The Fitbit Versa 2 smartwatch.
Valentina Palladino
The $150 Cost three has 40% extra lively display area than the Cost 2.
Valentina Palladino
Fitbit's new Encourage HR health tracker.
Valentina Palladino
The Fitbit Versa Lite smartwatch.
Valentina Palladino
Reuters has a shocker of a report claiming that Google's dad or mum firm, Alphabet, is attempting to purchase Fitbit.
The report says, "There isn't any certainty that the negotiations between Google and Fitbit will result in any deal," and "the precise worth that Google has supplied for Fitbit couldn't be realized," however apparently a proposal was made.
Fitbit made a reputation for itself in wearables by producing a well-liked, low cost, easy health tracker. Since 2009, the corporate has produced easy clips or bracelets that log your exercise and sync it to an app. Xiaomi, Huawei, and others finally began muscling in on Fitbit's turf, although, and the corporate responded by buying Pebble and producing devices that labored increasingly more like a full-blown smartwatch. Fitbit faces fierce competitors within the smartwatch market, too, although, as over the previous few years Apple has made health a core part of the Apple Watch. It is no shock that Fitbit's income has been down for three straight years, as the corporate is getting squeezed on the low finish by China and the excessive finish by Apple.
A Fitbit buy could be Google's second current acquisition within the wearables area. Earlier within the 12 months, it spent $40 million on a thriller smartwatch know-how from Fossil Group that has not gone to market but. Google's Put on OS has been struggling within the wearables business; it sits at a distant final place behind the Apple Watch and Samsung's Tizen-powered Galaxy Watch.
On the smartwatch aspect of issues, it isn't clear how Google's unpopular smartwatch lineup would profit from the acquisition of Fitbit's unpopular smartwatch lineup. Google's major wearables situation is sourcing SoC that can slot in a smartwatch. Each Apple's and Samsung's watches take pleasure in an amazing efficiency and battery life benefit over something operating Put on OS as a result of Apple and Samsung each have their very own chip-design divisions that produce fashionable smartwatch-centric SoCs. Apple and Samsung are investing in smartwatch {hardware}, and that {hardware} will get higher yearly.
Google does not make its personal SoCs, so it should depend on an ecosystem of part distributors to supply any sort of {hardware}. Whereas this works superb for smartphones, the issue is that Qualcomm, the market chief in cellular chips, has never shown a major quantity of curiosity within the smartwatch market. Qualcomm shoved a Snapdragon 400 into the first Android Wear devices in 2014, and its smartwatch SoCs have mainly been caught in 2014-era know-how ever since then. The corporate has launched the "new" Snapdragon Put on 2100 and Snapdragon Put on 3100 through the years, however these two chips and the Snapdragon 400 are all basically the identical factor: 4 Cortex A7 CPUs constructed on a 28nm course of. Qualcomm smartwatch chips do not get smaller or sooner, 12 months over 12 months, whereas Samsung's and Apple's do. 2014-era chip know-how does not minimize it in 2019, and there is nothing Google can do within the software program or {hardware} design to appropriate this enormous of a drawback.
Buying Fitbit will not assist Google with its {hardware} issues. Probably the most smartwatchy Fitbits, the Versa line, simply use the identical off-the-shelf ARM processors Google has entry to. Google cannot need a lot from Fitbit's smartwatch OS, both, as virtually nobody would name it higher than Put on OS. Put on OS has extra apps and higher smartwatch integration on iOS and Android, and loads of superior health monitoring in-built.
Fitbit is an enormous model identify in health trackers, however at this level it is exhausting to think about that the corporate brings something distinctive to the desk on the low finish both. Fitbit bands have been cloned to demise in China, and if Google is de facto taken with that market, it may simply construct a Fitbit clone like everybody else does, with out Fitbit. It is exhausting to think about why Google would need to do this, although, for the reason that entire level of Google smartwatches is to get folks to make use of Google companies extra. A easy health tracker would not assist with that purpose.
In order that leaves... patents? A determined seize at buying any wearable person base in any respect? Like Google's earlier Fossil know-how acquisition, it isn't clear how any of it will assist Google within the wearables market, the place it faces core provide chain points that block it from even trying to compete within the smartwatch market.
Itemizing picture by Valentina Palladino