Fitbit has been a well- known name in the world of Fitness Tracker and Wristbands for a long period of time. In 2016, it decided to expand itself much more than ever before and acquired the assets of a company which was probably one of those responsible for the rise of Smartwatches: Pebble. The acquisition definitely had a reason, and there were predictions that FitBit intends to do something beyond the realm of Fitness Trackers, then some months year, it did another acquisition, this time it was a startup called Vector, which had made smartwatches with a claimed 30- Day battery life, this definitely might have been the reason FitBit seemed to be interested.
With all that hype came the thoughts about Fitbit trying to make a great Smartwatch. From then until now, some great smartwatches such as the Apple Watch Series 2, Samsung Gear S3 and LG Watch Sport came along the way. The news and rumors were already spreading, and then some leaks from Yahoo Finance mentioning that the Project “Higgs” was under progress confirmed the fact that Fitbit has really been up to something.
Until now, FitBit never had made and produced a proper Smartwatch, as its existing products like the Blaze Fitness Watch were not equipped enough to be considered equal to a complete Smartwatch. Considering the growth the Smartwatch market had been witnessing recently, it was obvious that FitBit also wanted to shave their own share from the market Pie.
Then came the sad news. While the planning was going on a full- scale, not much had been done practically, at least not up to the expectations. Here’s a list of everything that had been happening:
1- Fitbit planned to have its Operating System introduced with this smartwatch along with its own application store for the purpose of development and support for apps of its own and from other third parties. But according to the rumors, those plans aren’t going really well at present.
2- It is being said that FitBit also faced issues in trying to make its product completely waterproof, which is a very important considering the fact that its expected competitors, namely the Apple Watch 2 and the Samsung Gear S3 Frontier have the feature.
3- There were also some problems with the installation of the GPS antenna hardware on the Smartwatch, which required complete disassembly of the prototype multiple times.
However, in a positive light, FitBit at least has the design ready, and according to some sources, the new FitBit smartwatch would have a really good battery life. The primary purpose here for Fitbit should be to make their Smartwatch good enough to be a rival to the Exceptional Apple Watch 2, the Samsung Gear S3 and the LG Watch Sport. But that’s where their current problems could cut them short of achieving the purpose. The reasons are the following:
1- The other expected rivals to the FitBit Smartwatch have their own loaded OS, namely the Watch OS on the Apple Watch 2, the Tizen OS on the Gear S3 and Android Wear on LG Watch Sport. Moreover, they have their own app stores for supporting various third party apps in the categories of Fitness and Music.
2- Another key stuff is the implementation of features like water-proofing, GPS, and wireless payment through NFC. If the FitBit smartwatch misses out on any of these, the customer preference won’t shift from the rival products.
If FitBit somehow manages to conquer all their current problems, they could really churn out a great new Smartwatch in the slowly growing market. Added to that, their advantage in fitness tracking and the social media community of the Company could potentially take them far ahead of the competitors.
Throughout the introduction and growth of wearable tech, there always has been one major purpose for which consumers have wanted to use them, that is the ability of Fitness tracking and health monitoring. The experience of FitBit in this field would only intensify the experience, and make Smartwatches much more desirable to the Fitness and Health Enthusiasts. The high hopes and expectations have a very justified reason, as FitBit has the intellectual property of two other great companies, Vector and Pebble under their control. With this combination, the expectation of a revolutionary product probably won’t be wrong.
