Why The Pebble/Fitbit Acquisition Worries People With Type 1 Diabetes

Clayton is a father. His 8-year-old daughter, Lily, is missing one of her lower baby teeth, so she has a gap in her toothy smile. Around her small wrist, a white Pebble Classic quietly lays, displaying the time, the date — and her blood glucose levels.

Lily was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 3. Her parents use Pebble watches to continuously view her blood glucose monitor readings from anywhere. “The glanceability and ease of use gives us the ability to keep an eye on Lily while she is away from us,” Clayton told me.

For families like Clayton’s, the recent Pebble/Fitbit acquisition is especially worrying. Pebble’s smartwatches are affordable, and their developer-friendly operating system made blood glucose monitoring watchfaces possible. Fitbit is absorbing “key personnel and intellectual property related to software and firmware development,” according to a press release, and Pebble watches will continue to work normally for now.

Related: Read our full Pebble 2 review

But in the long-term, Fitbit has a clear responsibility: don’t alienate the community that relies on Pebble for budget-friendly blood glucose monitoring.

To better understand the future for Clayton and Lily, I spoke with James Wedding, the President of…