- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
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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 and firing employees. 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.
What are the good alternatives? Been a fitbit user for a few years now and not sure who to switch to next.
As s former Fitbit user: Garmin. Excellent hardware, excellent software.
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.
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.
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 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 Their GPS hardware in the late 2000s were outdated and so I rooted for Apple/Google to replace them with map software and phones.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
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.
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. 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?
Instinct 2 solar
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.
I been looking at nabbing an amazfit and setting it up with gadget bridge (and then uninstalling the huawei spyware app into the ocean)
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.
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.
Google also laid off thousands of people. Yeah, that product is gone.
I called that one dead in 2 years right from the start, and I might have been out by a year.
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.
Yeah, if they are healthy companies they could snag some market share from one of Google’s products.
Easier to kill them early.
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.
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.
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.
I too was married once.
Cat?
Rip Fitbit. They had a good run.
I’m still salty over Pebble
God the Pebble was such a nice piece of hardware. They really focused on the shit that mattered
I’ve moved to Garmin now, but I have an ocean’s worth of salt over Pebble as well.
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 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.
Chromecast gave life to my old TVs for years. I’m watching it slowly die.
Same thing happened to Nest. The cameras and thermostats were great when they were a private company then sh*t the bed when Google took them over.
Google stopped support of their app almost immediately in support of ‘Google Home’ which was to control the thermostat and Camera - which is terrible and requires you to constantly log into it with your email and password if you want to access anything.
I don’t think I’ve ever had to log into the Google Home app, it just uses the accounts on my phone. Or is this some sort of situation where, “I’m too Android to understand this problem?”
Having your Google Accounts linked to your phone is the same as being logged into them at all times. I believe the person you’re replying to might not use Google Account integration.
You are correct.
Google Home is the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever had the displeasure to use.
It used to work really well, and now it’s trash. I don’t know how they could fuck something up so badly.
Home Assistant works well on a cheap(-ish) Raspberry Pi. They’re even working to get voice fully capable.
It can be fully local and is FOSS, for those for whom that matters.
If you’re using HA then there is an open source alternative to Alexa! https://heywillow.io/components/willow-inference-server/
I went with the BezosBoxHomeAsssssistant. … it sucks too. The challenge to my mind is that it’s hard to make any profit on these things, so it’s hard to spend the dev and server $$$ required to actually make the systems do what they should.
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.
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
Another Garmin recommendation from me as well. They are built well, and not shitty with their apps.
I dunno about iOS, but the reviews of the Garmin Connect app on the Play Store are… very consistently negative over the last handful of months. There was apparently a significant redesign that made a lot of information less accessible. I was thinking about getting one of their cheaper fitness trackers, but I’m less sure about that after seeing those reviews.
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.
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!
FYI for those thinking of migrating to pixel watch: Big oof: The Google Pixel Watch 3 can’t be repaired, only replaced
While on this subject, here is the iFixIt list of repairable smartwatches.
Thankful for my first-generation ANCIENT Apple Watch. It needs to be charged every night and the UI is a bit sluggish, but it’s still kickin! Still does everything I want it to (legitimately just activity tracking and reading texts)
It’s a shame. This was the case with both their previous watches as well.
Of course they aren’t killing
fotbitfitbit. This week.Yeah, and as if anyone would know. They’ll send out the announcement internally on the Tuesday before the next fitbit releases, then announce it to the public on Wednesday.
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.
Lots of Garmin love in here! Anything affordable that handles GPS well?
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.
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.
Garmin Instinct 2 does all of those things well, and has excellent battery life. I charge mine about every two weeks.
It’s a damn shame they won’t drop Chrome like they do most things. I can dream, I suppose.
They destroyed Fitbit. It was just to kill competitors. I’ve had so many issues with Google hardware it’s insane.
