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by Urgo 683 days ago
Really interesting read! I was one of those first 5000 units (preordered Sept 29 2009 and shipped Dec 29 2009) and I wore my fitbit religiously (upgrading to newer versions now and then) until last year.

>> "That something had to be comfortable to wear all day, be easy to use, upload its data seamlessly so the data could be tracked and shared with friends, and rarely need charging. Not an easy combination of requirements."

I ended up finally retiring my fitbit last year after seeing little by little Google dismantling all that made fitbit fitbit. Google's first version of Fitbit was the Pixel watch which didn't even last a day. It also may have been comfortable to wear, but was not comfortable to use and the social aspects of it, namely challenges, were axed. So all you were left was a device with the tracking aspects and upload aspects. Not great.

I ended up moving over to a Garmin fenix 7X Sapphire Solar which has a very impressive battery life, fits way more comfortably, has way more features, and while still not the same challenges I loved on fitbit, still has better social features then google left the fitbit with.

All in all, while I do love my Garmin device now, it was a very sad day leaving Fitbit behind. I still hold that, while unproven, I think I probably logged more days of data on the fitbit at the time I switched over then anyone else. I now know I have a 1 in 5000 chance at least of this being true!

>> "In April of this year, Park and Friedman left Google. Early retirement? Hardly. The two, now age 47, have started a new company that’s currently in stealth mode."

Excited to see what you guys are working on now!