If you’ve always prided yourself as a Pebble devotee, you are now a fan of a dead cult. Pebble announced on their blog and later confirmed on their Kickstarter page that they are shutting down the company. Pebble will no longer manufacture wearables.
Enter Fitbit.
For a long time, there have been rumors that Fitbit is out to purchase the Pebble team, and now that’s confirmed. Pebble’s intellectual property will be sold to Fitbit.
While it’s sad for the team at Pebble, this situation leaves Pebble’s customers without much to look forward to.
Reduced quality.
Active Pebble devices will work as usual. However, the company has announced that they wouldn’t be adding new features to the devices. Also, there won’t be as many updates available. And that means, that over time, the performance and quality of Pebble devices will reduce.
Refunds for backers.
Pebble has said that they would initiate refunds to all their Kickstarter backers who didn’t receive their Time 2, Core, and Time Round devices. Refunds will reflect before March 2017 and will cover shipping, taxes, and duties paid. According to the company, they have shipped all the devices they had had on hand and will no longer produce any.
No more warranty.
The company is also stopping coverage for warranty of existing Pebble devices. So if you had bought a Pebble device that’s still under its original warranty period, that will now become void and you can no longer return or exchange it.
Goodbye, one-to-one support.
Along with warranty, Pebble is also pulling the plug on their one-to-one support. You can no longer get any clarifications or help from that team. You can try to troubleshoot your devices with the help of online documentation, but otherwise, you’re on your own. So for as long as your Pebble device is working, you’re fine. But if you run into any mishaps, you’d just lose your Pebble forever.
Well, Pebble, it’s not the happiest news you’ve given us. But it was nice knowing you.
