If you’re the owner of a Fitbit, you might want to take note of this story from the CBC where apparently the company put out a software update that effectively bricked devices. Then either ignored customers who complained about that, or offered them a discount of 25% on a new device. And only when the CBC started asking Fitbit questions, did they acknowledge “a very small subset” of devices had issues. Which from what I see is spin at best.
Here’s the thing. It should never, ever take bad press to make any company do the right thing. Companies screw up and flaky software updates get out that are customer impacting. But how a company handles that will define if the company continues to have customers and if that bad press continues. A case that illustrates this is Apple. They have twice have had software updates that have bricked Apple Watches. But both times they pulled the update pretty quickly and anyone who had a bricked Apple Watch got it replaced within hours or days. Was it embarrassing for Apple both times that this happened? Yes. But they dealt with it and the negative press went away very quickly.
Now contrast this with Fitbit. It appears that didn’t do any of that. No wonder they’re getting this blowback on Twitter among other places:
I’ve been a dedicated @fitbit user for years. But if your idea of fixing a break you caused is offering a discount on a major purchase, I’ll be looking elsewhere for my next upgrade this year. Please confirm you’re going to do better than that.
— Jenna (@JennaACY) August 30, 2019
@fitbit The latest update to your Charge2 so that it cannot be found MOST of the time explains why Fitbit is FAILING.
Bankruptcy next? @FitbitSupport @FitbitUK @FitbitIN @fitbitME @FitbitDev— Faith Hopkins (@username1949) August 30, 2019
So @fitbit released a firmware update that breaks 2 important features (hear rate monitoring & gps tracking) on #charge2 and no response from @FitbitSupport after 8 hrs
— peteds (@peteds) August 17, 2019
Hey @fitbit have you guys fixed the bricking update for #fitbitcharge2 yet? I'm scared to update mine because I can't afford to buy a new one since apparently someone can't code. https://t.co/drpjUtdxUB
— Sammy (@pantsdancelol) August 14, 2019
@fitbit @FitbitCanada @FitbitSupport Way to handle the case. My Charge 2 has been stuck at 4:44 since the update and 11k+ steps. Thankfully I didn’t waste my time waiting on any sort of reply and went out and got a real device! Thank you @Apple for a truly awesome product! pic.twitter.com/aEfq9zxoeX
— Kid J (@NoOneFearsAJeff) August 30, 2019
And this bad press could not have come at a worse time for Fitbit as they just released a new device called the Versa 2. But I suspect that sales of that device are going to take a hit because of this. After all, if Fitbit behaves like this when they put out a flaky software update, does that inspire confidence that they will take care of you if you run into a problem?
The bottom line is that this is an #EpicFail by a company who at present, is getting its posterior handed to it by Apple via the Apple Watch. Not only that, they are bleeding cash at the moment according to their most recent financials. Situations like this don’t help the company, and I would not be surprised that as a result of all of this bad press that they themselves created that Fitbit’s problems worsen.