Fitbit and wearables

I used to wear the Fitbit Flex 24/7, until I pretty much realized I didn’t really need it.

It was nice to know when I reached the daily steps goals (10,000 steps or w/e), but after a while you kind of know your activity level for any given day. I never really used the heart rate feature. The sleep quality feature is really cool (you can later analyze how many hours of sleep you got, and how many hours/mins you spent rolling around in bed trying to fall asleep, or how many times you woke up). But at the end of the day if you need a device to tell you how well you slept… Fitbit’s shares have absolutely tumbled ($50s to $7.5) in a year. Part of it is due to a CEO who doesn’t know how to handle WS. James Park gave a lower quarterly guidance (while raising the overall annual earnings target) after a terrific quarter earlier this year, which caused Fitbit to tank around 20% where it should have gone higher. Part of the decline is due to competition from the apple watch (which is no catch either - it’s a race to the bottom). It’s pretty entertaining following Fitbit’s baggies in stocktwits as a bistander. Some of these people have been dollar cost averaging since the $30s and still think there’s hope for a buyout.

To reiterate my opinion: Fit Bit is a fad that will fade into obscurity. They will become a software developer after their functionality gets 70% incorporated into phones. Plus, no one really cares about walking 10k steps a day. Did you lose weight? Do you have muffin top? This is frankly the only thing most people care about in fitness, and you don’t need an exercise band to measure this.

The day of $50 smart watches will come soon, and Fit Bit will have no more competitive advantage. They’re going the way of the car GPS and their best hope is to be bought out by some company who wants to incorporate their brand.

Pretty much this, there are too many competitors that does the same thing essentially out of Asia, I reckon the only way for shareholders to get some value out of this is if they get bought out for the brand value at some point if it gets cheap enough.

I’d rather not wear one, but my company told me “if you get 3K steps a day on your fitbit then we’ll give you $105 off your health insurance each month.” Fitbit is a fad, but it is one of the only wearables that I can use that will allow me to get my discount each month because the other wearables don’t sync properly to certain health insurance programs.

i wouldnt buy it at $7. Its going to 0

$4/share is cash value. I’d think somewhere around $5-$6 would be a good bet for a buyout. Unlikely it’ll happen though. Race to 0 looks more probable.

Basically agree with Ohai’s prognostication, but I think phones are less of a competing factor than smartwatches and other wristband type trackers. Smartwatches pretty much all have built-in pedometers now, and for those who don’t want to give up their Rolexes, a fitness band or something will be an alternative.

Phones are just to bulky when you are doing sports and active stuff, and often you have your phone lying around somewhere like on your desk while you walk around. Plus, you don’t want to crack your screen if you are doing any sports that have impacts.

You can count lovemaking calories burnt with a fitness band, but not with a phone, unless you enter some kind of estimated figure afterwards.

So Fitbit has lost its uniqueness factor and seems to be trailing on some of the software aspects. It probably needs to merge or be aquired by some luxury brand name if it wants to stay relevant, or it will be the Blackberry of fitness trackers.

bchad called it

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fitbit-estimates-lower-fourth-quarter-145327798.html