It’s what Google does, launch products -> cancel them, buy products -> cancel them. I have been burned enough times by them that I don’t use anything they make anymore out of the certainty that it’ll get canceled just as soon as I’ve grown to depend on it.
what’s the word for a thing that worms its way into your life, makes you depend on it, then uses that to exploit and damage you?
there’s a word for that.
Cat?
I too was married once.
They don’t need to, the day the acquisition was announced my Fitbit went in the bin.
Fuck google, the greedy rent seeking parasites.
As soon as they require me to use a Google account I’ll get rid of mine, too. It’s coming soon.
I had no idea Fitbit sold to google, and had in the back of my mind to buy one eventually. Guess that’s not gonna happen, found any alternative?
Garmin. You’ll probably spend a bit more on the hardware, but there’s nothing locked behind a subscription. I had the Fitbit Sense and switched to the Garmin Forerunner 265. If the skin temperature sensor is important to you, you’ll want a different model, but that’s the only thing I’ve noticed as missing so far.
Garmin. Works reasonably well without connection to the phone. Some models supported by Gadgetbridge
Edit: corrected app name
I literally just bought a Fitbit because I really needed a watch and it has the features I cared about and was way less expensive than a Garmin.
Honestly I think Google will cancel them because they compete with Android Wear or whatever which can’t hold a charge worth a damn. 24 hours for a Pixel Watch? Fuck right off.
May I suggest Garmin? For a smartwatch they have decent battery life and tons of sport/fitness features.
Another Garmin recommendation from me as well. They are built well, and not shitty with their apps.
You must have missed my first statement? Unless you can justify $300-$400 more for the features I use in the Fitbit. Bonus points if you can make it into a funny song.
Shit, I sure did. Sorry.
Man that’s way too short to be a funny song
Yeah, and Google Stadia had great new games coming and they were totally committed to it until woops, never mind, it’s dead.
Google has a hell of a credibility problem at this point.
At this point any Google product comes with the unstated assumption that it could be considered a prototype or an experiment up for cancellation at any moment.
I called that one dead in 2 years right from the start, and I might have been out by a year.
Google also laid off thousands of people. Yeah, that product is gone.
People were literally still working on stadia as they announced its cancellation.
Google literally didn’t even tell all of the stadia team that stadia was being cancelled. Or devs that were working on Stadia games, even ones they had close exclusivity deals with.
I’d feel kinda happy about that if it happened after what they did to pebble, if it wherent for the fact that the assholes who fucked that up still got their money, and now even more people would have wrist-mounted bricks.
Either Google continually buys companies for far more than they should or they really suck at buisness. How many times have they aquired healthy companies then absolutely destroyed them? It’s hard for me to believe they’re not actively trying to at this point.
The point is to exterminate them. To paraphrase another company, embrace, extend, extinguish.
In this case it’s more if you can’t beat em buy em. But it’s from the same school of business.
Between Fitbit and Nest, I don’t know how they can buy them and not just let them run separately like Waze. They have great brands that were ruined.
I would assume some of that is acqui-hiring. Google acquires a company and looks at which employees are the outstanding talent. The best employees are poached for projects Google cares about while the rest are left to keep the product going without the thought leaders who built it.
Yeah, if they are healthy companies they could snag some market share from one of Google’s products.
Easier to kill them early.
It means you get to dismantle a competitor, while also retaining the employees best suited to creative a new competitor.
Glad I moved to Garmin a while back. I preferred Fitbit’s Dashboard over Garmin
When I heard Google’s buying it, I got a Garmin for my next smartwatch just to check the UI. I was thinking of moving back, but I guess I won’t.
Garmin seems to be embracing smartwatches with a number of different seriesGarmin watches are now increasingly supported by GadgetBridge too, so you can have a fully offline setup.
Tell me more please. What’s gadget bridge and what are the benefits?
Basically, gadgetbridge is a third party open-source application that replaces the manufacturer app for a bunch of fitness watches (and other devices of that kind).
So you can use it to replace the phone connectivity functions (like receiving notifications etc) as well as getting visualisations of the data etc. And since it all happens locally, none of your data is stored on the manufacturer’s servers. If you understand how to work with SQL and statistics, you can also run your own statistical analyses, since it’s just a sqlite DB.
The downside is that you can expect it to be limited in functionality compared to e.g. Garmin’s cloud functionality. Personally I find there’s enough data to be useful, but other’s might have different needs.
Can I run the two apps side by side?
Gadgetbridge is a free and open source Android application that allows you to pair and manage various gadgets such as smart watches, bands, headphones, and more without the need for the vendor application. So in short, you can use Gadgetbridge instead of relying on your gadget’s own proprietary app.
Great to see all the Garmin love, I’ll have a look.
Just got an ancient Garmin standalone GPS from the thrift store. Soldered a new battery in and it’s GTG. Even with zero updates, the quality is top notch. One example; It’s been untouched and turned on in my hiking pack for over a month. Battery is full hot!
They destroyed Fitbit. It was just to kill competitors. I’ve had so many issues with Google hardware it’s insane.
They haveb’t stopped producing them… Yet. They’re just planning to.
It’s like when you stop hanging out with your girlfriend in hopes she breaks up with you. Technically you didn’t break up with her.
As a longtime Fitbit user, the writing is on the wall. The Google buyout has been horrible, features disappearing, support sucking, no more web dashboard, payment issues, calorie goals no longer customizable, etc.
They bought the company for user data and patents. Merge what they want into their watches and discontinue the rest. Absolutely minimize maintenance costs by dropping features. They’ll keep the Fitbit name, maybe roll that into a watch sub-series, but the buyout was definitely a gut-and-dump deal.
Too bad the antitrust suit won’t save what used to be a great product and company in time.
The poor Sense 2 was supposed to be the value feature phone of smart watches, and it was absolutely gutted. I’m sure it was simply purchased to remove it from the market so as not to compete with the Pixel Watch.
What are the good alternatives? Been a fitbit user for a few years now and not sure who to switch to next.
I been looking at nabbing an amazfit and setting it up with gadget bridge (and then uninstalling the huawei spyware app into the ocean)
Garmin if you want a watch that receives notifications and can do basic replies. Anything else if you want a mini phone.
Spoken from an ex Pebble user here that’s been rocking a Garmin 245 since 2020. Finally now starting to get a bit meh in the battery department and I will probably upgrade maybe next year to another Garmin?
Garmin watches, IMHO more rugged and they do not put their software behind a paywall. You’ll pay for it in the cost of the watch.
I’ve been using Garmin for fitness since about 2013, I have use a Charge HR for steps/fitness alongside my Garmin watches when I used them only for activities.
Eventually I replaced that with a garmin Fenix 3HR that did steps, activities and looked good enough to wear all the time
I have a Fenix 6 now.
I’ve read that Samsung and Apple smartwatches are better than Garmin at detecting cardiac issues tho.
Problem with the smarter fitness watches is battery life. My Fenix can go about 2 weeks with running 4 days a week. I do t want to have to manage charging my watch so often it’s a pain to capture my life. (Sleeping, steeps, activities)
TBF I’m rocking a 30€ smartband connected to GadgetBridge lol
It gets ~1week battery life regardless of activity tracking
A week isn’t bad. I just use mine to track a lot if activities, even sailing. So hours of GPS tracking. I’m really happy with my Garmin.
I feel like I was too hard on Garmin. Their GPS hardware in the late 2000s were outdated and so I rooted for Apple/Google to replace them with map software and phones.
And here I am watching Google destroy Fitbit and eyeing Garmin again.
I’d like their upper watches to have some more smart features, but not at the expense of battery life.
My Fenix has NFC payments, it gets notifications. Holds music/podcasts so I connect headset directly to it.
But reading and responding to notifications is clunky.
Still, for me Garmin is the way to go.
I got a pixel watch 2 last year when I bought a Pixel phone and tried wearing it. Loved the extra smart features but couldn’t stand the battery life. Just a non starter for me
Garmin. Vivoactive 3 purchased in 2017 is still working perfectly today. I’ve upgraded because I’m an unethical consumer but my mom now wears it. Other than less battery capacity, works perfect. Touchscreen, waterproof, and all.
Fitbit wristbands are faulty and keep detaching.
What kind of battery life does it get? One of the mains draws for sticking with Fitbit for me was only having to charge once a week or so.
Now it gets about 5-6 days. My new garmin gets charged once a month.
Whoa, what model only requires a monthly charge?
As s former Fitbit user: Garmin. Excellent hardware, excellent software.
I was also leaning towards Garmin, but the price and style kept me with Fitbit for now. I really wanted to jump ship recently though.
I was just going to second Garmin. I have an instinct solar and it’s absolutely amazing. If you get good sun exposure it only needs charging once every 2 weeks in normal mode.
Not a direct replacement by any stretch, but I’ve been looking at the PineTime. Not sure how accurate anything it has is, but it’s FOSS, so that’s nice.
Other than that, the last time I looked for watches, it was between FitBit and Garmin for me, so I’ll echo what others are saying.
I’ve been really interested in the PineTime, for the price point it seems like a neat little gadget. I’ve never had a smartwatch and I’d want something cheap to see if I like it, and with the PineTime I know it’s going to be less sketchy than anything else at that price point.
But everything I’ve read implies it’s not really a polished product yet. I’m really curious where it’s at and I’m perfectly fine with some garden variety FOSS jank but how much are we talking here?
Idk, I don’t have one, so I don’t know how janky it is. I have heard good things about InfiniTime though, so that’s what I’d probably use. Maybe do some research about that and see if it interests you.
The antitrust won’t save shit, it’s just a move to let other vulturous companies have a piece of the public corpse, not for any kind of consumer protection.
Alright, where’s my replacement once my current Fitbit dies? What company makes a watch that tracks steps, heart rate, sleep, spO2, notifications, is generally water resistant (light swimming) and has a battery that lasts ~5+ days? Bonus points for open firmware/hardware that doesn’t require me to design my own apps/systems for each of those items. I don’t even use most of what my Versa 3 can do, but I know it won’t last forever and I’d at least like an idea of where to go if/when it breaks down.
Garmin is the gold standard in athletic watches. They have a ton of models, from generic entry level to high end, sport specific.
Garmin Instinct 2 does all of those things well, and has excellent battery life. I charge mine about every two weeks.
Check out Withings. Not open, but they are pretty good on respecting privacy and check the boxes you want. withings doesn’t do the full screen app stuff, but it’s a good watch with all the smart features.
It’s a damn shame they won’t drop Chrome like they do most things. I can dream, I suppose.
The year is 2039.
After successful launch of AILook replacement NextAI, Google is discontinuing traditional Google Search.
You think it’ll take that long? Seems optimistic.
Rip Fitbit. They had a good run.
I’m still salty over Pebble
Chromecast gave life to my old TVs for years. I’m watching it slowly die.
I’m still wearing an OG Pebble (I’ve had about a dozen Pebbles total) . However, they’re starting to get more rare and expensive. Also, while I’m still on Android 12, I understand Android 14 can break the app.
I’ve moved to Garmin now, but I have an ocean’s worth of salt over Pebble as well.
I had two Pebble Steel watches. One just up and died one day and the other slowly failed as the buttons stopped working. I knew it was fixable, but with the sale to Fitbit happening, I Switched to AppleWatch. I do miss some things (battery life!) but all in all I’m not unhappy with my Apple Watch.
God the Pebble was such a nice piece of hardware. They really focused on the shit that mattered
Now they can do the walk of shame as a Google product.
