The original smartwatch maker is closing down after being acquired by Fitbit, but your Pebble watch will continue to work after all of its services are dead.
With its final update, Pebble has eliminated any reliance on online servers, ensuring your wearable will continue to function as normal when connected to your smartphone.
Fitbit is buying Pebble and killing its existing lineup of wearables to focus on new ones — but it won’t be dropping support for those devices right away. Pebble today confirmed that its software and services will continue to run through 2017.
The writing has been on the wall for smartwatches ever since Cupertino chose to focus on sports and fitness features for Apple Watch Series 2. Smartwatch sales are plummeting, and fitness seems to be the only profitable area remaining in the wearables sector.
More evidence of this trend emerged this week, with smartwatch trailblazer Pebble reportedly being acquired by fitness wearables specialist Fitbit. We might very well be witnessing the demise of the smartwatch as we know it.
So how did we get here? Is Apple Watch really only fit for fitness, or could it still one day fulfill its destiny and become a true wrist-based computing platform?
Fitness band maker Fitbit is said to be in the process of acquiring Pebble, the company that kickstarted the smartwatch generation. Sources say the acquisition will cost between $35 million and $40 million, and will include the entire Pebble portfolio — including its intellectual property.
Apple Watch shipments declined a staggering 71.6 percent this summer, according to IDC, with Apple shifting just 1.1 million units during the third quarter. During the same period last year, the company sold an estimated 3.9 million units.
Ever open the drawer and go, “Oh yeah. I own a Jawbone UP”? It’s easy to forget about an old fitness tracker or smartwatch you’ve got stashed away, but the Cult of Mac buyback program makes rediscovering an unused wearable more like finding a forgotten wad of cash.
We’ll give you the best price for your wearables, from shiny Apple Watches to older, well-worn products that most other buyback programs won’t accept. It’s a no-brainer to quickly and easily turn an old, unused wearable into cold, hard cash.
Pebble has stepped up its fight against Apple Watch and other wearables by announcing a pair of new smartwatches that finally pack built-in heart rate monitors. They’re called Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2, and they’re big improvements over their predecessors.
It’s only been 8 months since Pebble launched its latest smartwatch, Pebble Time Round, but the company now has something else “up its sleeve.” All will be revealed on its website tomorrow, May 24, at 10 a.m. ET.
Got an old Android you don’t use anymore? It’s useless to you in the bottom of a drawer, but if you dig it out and dust it off, you can sell it to us for cold hard cash!
We’re buying used and broken Android and Microsoft devices through our new buyback program, and we pay more than Best Buy, Gazelle, and Walmart in most cases. We’ll even buy used wearables, watches, and devices that don’t even work anymore.
We aren’t going to pretend we’re perfect, but that doesn’t mean we have no appreciation for the mistakes of others. They make us feel better about our own glaring flaws, and they also make for some good fodder for “weirdest of 2015” news roundups.
This year, we saw some really impressive corporate blunders as well as some head-slapping moments from Apple fans.
