Peter Pan in the smartwatch industry

[mme_hardy]

 Pebble just announced that they'd been bought by Fitbit.  Fitbit is taking the software people and the intellectual property, firing everybody else, and shutting down manufacturing and warranty immediately.   This sort of thing happens in Silicon Valley.

What is unusual is the cheerful way Pebble chose to announce all this.   Note in particular this image:


We'll never deliver the products you Kickstarted, the products you bought are dead on your wrist, but hey, at least the engineers are having fun joking about it!

P.S.  Guy on the left:  get a fedora that fits.

Comments

[ironed_orchid]

Wow.

The comments are abut as angry as you'd expect. I see they have changed the refund turn around.

[movingfinger]

Of the four Kickstarter projects I have ever backed (I'm reeeally wary of this model), just one has produced and delivered the thing it was designed to support. No coincidence: that one project was being carried out by someone I know personally who was engaged with his project and was motivated to complete it, someone who I knew had already completed other, non-Kickstarter-sponsored, big long-term art projects.

Of the others, zilch. If I include other "pay now to help us complete this, receive your item later" appeals over the years, the average goes down to around 10% completed I think.

[kore]

Much of our team and resources will join Fitbit to deliver new “moments of awesome” in future Fitbit products, developer tools, and experiences

Ahahaha that's what you think, pally.

One-to-one Pebble support is no longer available. Any Pebble currently out in the wild is no longer covered by or eligible for warranty exchange.

WOW. I R Not a Lawyer, but that seems like it could land them in some deep shit.