Engineering the First Fitbit: The Inside Story

They spent so much time worried about fashion that it would have been nice if they'd spent even a tiny amount of time thinking about respecting user's privacy or their own morals. They refused, as a design decision, to allow users to download their data to their PC instead of having it uploaded to FitBit's servers because they wanted to collect that data and use it for their own purposes.

Protecting their user's privacy was such an afterthought that their website in 2008 didn't even have a privacy policy which violated the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003. When they finally did add one it said that they sold your data to third parties for marketing/consumer research and used it to push ads at you for "health clubs, weight loss programs and sports and fitness equipment"

Ultimately what they built was just one more shitty ad platform that exploited people's personal data for the benefit of several third parties at the expense of their users. It's no wonder that they got bought by Google, the ultimate ad platform that exploits people's personal data.

It's such a shame, because they had an opportunity to create something useful that worked for the people who paid for the product instead of turning those paying customers into another product to sell. The fact that they were exploiting people's health data just made it even worse.

I've never owned a FitBit and have often warned others to avoid them. Initially, I'd recommended pedometers that worked just as well (if not better) without the spying and ads, but these days wearable devices are capable of doing a whole lot more and it's still hard to find ones that respect their customers enough to let them control their own data and prevent it from being sold to data brokers, governments, and ad companies.

I'm sure the FitBit will always be viewed as a great success story, but all I see is a tragedy and a lack of ethics.

Really interesting read! I was one of those first 5000 units (preordered Sept 29 2009 and shipped Dec 29 2009) and I wore my fitbit religiously (upgrading to newer versions now and then) until last year.

>> "That something had to be comfortable to wear all day, be easy to use, upload its data seamlessly so the data could be tracked and shared with friends, and rarely need charging. Not an easy combination of requirements."

I ended up finally retiring my fitbit last year after seeing little by little Google dismantling all that made fitbit fitbit. Google's first version of Fitbit was the Pixel watch which didn't even last a day. It also may have been comfortable to wear, but was not comfortable to use and the social aspects of it, namely challenges, were axed. So all you were left was a device with the tracking aspects and upload aspects. Not great.

I ended up moving over to a Garmin fenix 7X Sapphire Solar which has a very impressive battery life, fits way more comfortably, has way more features, and while still not the same challenges I loved on fitbit, still has better social features then google left the fitbit with.

All in all, while I do love my Garmin device now, it was a very sad day leaving Fitbit behind. I still hold that, while unproven, I think I probably logged more days of data on the fitbit at the time I switched over then anyone else. I now know I have a 1 in 5000 chance at least of this being true!

>> "In April of this year, Park and Friedman left Google. Early retirement? Hardly. The two, now age 47, have started a new company that’s currently in stealth mode."

Excited to see what you guys are working on now!

I loved my fitbit zip a lot!! Unfortunately, the smartwatch trend took over fitbits too and all of them are now just smart watch types.

The thing is I am a vintage watch enthusiast and I only wear vintage mechanical watches. Thus, leaving no room for smart watch both from a space point of view and fashion point of view.

Hence, my options are quite limited when it comes to pedometer. I either go with cheap alternatives (which are quite accurate btw), or none at all.

I wish fitbit brings back clip-on devices as a first class citizens in their lineup.

Great article and a really interesting history of the company. I first heard of FitBits (and activity trackers in general) while working in Singapore in 2010; I met up with a hacking group that had a few FitBit enthusiasts.

I had no idea until this article how close that was to a) the product's initial launch and b) the product's actual manufacturing site.

The few latest generations of fitbits have a really low record of reliability I guess they still have a lot of things to learn.

That was one of the best articles I've read in a long time. Thank you! A great overview of the toil and complexity of creating a new company and deploying a new product.