Fitbit confirmed a deal to buy assets from smartwatch player Pebble, although the deal “excludes the company’s hardware products”.

The health tracker market leader acquired staff and intellectual property related to software and firmware development. The transaction completed yesterday (6 December).

“With basic wearables getting smarter and smartwatches adding health and fitness capabilities, we see an opportunity to build on our strengths and extend our leadership position in the wearables category,” said James Park, CEO and co-founder of Fitbit.

In a statement, Fitbit said that the additional resources will “facilitate delivery of new products, features and functionality while introducing speed and efficiencies to develop the general purpose utility consumers value in a connected device”.

Pebble said that after shipping 2 million devices worldwide, “due to various factors”, it is unable to operate as an independent entity.

Devices will no longer be promoted, manufactured or sold, and while its smartwatches will continue to work as normal, “Pebble functionality or service quality may be reduced in the future”.

Kickstarter backers for its latest products will be refunded, and pre-orders not fulfilled.

Financial terms of the transaction were not revealed, although previous reports suggested a figure of $40 million – less than the total of Pebble’s debts.