Fitbit Buys Pebble: What It Means For Its Smartwatch Customers

Last week, rumors of Fitbit’s interest in smartwatch maker Pebble started to surface. Those rumors came to fruition on Wednesday, when the fitness technology company bought some of the most valuable assets belonging to Pebble.

The deal will land the proprietary technology behind the Pebble smartwatches—including patents, software, and some of the engineering team—with Fitbit. It’s a promising score for the maker of the popular line of fitness trackers.

"With basic wearables getting smarter and smartwatches adding health and fitness capabilities, we see an opportunity to build on our strengths and extend our leadership position in the wearables category,” Fitbit co-founder and CEO James Park said in a statement.

Things are less rosy for Pebble. In a statement on Kickstarter, the company said the deal with Fitbit “preserves as much of Pebble as possible,” but the company will cease to exist following the purchase.

So where does that leave folks with a Pebble device strapped to their wrist?

Devices in the wild won’t stop keeping time, but support for existing Pebble smartwatches will no longer be available. Pebble will no longer troubleshoot problems on a one-to-one basis, and devices will no longer be covered by or eligible for warranty exchange. Pebble is directing customers in need of help to the Pebble Support page, Pebble user forum, and Pebble subreddit on Reddit.

The company also isn’t planning on pushing out software updates or new features for existing devices. Pebble smartwatches essentially are what they are at this point, and will diminish over time with no plan for consistent upkeep.

Recent purchasers of Pebble products may be eligible for a refund. The company is processing and refunding all returns completed before Dec. 7 and will refund any purchased item that was yet to ship.

For Kickstarter backers who tossed money to Pebble in hopes of scoring one of its next-generation smartwatches—the Time 2, Core and Time Round—if the watch hasn’t arrived yet, then it’s likely not coming. While Pebble says it has shipped every possible Pebble 2 smartwatch, the other devices won’t go into final production.

Pre-orders placed through Pebble’s website for upcoming devices will be cancelled entirely, though no charges were placed so no refunds are necessary.

Backers of the latest Pebble Kickstarter campaign who were waiting on their smartwatch to arrive will receive a refund through Kickstarter. The return is expected to be delivered by March 2017 to all eligible backers who pledged enough for the Time 2, Core or Time Round. The refund process will be automatic for these backers.

For those who pledged enough to get the Pebble 2 Smartwatch but still have yet to receive the device because they didn’t submit the information required to finalize their shipment—a “small number” of people, according to Pebble —will also receive a refund.

The death of Pebble is a painful blow for the crowdfunding community. The line of smartwatches accounted for some of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns in Kickstarter’s history.

Despite rumors over the past year suggesting the company might sell for ludicrous amounts of money—watch maker Citizen offered $740 million in 2015, according to TechCrunch —it settled for selling off its parts just to keep its ideas alive elsewhere. That may be comforting to the company and its employees who will get to continue working on similar products, but its customers may still feel left out in the cold by the deal.