This week saw what many would consider really disappointing news as Pebble will be closing its doors for good and will no longer be manufacturing hardware. What’s more, is that they will no longer promoting or selling their existing hardware either, and they have canceled any orders for the Pebble 2 that had not yet been processed and shipped. Pebble is dead, at least in the way that people remember them right now, and many don’t know what to make of it. Some are sad to see them go, as Pebble represented the absolute best you could expect from a project that began on Kickstarter, and with how much success they have gained over the years since they first launched in their initial crowdfunding campaign, it was likely a little more than a shock to hear that they were being acquired by Fitbit and also closing down.
To others, the feeling may be complacency as they may have never really used a Pebble device and could have gone on just fine not knowing the company ever existed. One thing is certain, though, and that’s the fact that the loss of Pebble as a company is viewed by some as a darker picture for Kickstarted projects and whether or not they have the means to not only succeed, but sustain that success.
Perhaps the silver lining here, is that Pebble will technically live on by applying their software experiences expertise to future Fitbit devices, and therein lies the possible uplifting thought, that the Pebble team is moving to Fitbit and will still have an influence on the wearables market in some way. That said, Pebble watches were popular for their ability to be used with both Android and iOS, and for their wide open development community that allowed for tons of apps and watch faces, which basically helped to expand the abilities for customization and functionality on any of the Pebble watches. There are more and more smartwatch and wearable solutions out there it seems every month, so it can be hard for any company, even the larger manufacturers, to sustain in such a tough market, let alone be a smaller company like Pebble trying to compete in an industry that is getting more devices, but isn’t really growing as much in market share. The question is what do you think about Pebble closing down?
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