Jawbone: The trials of a 16-year-old can’t-miss startup | Hacker News Reader

Jawbone: The trials of a 16-year-old can’t-miss startup

fortune.com

28 pointsnols12 comments

"The demo model the company supplied Fortune, for example, stopped taking a charge after a few weeks, so it ended up where broken watches typically do—in a dresser drawer rather than on a wrist."

Basically summarizes their UP product line. Three years in the making and nothing has changed. Warranty lasts one year after which you are out of luck. Turn around time when a product breaks is roughly 2 weeks with communication, processing + shipping.

Uncanny that I had the exact same timeframe for getting a replacement; in my undergrad I was doing an ethnography on QS culture and spent about 2 weeks waiting for my UP band to get replaced when it broke, only to have the replacement break a few weeks later. I ended up buying a second band and at one point used each in rotations while the other was in the process of getting replaced. After my fieldwork I stopped bothering to replace them despite them still having some time left on their warranties.

I'm not sure what these products do that the Garmin I wear doesn't do, but my vivoFit has made it 10 months so far without a battery charge. It's worked fine the entire time - syncing daily.

And yet if I had to buy one every year it would be worth it to me.

If you've been incorporated for 16 years and still haven't made it, you really shouldn't be allowed to call yourself a startup.

You're just a company. There's nothing wrong with being just a company. But you're not a startup.

Until pretty recently, I just thought of Jawbone as the company that made (dorky[1]) Bluetooth headsets. Then I watched Rahman's lecture in the YC/Stanford startup class[2] and was extremely impressed. The lecture wasn't that great, but the man struck me as "formidable" in the PG sense[3]. Obviously, a lot of VCs see that too. I don't think it's just smoke.

I know nothing else about him (no idea about the brogrammer thing, sounds awful) but if I were a betting man I would be betting on Jawbone right now because of their CEO, despite everything in this article.

[1] I'm very pro-wearables, and don't mind being labelled as dorky myself, but that's the public perception.

[2] http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec17/

[3] http://paulgraham.com/convince.html

I always found the headsets compelling, yet too quiet. I had the original and then later an Icon, and love the noise-cancelling technology. Even in a convertible with the top down on the freeway it sounded great on the other end.

But I always fall back to my Shure in-ear headphones because the audio was too quiet for me. If you seal the ear canal you can get away with quieter audio, but Jawbones don't seal your ear canal that way. Too bad.

"Hardware doesn’t make money for Jawbone today"

Hard to believe given the retail cost of their product line. Unfortunately, this means they're going to have to make their money elsewhere...

"the Nest doesn’t know if you’re hot or cold. I will."

I like the idea of these fitness trackers, but this seems to be the endgame for the business models of all the companies involved (whether or not they admit it).

Hosain Rahman at Startup School is worth a watch for more background on Jawbone's story and its many challenges along the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpINPjfSlZc

I've noticed so many more ppl wearing Fitbits than Jawbones recently. Is the difference really that significant?

I never liked the bendy square "no clasp required" form factor, just looking at it made me question whether it would cause problems while typing. But they lost before I ever had a chance to put one on to try it.

Despite Jawbone having better apps and better firmware features in the UP24, I saw how bad the reliability story is and had no real choice but to get a Fitbit Flex instead (wanted the Force but it was recalled before I even started researching).

My flex just isn't noticeable to me while wearing it, even while typing, and the battery still holds for over a week per-charge a year later. Their attitude toward Apple HealthKit made me start looking at other offerings and particularly the Jawbone UP3, but they can't even get it shipped and who knows whether things will be different this time with reliabilty. And it's STILL a bendy square...

I do not get the brogrammer reference.

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