I’m not sure the pine time will be powerful enough to actually use.

I suspect you're grossly overestimating the compute power needed for a lot of the features smartwatches currently have because you're not very familiar with ecosystem.

I have the Versa 2 and absolutely love it. Just gave the Apple Watch another spin but returned it. If you want an iPad on your wrist that's the way to go. If you just want health features I'd recommend the FitBits.

Will probably upgrade to the Versa 3 or Sense, but the 2 is just awesome. I've also had the Charge 2, Charge, Ionic, Microsoft Band 2, and Microsoft Band 1. Versa 2 was a major leap.

Finally, I still consider these things early adopter territory, but in 10 years I think everyone and their dog will be wearing one.

That is the thing, FitBit does exactly what I need. Tho considering my last one lasted me 4 years, even if I get a new one and Google destroy everything I'll still have 3-4 years of usage so it might be worth still buying a new FitBit.

Same. The Google brand is a kiss of incoming death as far as I'm concerned. They were in fact one of the primary motivators for my beginning to work on a personal archive last year. I'm glad I did, not a few months after I bought some hard drives, google photos announced their service changes with no longer allowing unlimited storage. I really think they made/buy some great products, their management just makes it crazy to me to have a dependency on something they own.

It's becoming more and more difficult to keep away from Google eyes these days. Picasa, Waze, Nest, Fitbit where all companies whose products I used before the acquisition.

What other products are you using that aren't acquired by Google yet? Asking for my stock investments.

The question now: how soon before my fitness tracker stops working? (Given Google's track record)

I learned the hard way how developer-unfriendly Nest became after acquisition. I wanted to do some very basic home automation with a smart thermostat and it was like somebody had released a broken beta of an API and stopped maintaining it. To add insult to injury they were in the process of shutting down the few useful APIs that remained and almost completely closing it off. Sold it and went to a different brand.

Side note: the blog still has a Google+ sharing button. (Google+ shut down nearly two years ago.)

Maybe Google will be a bit faster with new features. It took almost six years and a 544 post thread in their community forum to finally provide the ability to use kilojoules instead of calories. It's just a multiplication factor like feet to meters or pounds to kilograms. https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Option-t...

Google is not better in this regard.

Hopefully this means better support for exporting, say, step and minute by minute heart rate data to Apple health and vice versa. I want to be able to do what I want with my data.

I would imagine the data will go to Google Fit which exposes a comprehensive (but difficult to use) API.

I built an app for this: https://dev.clintonblackburn.com/fitsync

I love my Fitbit hardware but loathe their apps. After 5 years or so, they still suck at data synchronization.

I hope Google fixes this

Gods, yes, this. The FitBit app is like someone said "Let's use a wonderful asynchronous architecture so we won't block on retrieving data!" and then completely ignored all the ways that might lead to terrible UX if implemented poorly.

My steps stick at 0, then suddenly are the total of the last 3 days' worth. I log food, and it re-populates the "quantity" field with the old value after I edit it, sometimes up to 8-10 times in a row. My sleep data takes a roulette-spin amount of time to go get processed in the cloud and redownloaded, and even once the main dashboard has the info, the "Sleep" detail page will refuse to admit that I slept last night for another 3d20 minutes.

It's like someone connecting the pieces of a car with Slinkys instead of bolts because they're more flexible. If I didn't like the hardware so much I'd have switched ages ago.

I guess it's time to de-activate my FitBit account. It was nice while it lasted. I wish companies wouldn't fall prey to Google money on principle, but that money is oh so good...

I triggered account deletion a couple weeks ago when the EU announced their approval. With the 7 day deletion timer, hopefully my account was completely terminated prior to Google getting their hands on it.

I wonder how long Fitbit would have been able to survive on it own. Something tells me not very long.

I deleted my account and uninstalled the app a few days ago - just in time to prevent google from slurping up my health data.

I purchased a Mi Band 5 for $35 which is a vastly better device than fitbit equivalents for a quarter of the price. You can use it without data being sent to the cloud if you use the open source package GadgetBridge.

There's also "Notify & Fitness for Mi Band" for Android [1] which I used, which was ace. Packed full of advanced features like ability to change what calorie / basal metabolic rate calculations were used, export of the data locally / dropbox, export to google fit + strava etc., no dependency on Xiaomi's servers. Closed source, though. But appears to be one single persons personal project.

Those products are awesome if you want a lower-end fitness tracker. Originally I bought a Mi Band 4 because I saw it reported itself as a bluetooth HR accessory, meaning you could get continuous heart rate on bluetooth if you paired your device -- whereas FitBit's protocol was encrypted and proprietary. Did some cool stuff with that (a shirt with an LED matrix screen that pulsed at the wearers heart rate!)

Wouldn't say the hardware is "vastly better", I found the continuous heart rate monitoring to be a bit sluggish -- i.e. it averaged out HR over a longer period than the fitbits I've had did, so you were less likely to detect the peaks and recovery periods during excercise. Otherwise it was much of a muchness, but cheaper. I imagine the cheaper HW probably meant corners were cut with the sensors and firmware, but being hardly the athlete I didn't care outside of heart rate sensing.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mc.miband1...

Is Notify proprietary or open source? Does it send data to the cloud? I couldn't tell based on a quick look and search.

Also a fan of the Mi Band. I have a Mi Band 2, and just bought a Mi Band 5 for a family member. At $35 USD it's a good entry device (with mid level features) for those new to fitness tracking.

> I purchased a Mi Band 5 for $35 which is a vastly better device than fitbit equivalents for a quarter of the price. You can use it without data being sent to the cloud if you use the open source package GadgetBridge.

Gadgetbridge is mentioned regularly in these threads, thank you! Privacy is one of our main goals. We support quite a few bands and watches and the list of devices and features is growing. We are also happy for contributing members, so if you think that your movement data and notifications should remain private and can do some Android development, stop by, we are at Codeberg. https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge

This can only be good. I have had 3 WearOS watches over many years. None last more more than a few months of use due to the mindblowingly bad WearOS. 256,000 reviews and 120,000 one star reviews. I have a drawer full of perfectly working hardware that I can't throw out.

The bot based support question answers is a complete joke. Maybe not Google's fault but the connectivity between the watches and the phone is the most flakey thing ever. Considering a $20 Xiaomi Band can keep a bluetooth connection forever I don't think it is the hardware. The rest of the software stack is hobbled my a java stack that needs gigs to run.

How long before it's killed by Google?

2-3 years tops.

In 3 years time all the customers can look forward to it being shut down.

Anyone stopped using Fitbit as a result of this?

I have - moved to an Apple watch.

I didn't stop using it, but I made a different decision about what watch to purchase because of it, because a) divesting my health data from Google's vacuum seemed wise and b) I no longer trust Google to support hardware/services long term.

My wife switched over to a Garmin fitness tracker. She'd been having technical issues with her old Fitbit anyway, but the Google acquisition made it so she didn't even consider a new Fitbit as a replacement.

I did and I also deleted my account and data.

I’ll probably get an Apple Watch but I’d prefer something eink and “dumber” with just clock, heartrate, steps, stairs and GPS, no accounts and no forced uploading to their servers would be ideal.

I love the FitBit device though. If there’s some opensource way to keep using it without Google being involved I’ll probably try that.

I switched to a Garmin Instinct a few months ago. My Charge 2 died and I wanted something with GPS and decent battery life. I charge my watch every 10ish days (I pair it with my phone only after an activity to see the details, not otherwise). I personally find it great that it has a rugged screen with buttons instead of fancier things like a touchscreen, payment options etc.

It would be possible to DIY this, it might be clunkier than most would expect and have worse battery life.

*edit, found this eval kit by maxim

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/maxim-integrated/...

Kinda expensive and not very open for an eval kit. The only somewhat difficult part is implementing the pulse oximetry signal chain and analysis software. Everything else is basic integration.

The moment I read the news of the acquisition I took off my Fitbit Charge HR2 (it was my second Fitbit device) and I deleted my Fitbit account. I have no illusions this will change anything and I did it entirely on principle.

Not yet, but it looks like I will. I had no idea of the acquisition till this post. A shame because I think the Fitbit is fantastic and my current device is years old.

I switched to an Apple Watch last year when I got one for my mom because of the fall detection, so that I could know how to use it and support her. The rest of my family still has Fitbits and I still prefer Fitbit for what it does (and the battery life). That said, in the wake of this announcement two people just got an Apple Watch ordered as an upcoming birthday gift because I don't think having Fitbits is a good idea anymore.

Google is not a company that respects their users. It's that simple. Apple doesn't respect developers, but it does respect users. Google respects neither. I'd say the current situation in tech is not especially positive for users generally, but having a product tied to Google, Facebook, or Amazon would be your worst case scenario, and I'm actively trying to excise these products from my life.

Yes. I had a 30 message back and forth with their support to get a refund and they wouldn't do it.

Guess I will stop using my old fitbit. I've been trying very hard to de-google my life, so them owning fitbit is a deal breaker for me.

Good jumping off point to ask: What can we use to get our fitness data from our smart watches and keep the data private to ourselves?

I have gadgetbridge with a Lenovo WatchX. Cheap, cheerful, works ok without competing with apple watch for quality. Great battery life.

https://gadgetbridge.org/

What else is there?

Somehow I feel Google has no real plans for Fitbit and Fitbit will just disappear. Google isn't great at devices.

I understand you, but I love my Pixel series devices. Every other one had some compromise that I did not agree with, but on the whole they have been good for me.

You may point to other competitive devices that do things better, but I think that just shows how hard it is to compete in the smartphone business.

Pixel phones are the best Android phones because they come closest to pure Android experience and have the best smart-phone update policy outside of the iOS eco-system.

Unfortunately they don't move any significant units because Google doesn't know how to market them, sell them or distribute them ... because Google is bad at devices.

More evidence that Google can't create any good, innovative products anymore - they just acquire them.

Can't make good watch hardware OR software? Just buy part of Fossil and Fitbit to handle that.

Can't make good smart home devices to compete with Amazon's Ring or Simplisafe? Just buy Nest, Revolv, and a huge stake of ADT.

etc. etc.

More evidence that anything Google does is inherently bad for HN.

whats wrong with Google Pixel

Is Google Pixel the phone or a tablet?

Is Chrome a browser of OS?

iPad Pro - Phone or Tablet ? For fun or for PROfessionals ? Airpods - Earbuds or Headphones ?

Don't worry op won't reply to this.

Bought out part of Motorola to do this

Lol no ? They did that to fend Microsoft for parents. There's a reason they sold it after patent war was settled. You have half baked information and make 0 points.

Sure - it was actually HTC.

Surprisingly it doesn't stop with hardware: Compete with iPhone with your own mobile OS? Nah - just acquire Android.

Lastly, a multi-trillion dollar company doesn't need your aggressive defense across every comment in this thread. Hope they see this, bro

I don't care at the valuation. I see the pitchforks out every time on every thing. There's a clear agenda. And you epitomize it.

Yes "bro" they saw this. Tool.

Lol Amazon's Ring ? Amazon also acquired Ring. Maybe do some research before trying to score Internet points.

LOL maybe they'll see this and hire you, simp

Also, the juxtaposition was meant to highlight the various competitors in the space, not necessarily to say that those don't also acquire companies to gain share.

I like the name calling when your point is called out. But sure it is "cool" to abuse people now I guess. Did you call out Amazon as well ?

Although I criticize Google many times and I try to avoid their products as much as possible, I don't have many alternatives at hand for products like WearOS and Google Fit.

And both of them have had major usability, integrations and stability issues over the years that are hard to ignore.

In an ideal world, I wish that small companies like Fitbit could compete with Google and Apple and release good all-inclusive smartwatches that developers can use to bukld good general-purpose apps, with a well-designed interface, and that are also very solid fitness trackers.

Unfortunately we aren't in an ideal world though, so I can just hope that this acquisition helps bringing some proper vision in the current chaos that reigns in the WearOS and Fit departments.

I wonder if future Fitbit watches will use WearOS instead of the current Fitbit software.

Nobody knows yet which side will "win" internally. Wear OS is Android-based and a Google product. It's also universally accepted as garbage: Even Android Police bloggers trash on the state of Wear OS. Fitbit is a better platform that has vastly more users and performs better. But it's not Googley at all, so if Google keeps it, there will likely be a lot of changes.

Wear OS needs work but it's not garbage. Given enough RAM it's usable. The Fossil Gen 5 for example is somewhat fine. The issue is more with Qualcomm releasing garbage CPU. Google releasing a watch would help in the same way the Nexus line helped with phones.

What WearOS needs is man power and an easier time getting the fix they need in the Android tree. It's not however a lost cause. With the improved activity monitoring provided by Fitbit it could be nice.

> Given enough RAM

This is the problem. A smartwatch should not be burning a lot of RAM. It has a battery the size of a dime, it should be doing very little with processor or memory. Wear OS is too bloated to the task.

> A smartwatch should not be burning a lot of RAM.

Then again, the Gen 5 has 1Go and works fine. That's the same amount than an Apple watch serie 4/5.

> It has a battery the size of a dime, it should be doing very little with processor or memory.

Wear OS is far from perfect but that's more on the Snapdragon 3100. Samsung and Apple CPU are far better but they don't sell them.

It's very much a chicken and egg situation. Qualcomm doesn't invest because there is not market and there is no market because poor CPUs lead to products which are not competitive. Google could have unlocked the situation but I guess they were wainting for the Fitbit acquisition to go through before going back to wearables.

Qualcomm isn't the only microprocessor vendor. And even if it was, imagine this call:

"Hi, Qualcomm, this is Rick Osterloh from Google. How much money would we need to invest for you to release a smartwatch processor that isn't garbage?" "Hey Rick. We'd need about $$$$." "Great, I work for a trillion-dollar company."

Which is to say, Google has the money and power to literally make what it wants happen, if it isn't happening, it's not reasonable or logical to blame another party. It is fundamentally a lack of commitment by Google to support their product line.

> Qualcomm isn't the only microprocessor vendor.

Well, actually, on this segment, they kind of are.

> It is fundamentally a lack of commitment by Google to support their product line.

Yes, I think I did say that repeatedly in the post you are answering. I also talked about the Nexus line. The again, Google did buy a giant of the wearable and fitness industry. It's just that the acquisition took a lot longer than expected.

Still, I was initially answering someone calling Wear OS garbage. It is in need of more developers and working on suboptimal hardware however.

This will certainly help give Google an advantage if they enter into health insurance.

Aplhabet has non trivial stake in Oscar health, and this fitbit acquisition plays right into being price health insurance policies for users.

I have a Fitbit 3 that is awful for synching with my iPhone. Not sure if it's just me or the SW is a pile of pooh. I'm not really sure if this change will help Fitbit or me.

Fitbit has made some solid devices but seriously lacks in the software area. Finding/Installing apps on your versa is as bad as it was on my palm pilot.

Has anyone tried out Wyse's fitness band? How are they as a company? The prices are the lowest around on their entire lineup

I don't know about their fitness band. What I know is that Amazon will acquire Wyze within the next 2 years.

DC Rainmaker has a detailed analysis of what this means for consumers.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2021/01/google-completes-acquisi...

Well, RIP FitBit's Health API, that'll probably be rolled into Google Fit.

As a mobile developer, when we do any Health integration, the topmost platforms by usage are Apple Health and Fitbit, followed by Samsung Health and lastly Google Fit.

This easily lets them catapult in second place.

I wish them luck. I got a Versa 3 for Christmas because I hated charging my Apple Watch everyday. I tried it for the past 3 weeks and have finally gone back to my Apple Watch. The Versa 3 is fundamentally worse at everything...except battery life.

My concern is not for my data (because I don't care, not because I trust in Google's goodwill and governance), but Google has a sad history of mismanaging their smaller side projects.

I pray that this time, it's different, but I'm not holding my breath.

This is a fairly obvious move for google to get further into biometric data harvesting.

Hopefully this means a youtube music app for the versa watches.

... perhaps a new Google chat app?

I'm sure Google is merely interested in having another great product and this wasn't just another way to expand surveillance data collection.

Sad ending. It'll be on https://killedbygoogle.com within 36 months.

And don’t forget https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com

Didn't they merge with Fitbit a long time ago?

They announced the acquisition in 2019 but it had to get regulatory approval first. A lot of people expected regulators to reject the acquisition.

I consider it a massive failure of our governments that whilst acknowledging Google is a monopoly and engaging in antitrust cases against them, they also permitted Google to buy a multibillion dollar company that will expand their monopoly.

Agreed, it is a complete disaster for privacy and competition in this space.

I won't comment on the privacy implications, but can you substantiate your claims about competition at all?

I saw Apple Watch utterly destroy Microsoft Band and Pebble, and FitBit was headed for the same fate. If not for Google stepping in, competition against Apple Watch would have just been from Garmin (solid company, but they too probably would have been crushed).

Source: investor in Apple, FitBit, Garmin, Google, Microsoft; was in the first batch of Pebble 3rd party devs; avid Microsoft Band user and participated in a number of internal projects when I was there.

Yep. Maybe they'll object to the acquisition a year later after Google has safely 5x 3-AZ replicated all the heart rate, sleep and location data from millions of people. Apparently Google is simultaneously a monopoly due to the market power they gained using data but yet safe enough to trust with pings every minute from people wearing a watch all day. Its nuts.

Should they really be penalized before being convicted?

Consider that Oracle claims that the regulatory actions around the world against Google are because they ran an extensive but secret lobbying campaign against Google to make this happen. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-23/oracle-fo... With enough lobbying dollars much is possible - isn't this a reminder to wait for the outcome before you convict?

Also, clearly the monopoly that is being suggested is not in this area - in fact, there is a danger in the dominance of Apple's watch and this should increase competition.

> Should they really be penalized before being convicted?

People often land in prison before they are convicted. Also restricting a company that appears to be a bad actor to prevent additional harm on society seems only sensible.

> People often land in prison before they are convicted.

Yeah, and this is seen as a huge injustice by many people. There are clear cut cases where there is a risk of flight or further harm, but in most cases, this type of discretionary pre-trial incarceration tends to impact minorities and people without means to hire lawyers or pay for bonds.

This analogy falls apart there because there are few companies that would be subject to monopoly rules that would lack the resources to defend themselves.

Looking forward to what Fitbit can do within Google. Many people with Apple or Samsung watches started with Fitbit.

Anti-Trust investigation should break Alphabet to million pieces. Way too many big tech apologists here.

It'll be great if we can have custom firmware for fitbit and selfhost the data collection services.

My mom got me a fitbit for Christmas and I think I'll return it unopened now. I've thought about warning her about this new relationship with Google but she's elderly, it's probably not an issue she cares as much about and I'm the one who introduced her to fitbits in the first place.

It's incredibly scary to see how many people on HN are content with giant corps becoming even bigger. I would much rather see Fitbit naturally fail and go bankrupt than become part of Google. We need regulations and we need them yesterday. This cannot go on the way it has.

I'm sitting here, still waiting for a new Pebble

I just got a Fitbit present. Now I have to kill it.

So to be clear... Despite trying to avoid big Californian tech companies my health data is now going to Google, my chat data to Facebook and my insurrection attempts to torrent websites?

Please make it stop....

Great. Bring back Pebble. Low power, unlit low-res screen, week-long battery. Give me notifications, directions, and the time on my wrist and nothing else and I'm happy.

Have you considered a Fossil HR smartwatch? Checks all of the boxes you've listed.

I picked one up last year and have been super pleased with it.

I'm still pissed about Pebble

pixel watch coming soon?

Any day now . . .

Good for them

Another one for https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ Will Fitbit end up in https://killedbygoogle.com/ too?

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