Jawbone finally T-bones, founder starts Jawbone Health Hub (updated)

July 7, 2017 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/The-End-Pic-typewriter.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]Confirming the decline of the fitness tracker/wearables business, Jawbone is finally over and done. Their liquidation this week was initially reported by The Information (subscription only) and that co-founder/CEO Hosain Rahman has started a new company, Jawbone Health Hub. JHH will work on medical software and hardware, as well as eventually servicing the buggy existing Jawbone products† which were sold off to a third party last September. JHH is also reportedly hiring many former Jawbone staff and on job boards such as Glassdoor. 

Jawbone’s demise comes after a troubled 18 months, starting with a $165 million private equity raise in January 2016 led by the Kuwait Investment Authority, rumors of financial problems, repositioning into clinical medical monitoring, and abandoning what was left of consumer market support. There is also the continuing saga of court actions with Fitbit over trade secrets, employee poachings, and IP–all additional reasons for the founder to walk away. The only value left in Jawbone is that IP which includes BodyMedia patents and anything left that wasn’t voided by a court. Fitbit shares are also sinking, currently trading at a near 52-week low of just above $5.

‘Death by overfunding’? Updated During its lifetime from wireless audio speaker innovator Aliphcom to wearables leader with the Jawbone UP, Jawbone raised $938 million (Crunchbase), and at one point was valued at $3 billion. An interesting take from a Reuters article was that one consensus among Silicon Valley tech funders was that the company would have been far easier to acquire had it raised less money. Jawbone ranks only behind solar tech Solyndra among largest failures among venture-backed companies. (The difference, of course, was that Jawbone didn’t take $500 million of public stimulus money, as Solyndra did before it failed.)

The words ‘Chapter 7’ have not been included in reports but Sherwood Partners, a busy Mountain View CA financial restructuring company that has wound down plenty of startups through unicorns, was reported to be in charge of the liquidation process plus any remaining legal actions with Fitbit. None of the usual sources have been able to obtain statements from Mr. Rahman and ‘the information’ remains limited. The Verge, TechCrunch, Business Insider 

†Editor Charles’ struggles with seven personal Jawbone UPs were often typical of the user experience.

Jawbone still in business–with Fitbit in court

February 9, 2017 | by

While most industry observers are perceiving Jawbone’s abandoning the consumer fitness tracker market, repositioning into the clinical B2B2C vitals market, and seeking fresh financing as a last-ditch effort to save the company, Jawbone continues to be highly active in one place–court. Last week, Jawbone filed a lawsuit against Fitbit and five former employees in California state court for theft of trade secrets and has rebutted Fitbit’s motion to dismiss in a 27-page filing. According to Fortune’s account of the lawsuit, Jawbone’s filing states: “Each of the defendants has been, for more than five months, the subject of a criminal grand jury investigation regarding theft of Jawbone’s trade secrets that is being conducted by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security,” a charge that Fitbit calls ‘fictional’ and false. The court hearing in San Francisco is 15 February.

The legal skirmishing, which largely has gone Fitbit’s way [TTA 27 July] in the US International Trade Commission, indicates that Jawbone is still spending money to protect what is left of value in the company–its patents and intellectual property (whatever hasn’t been voided). Jawbone $100 million ‘gem’: the BodyMedia patents acquired in 2013 [TTA 30 Apr 13]. BodyMedia had FDA Class II clearance but a clunky form factor. This IP is a critical save if they want to go clinical. Fitbit’s shares continue to go down, an indicator that the mud is rising. Also Bloomberg with video.

Wearables ‘shocker’: Website beats fitness tracker in weight loss program

September 28, 2016 | by

The shock waves are reverberating through the wearables industry, but it is likely less than it seems. The JAMA study being cited was testing the hypothesis that technology could assist a weight loss program, and also what type of technology did best. The subject group of 471 at the University of Pittsburgh was young–18-35, prime for a wearable–overweight to moderately obese, and tracked for 24 months between 2010 and 2012 (!) The participants were started on a group weight loss program supported with calls and texts for the first six months, then randomized into two groups that monitored their diet and fitness either through a fitness tracker plus website (enhanced intervention group), or those using a website only (standard intervention). Both groups lost weight but the enhanced/fitness tracker group lost 5.29 pounds less than the website-only group.

The caveats: According to Mobihealthnews, the fitness band used was BodyMedia SenseWear, which was acquired by Jawbone and as they noted, put out of business. Fitness bands now also look and feel different than this early generation. Mobile tracking apps are now the standard versus going online which was necessary four years ago–a huge jump in convenience. But tracking itself may change behavior. The authors speculate that tracking data might actually demotivate people, or that activity ‘congratulations’ may lead to a bit of cheating. But they should try it with up to date trackers. Also Healthcare Dive and Reuters

Tunstall adopts new Tactio in patient management

November 13, 2014 | by

Tunstall Healthcare is partnering with Canadian mHealth developer Tactio Health Group in what is a distinct first for them: creating a mobile care management system that is 1) smartphone-based for the patient and 2) prominently integrates non-Tunstall apps and devices. The patient uses the smartphone and the Tactio-developed mTrax app to collect a wide spectrum of data–everything from activity, sleep, pregnancy, body fat and mood tracking to the traditional constellation of vital signs. This uploads to the care provider’s tablet mPro Clinical App which overviews, details and reports the data for each patient and patient groups in care. The data comes from well-known mHealth apps outside the Tunstall world: BodyMedia, Fitbit, Fitbug, Garmin, Jawbone UP, Medisana and Wahoo Fitness, as well as connected (presumably Bluetooth) medical devices from A&D Medical, Mio, iHealth, Telcare, Withings and Nonin. Tunstall has also added two-way patient coaching and  health journal features.

Tunstall’s positioning for what they call Active Health Management or AHM is “supported self-management” and “shift(ing) from reactive care to cost-effective active care.” (more…)

Amazon’s new wearables ‘store’ needs a location guide

April 30, 2014 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/amazon.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]Amazon’s flashy ‘wearable technology store’ which debuted today (29 April) is touted by a company representative as “…an exciting category with rapid innovation and our customers are increasingly coming to Amazon to shop and learn about these devices.” It features all the trendiest fitness bands too: Misfit Shine, the new Jawbone Up24 sleep tracker, smartwatches, wearable cameras, healthcare devices and even an Editor’s Corner with Advice for the Wearable-Lorn. The store is well stocked for fitness/wellness devices and smartwatches, but the shelves are bare for healthcare devices: the 12 listed include sleep tracker Lark, Withings and BodyMedia along with the exceedingly pricey HeartMath and iHealth telehealth products. The unfortunate problem is for those without the direct link to find the store. A search will divert you to a list of products. It isn’t listed under Electronics, nor if you search ‘wearable technology’, not listed under Departments or the show results for category bar (both at left). It’ll be fixed, being Amazon, and it does point to the now high profile of wearables. Amazon release, Silicon Republic (which features Amazon as a tech employer) Hat tip to Contributing Editor Toni Bunting, who reminded this Editor today that none of this appears on Amazon.co.uk!

Body computing, sensors and all that data

October 11, 2013 | by

This past week’s Body Computing Conference at University of Southern California (USC) had three sessions focusing on wearable sensors and the big names such as the well-financed Fitbit, Jawbone, BodyMedia, the ingestible sensor Proteus and Zephyr. The panels were split between the medical-grade and the consumer oriented with this report indicating some friction between the two. The notion of the Quantified Self died hard, even with Basis Science’s Marco Della Torre noting that 80% of health app users abandon them within two weeks, so the discussion moved to form factor and the ‘holy grail’ of getting the 90% of never-ever QSers to pay some attention. Of course, it’s the flood of data that has to somehow be processed (one of the FBQs) even though the doctors appear to be unconvinced of the evidence…but the ‘big data’ may be proving it after the fact. The future of wearable sensors in healthcare (iMedicalApps)

Jawbone jawbones $100 million in financing

September 17, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/band1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Fortune, no usual hangout for health tech news, headlined late last week that Jawbone, which recently relaunched its UP fitness tracker after the earlier version developed glitches, obtained $93 million in debt financing and is rumored to be lining up another $20 million in equity financing from its four largest existing VC backers: Andreessen Horowitz, JPMorgan Digital Growth Fund, Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital. Reportedly they are wildly back-ordered for the colorful and stylish UP fitness tracker (now a fashionista item, a sure sign of scarcity). Their founder/CEO Hosain Rahman told Fortune “We’ve been experiencing crazy sell-through demand, particularly since the relaunch of Up. It’s been faster than anything we’d had before, and equity is not the most efficient way to scale all that.” We’ve previously noted Jawbone’s aggressive acquisition warpath with BodyMedia [30 April] and Massive Health [11 Feb]. Competitors have hardly been sleeping: Fitbit just raised an additional $43 million to add to their previous $23 million [15 Aug] and Withings a fresh $30 million [22 July], so fitness trackers are all going one way–up. Exclusive: Jawbone raises more than $100 million (Fortune). Also Mobihealthnews.