Not so loyal, also based on personal anecdotes: wife and me both had to have our fitbits replaced and with mine dead again, I'm looking at everything except Fitbit.

Scouring forums full of people with bizarre problems with their devices (usually connection related tho that might be only a symptom), I get the impression I'm not an outlier.

Fitbit built up a huge fan base but looks to me like it is now in the process of shedding it at alarming speed.

I've been getting the same impression. It's the sort of thing that can happen when a company is on hard times and cutting corners perhaps.

Glad to see them purchased by a company with deep pockets and a real interest in making Fitbit a success.

Unfortunately Google is known for its terrible customer support and sunsetting services early. It could go either way.

I can.

I had the USB-C connector on my Pixel 3XL fail. This failure is covered under warranty. I was in Asia at the time. I asked for a replacement, but they cannot ship internationally (even if I paid for it). So I had them ship it to my dad's place, he was going to be meeting me in Thailand.

Well, they shipped it to the wrong address, and by the time it was returned to sender and they sent my dad another one, he'd already left for Thailand.

When he returned home, he mailed the replacement phone back to Google.

When I returned from Asia, I requested another replacement. Well, my account had gotten into some state where they couldn't issue a replacement. I was escalated to a higher level of tech and told to wait. I waited. And waited. 2 months past. My account was finally "fixed" but by then I'd left for a 3 month trip to Europe.

I had them ship the replacement to my mom in Chicago. Then she mailed the replacement to me in Switzerland.

An incredible hassle all around, made far worse by their very low end customer support folks. Every interaction began with a 20 minute conversation about what had happened followed by them typically saying "you're escalated to a higher tier, there's nothing we can do."

Some of the pain above could be fixed by changing their international shipping policy. But my account being in some state where they couldn't issue a new phone to me for 2 months even when I was in the US was supremely frustrating and intolerable.

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I've had another issue recently. I bought a Pixel 4XL. Google allows trade-ins of old phones, but at the time trading in a Pixel 3XL was not an option (they fully acknowledge this). So I called the next day and asked to add a trade in. Not possible. They suggested I return to sender the phone I bought to avoid the restocking fee (it was too late to cancel the order), and then place another order with a trade in. Well, that wasn't going to work because the phone was sold out.

LAME.

I ended up replacing several fitbits in my family with Apple watches. The $199 price point is very compelling.

So strange, I've had to replace the band but the product itself is solid.

I've gone through two Fitbits and I'll never buy one again. Horrible customer service, horrible build quality, band just kept breaking under REALLY light usage, and they refused to replace it the 2nd time because I was out of warranty (even though it was a replacement band that lasted <9 months). The guy kept trying to get me to use a 20% off coupon for buying a new Fitbit instead, as if he was doing me a favor.

So yeah, I'm with others below, I'm looking at everything else. Just bought a Withings on a whim, and I'm really happy with it so far. May spring for the ECG model once it passes FDA approval.

I was searching for Withings in the comments, and this is the only occurence. I also played with various fitness and smartwatches, but the only one I really like and stick with is Withings Steel HR.

Battery lasts a month, it's water resistant, shows me notifications, tracks steps and sleep and looks good at the same time! Also costs less than a "real" smartwatch. What a bargain to me. If only it had NFC payments it would be perfect.

Also just because something isn't #1, that doesn't mean it's a bad acquisition. I don't know enough about the details of this to comment, but just because FitBit isn't the biggest thing in wearables doesn't mean it's a stupid acquisition target.

If Apple wanted to sell the Apple Watch for $2 Trillion dollars, that would obviously be a terrible acquisition. If Google bought FitBit for $2000, that would obviously be an awesome acquisition.

Many management boards do live on the utopia of eternal growth and and it stops, a couple of hundred thousand employees get shown the door, just because they need to collect their bonuses.

So true, often when I google news of a company laying off a bunch of workers, I then see the stock ticker and sure enough, the stock is up 10% on the news.

Fitbit really only took off after the Pebble acquisition IMHO.

Oh no they owned the fitness tracker market prior, the initial Smartwatch product, the Ionic, was a flop, seemingly their launch of the Versa helped because it was a stylish smartwatch with the fitbit brand and focus, the software was still quite bad compared to Google and Apple's efforts. I would go further to say that Pebble's product was actually much better.

Versa also has hardware design errors, it allows water to leak in (trough HR sensor's bad adhesive seal) with regular use causing massive return rates.

In financialized capitalism growth is everything. If capital isn't generating growth for its holders it is losing it (relative to other investments).