Wearables — sector dashboard · fobi

Graveyard

H
Humane
Humane sold its assets to HP for $116M in February 2025 and shut down the AI Pin business less than a year after the device shipped. The $699 Pin had been savaged by reviewers for overheating, weak battery life, slow and inaccurate AI responses, and a return rate that at points exceeded sales; the company reportedly sold roughly 10,000 units against a 100,000 target. HP acquired the Cosmos software platform, the 300-plus patents, and most of the technical team to form a new innovation lab called HP IQ, while existing AI Pins were remotely bricked on February 28, 2025, and customer data deleted. The episode became the defining example of an over-hyped standalone AI wearable that couldn't justify replacing the smartphone.
Obituary
Fitbit
Fitbit was acquired by Google for about $2.1B in a deal that closed in January 2021 and was progressively wound down as an independent brand. Google released no new flagship Fitbit smartwatch after roughly 2022 and confirmed there would be no future generations of the Versa or Sense lines, redirecting its wearable strategy to the Pixel Watch, which runs Fitbit's health-tracking software. Google also began deprecating the standalone Fitbit ecosystem — shutting parts of the website and forcing users to migrate from Fitbit accounts to Google accounts, with a hard deadline after which old logins and historical health data stop working. The pioneer that created the consumer fitness-tracker category was effectively absorbed, its own hardware lines discontinued in favor of Google's smartwatch.
Obituary
J
Jawbone
Jawbone began liquidating its assets in July 2017, becoming one of the largest venture-backed companies ever to fail after raising on the order of $900M. Despite early dominance in Bluetooth audio and a strong fitness-band brand in the UP line, the company was crippled by manufacturing and reliability problems, an exhausting market and patent war with Fitbit, and an eventual inability to raise additional capital. As it wound down, it sold off remaining inventory to a third-party reseller and shut down app and server support, leaving existing UP bands without their core functionality. Founder Hosain Rahman moved on to a medical-focused successor, Jawbone Health, intended to service legacy products once liquidation concluded.
Obituary