> Apple’s emphasis on fashion and Pebble’s on productivity and third-party innovation were costly detours—the smartwatch market is rooted in health and fitness.
I'm not sure this is accurate. Pebble sold relatively well. They just couldn't get more customers beyond a certain point. It's a niche market.
Fitness trackers become obsolete quickly. They tend to be relatively cheap and there are a lot of sensors and software that can be iterated on to justify selling newer versions of the same product every year to the same people.
When the Pebble Steel came out, I gave my original Pebble away. The only reason I switched was that I liked the design of the new one better, the original still worked just as well as the new one.
When the Pebble Time Steel came out, I switched again and again the one I had at the time worked fine. The Pebble Time Steel had some new features but mostly it did much of the same.
I passed when the Pebble 2 came out because I couldn't justify paying again for a replacement to something that still worked as good as on the first day. The Pebble 2 brought some fitness features but was otherwise no different from what I already had.
Fitness trackers have planned obsolescence. The tech becomes outdated very quickly and the conditions in which they are used lend themselves to natural wear and tear. Utilitarian smartwatches on the other hand are expected to last.
Pebble sold me three smartwatches in almost as many years. They actually marketed four[0] more in that time. They oversaturated the market and grossly overestimated the demand.
Their first Kickstarter generated $10MM, their second in early 2015 generated $20MM, their third generated $12MM. Considering they were falling in the red in 2015 and their 2016 campaign was doubling down on the fitness aspect and bombed in comparison to 2015, I don't buy the narrative that fitness tracking would have been a better focus.
[0]: To recap: Pebble, Pebble Steel, Pebble Time, Pebble Time Steel, Pebble Time Round, Pebble 2, Time 2 and Pebble Core (which is not a smartwatch). The 2016 Kickstarter also saw the edition of silver/gold editions of the Pebble Round but those seem otherwise identical to the original.
Yeah I don't know if it's right to say that the market is "rooted" in that segment it seems like it's easier to make money there for a variety of reasons.
Something like 80% of the market is special purpose wearables like Fitbits vs. 20% smart watches like Pebble and Apple.
One of the only companies in the segment that had good results in 2016 was Garmin which focuses on activity watches.
The fitness and activity tracker segment has several advantages:
-there's an obvious benefit to being wearable, so they're not competing directly with smartphones.
-they're selling into a rapidly growing market for "lifestyle" accessories.
-precisely that obsolescence that you mentioned means they can keep selling to existing customers.
-many people who use them get addicted to the gamification aspect of fitness tracking and will immediately replace broken items.
-sports equipment is expected to wear out in a way that premium watches are not, so watches that break after a year or two do not leave as much of a negative perception with customers.
I'm not sure this is accurate. Pebble sold relatively well. They just couldn't get more customers beyond a certain point. It's a niche market.
Fitness trackers become obsolete quickly. They tend to be relatively cheap and there are a lot of sensors and software that can be iterated on to justify selling newer versions of the same product every year to the same people.
When the Pebble Steel came out, I gave my original Pebble away. The only reason I switched was that I liked the design of the new one better, the original still worked just as well as the new one.
When the Pebble Time Steel came out, I switched again and again the one I had at the time worked fine. The Pebble Time Steel had some new features but mostly it did much of the same.
I passed when the Pebble 2 came out because I couldn't justify paying again for a replacement to something that still worked as good as on the first day. The Pebble 2 brought some fitness features but was otherwise no different from what I already had.
Fitness trackers have planned obsolescence. The tech becomes outdated very quickly and the conditions in which they are used lend themselves to natural wear and tear. Utilitarian smartwatches on the other hand are expected to last.
Pebble sold me three smartwatches in almost as many years. They actually marketed four[0] more in that time. They oversaturated the market and grossly overestimated the demand.
Their first Kickstarter generated $10MM, their second in early 2015 generated $20MM, their third generated $12MM. Considering they were falling in the red in 2015 and their 2016 campaign was doubling down on the fitness aspect and bombed in comparison to 2015, I don't buy the narrative that fitness tracking would have been a better focus.
[0]: To recap: Pebble, Pebble Steel, Pebble Time, Pebble Time Steel, Pebble Time Round, Pebble 2, Time 2 and Pebble Core (which is not a smartwatch). The 2016 Kickstarter also saw the edition of silver/gold editions of the Pebble Round but those seem otherwise identical to the original.