• chevron_right

      Google reshapes Fitbit in its image as users allege “planned obsolescence”

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 20 March - 18:57

    Product render of Fitbit Charge 5 in Lunar White and Soft Gold.

    Enlarge / Google Fitbit's Charge 5. (credit: Fitbit)

    Google closed its Fitbit acquisition in 2021. Since then, the tech behemoth has pushed numerous changes to the wearable brand, including upcoming updates announced this week. While Google reshapes its fitness tracker business, though, some long-time users are regretting their Fitbit purchases and questioning if Google’s practices will force them to purchase their next fitness tracker elsewhere.

    Generative AI coming to Fitbit (of course)

    As is becoming common practice with consumer tech announcements of late, Google's latest announcements about Fitbit seemed to be trying to convince users of the wonders of generative AI and how that will change their gadgets for the better. In a blog post yesterday, Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Google's chief health officer, announced that Fitbit Premium subscribers would be able to test experimental AI features later this year (Google hasn't specified when).

    "You will be able to ask questions in a natural way and create charts just for you to help you understand your own data better. For example, you could dig deeper into how many active zone minutes... you get and the correlation with how restorative your sleep is," she wrote.

    Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      “Time to move on”: Fitbit owners fed up with battery problems, Google response

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 31 January - 19:21

    Fitbit Charge 5

    Enlarge / The Fitbit Charge 5 came out in September 2021. (credit: Google)

    Fitbit owners are getting frustrated with Charge 5 fitness trackers quickly losing their charge and, in some cases, exhibiting additional problems. Google has denied that the problems are tied to firmware updates. But users remain skeptical, and some are fed up with Google's limited response to a recurring problem.

    Charge 5 battery complaints

    On December 21, Fitbit announced Charge 5 firmware update 194.91 on its support forum . On paper, the update seemed typical, promising things like new clock faces, support for right-to-left text, and "bug fixes and improvements," per the release notes .

    But by early January, there were complaints on the forum from people who said they updated their Charge 5 and then saw their device's battery suddenly drain much faster. Examples include one user claiming their battery life drains from 100 percent to 0 percent in 25 minutes and others saying their Charge 5 lasts about 12 hours. Most say their Charge 5 no longer lasts for a full day despite staying powered for days between charges before the update. The problems led a user going by Ge0ffh to call his device "completely unusable."

    Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      Fitbit, Withings, Amazfit… : les meilleurs accessoires sport et bien être connecté du Black Friday sont ici

      news.movim.eu / Numerama · Thursday, 16 November - 23:03

    Pas besoin d’attendre le vendredi 24 novembre et « le vrai jour du Black Friday » pour faire de très bonnes affaires. Amazon, comme d'autres ecommerçants, dévoile dès aujourd’hui des offres ultra-alléchantes côté appareils santé et sport. Au programme, des balances et montres connectées à prix réduit sélectionnées par nos soins. [Lire la suite]

    Abonnez-vous aux newsletters Numerama pour recevoir l’essentiel de l’actualité https://www.numerama.com/newsletter/

    • chevron_right

      Fitbit dévoile la Charge 6, un bracelet aux allures de montre connectée

      news.movim.eu / JournalDuGeek · Monday, 2 October - 09:00

    template-jdg-2023-10-02t101149-709-158x105.jpg Fitbit Charge 6

    Fitbit vient d'annoncer la sortie de la Charge 6, un bracelet connecté capable de rivaliser avec les montres les plus haut de gamme.

    Fitbit dévoile la Charge 6, un bracelet aux allures de montre connectée

    • chevron_right

      Google is killing most of Fitbit’s social features today

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 27 March, 2023 - 18:57 · 1 minute

    Fitbit's now-dead Challenges feature.

    Enlarge / Fitbit's now-dead Challenges feature. (credit: Sherwin Fong )

    Today's the day for Google's biggest change yet to Fitbit: It's shutting down some more features. As Google announced in February , the popular fitness gamification features, Fitbit "Challenges" and "Adventures," are being shut down today. Google is also removing the "Open Group" social networking feature.

    Getting motivated to work out is tough for some people, so Fitbit's software included a few ways to gamify fitness to keep people interested. Challenges were introduced in 2014 as a way to share and compare your step counts with friends, hopefully motivating both of you to get more exercise. The feature came with badges that could be earned for specific tasks and trophies for winning a battle. Adventures were announced in 2017 as location-specific challenges that highlighted local places that were good for exercise and hiking, like national parks and landmarks. You could tackle these areas solo at your own pace or participate in multiplayer "Adventure Races" where you could track your hiking speed or progress against other Fitbit users. This seems like something that would only get better with Google Maps integration. Oh, well.

    Adventures, Challenges, and all player-earned trophies and badges are going away today. The Fitbit community on Reddit has been furious over the feature removals, with the most popular post of the past year being a call to cancel your Fitbit Premium subscription over the changes. On Twitter, Fitbit tried celebrating the company's birthday yesterday, but nearly all the replies were about the feature shutdown and what other services people should switch to. Several users have confirmed today that the features are dead.

    Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      The 8 best fitness trackers for each type of user

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 3 March, 2023 - 12:05

    The 8 best fitness trackers for each type of user

    Enlarge (credit: Corey Gaskin)

    It seems like every company makes a fitness tracker these days. Even Amazon has created one—and that’s in addition to the seemingly endless stream of no-name brands offered on its website. Aside from some major names like Fitbit and Garmin, though, most consumers are unaware of what all is out there.

    Smaller names like Oura and Whoop have drummed up some buzz for themselves by eliminating screens entirely and focusing on very specific metrics, while the line between smartwatches and most other fitness trackers has become increasingly blurry.

    I’ve strapped on just about every fitness tracker available, and I've sweated out at least my own weight-testing them. Below is the list of trackers worth your consideration, whether you’re just starting your fitness journey or you're well along your way.

    Read 44 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      Test de la Fitbit Sense 2 : à côté de ses pompes

      news.movim.eu / JournalDuGeek · Monday, 21 November, 2022 - 17:00

    template-jdg-8-158x105.jpg Fitbit Sense 2 heure

    En attendant d'être totalement intégrée à Google, Fitbit poursuit son chemin avec la Sense 2, une montre connectée polyvalente dédiée à la santé connectée.

    Test de la Fitbit Sense 2 : à côté de ses pompes

    • chevron_right

      Pixel Watch review: Beautiful, fast, and way too expensive

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 12 October, 2022 - 17:00 · 1 minute

    The Pixel Watch. It's a perfect, round little pebble.

    Enlarge / The Pixel Watch. It's a perfect, round little pebble. (credit: Ron Amadeo)

    SPECS AT A GLANCE: Pixel Watch
    SCREEN 1.2-inch, 450×450 OLED (320 ppi)
    OS Wear OS 3.5 (Android 11)
    CPU Dual-core Samsung Exynos 9110 (10 nm)

    Two 1.15 GHz Cortex A53 cores (plus a low-power Cortex M33 co-processor)

    RAM 2GB
    GPU Arm Mali T720 MP1 GPU
    STORAGE 32GB
    NETWORKING 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NFC, optional LTE
    SIZE 41×12.3 mm
    WEIGHT 36 g (without band)
    BATTERY 294 mAh
    PRICE $349 (Wi-Fi) $399 (LTE)
    OTHER PERKS 5 ATM water resistance, ECG sensor, SPO 2 sensor

    It's hard to overstate how important the Apple Watch has become. It's the halo device for the entire Apple ecosystem, with something like a 30 percent attach rate on new US iPhone sales. There's nothing like the Apple Watch for Android phones, making it the reason to switch ecosystems from Android to iOS. If you're already on iOS, it's one of the primary reasons to stay. The Apple Watch is Apple's biggest lock-in weapon, and Google has spent the last few years doing absolutely nothing to fight it.

    Google may have gotten to this market first with Android Wear in 2014 , but its hardware progress came to a screeching halt in 2015 and hasn't moved much since. This was partly due to the company's reliance on Qualcomm SoCs, which have been released with the same basic chip design (under different model numbers) for six straight years . In addition, Wear OS hasn't had the greatest development effort, with major releases only occurring in 2014 , 2017 , and 2018 . 2018 was also around the time that Google quietly quit Wear OS app development.

    It's the usual situation: An Apple product has a focused, vertically integrated, laser-straight line of development, while the comparable Google product has to deal with a constantly shifting group of half-interested hardware partners, Google's internal attention deficit disorder, and at least one major rebrand . The Apple Watch ran away with the market while Google's efforts floundered, with the company capturing around 3 percent of the wearable market for several years.

    Read 43 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      Fitbit : le compte Google va devenir obligatoire pour les utilisateurs

      news.movim.eu / JournalDuGeek · Tuesday, 27 September, 2022 - 16:00

    fitbit-sense-2-158x105.jpg Fitbit Sense 2

    Les propriétaires de produits Fitbit vont devoir s’y résoudre, le compte Google va devenir incontournable. La firme de Mountain View va pousser les utilisateurs de Fitbit à migrer vers un compte Google dès 2023. Il deviendra même obligatoire dans les années qui viennent.

    Fitbit : le compte Google va devenir obligatoire pour les utilisateurs