NEW YORK—The highly competitive fitness tracker arena is becoming even more so with market-leader Fitbit's announcement Monday of three new wrist-based activity trackers.
The most notable of the trio is the $249.95 Fitbit Surge, dubbed by Fitbit as a fitness-oriented "Super Watch" that's not quite being marketed as a full-fledged smart watch. It is targeted at serious-minded athletes and workout junkies: avid runners, those who engage in intense cardio and so on. Fitbit is also bringing out two less expensive trackers, the $129.95 Fitbit Charge and $149.95 Fitbit Charge HR.
The top of the line Surge has eight sensors and taps into GPS location tracking — great for runners, of course — as it monitors pace, distance, elevation, split times, and other stats. The watch records calories burned, and the quality of your sleep. And it continuously can deliver your heart rate — without you having to wear a chest strap. The way Fitbit describes it, LED lights reflect off your skin to detect changes in blood volume.
Information is displayed on a sizable backlit LCD touch screen and through companion apps that work with iOS, Android and Windows Phones.
Surge does let you switch among customizable watch faces. It can also display Caller ID information when someone calls the phone in your pocket. You can display texts on the watch as well, and use it to control music functions on the phone.
It sure will be closer to a super watch if it lives up to Fitbit's claim that the battery inside Surge can last a full week on a single charge, at least when you're not overdoing it with GPS. Maintaining decent battery life has been a challenge for many early smart watches. Surge is water resistant, but you're not meant to swim or shower with it on.
The new watch will be available in small, large and extra-large sizes and in black, blue or tangerine colors. But it won't be available until early 2015.
On the other hand, the Fitbit Charge wristband is available right away. It is more wrist tracker than full watch. It lacks GPS or the ability to customize watch faces. Still, it monitors many of the same vital statistics as the Surge. It uses motion analysis to understand your sleep patterns. It can track steps, distance, calories burned, and floors climbed, and it too promises up to a week of battery life. But it doesn't do heart rate monitoring.
Continuous heart rate monitoring — again without a chest strap — will be a main feature of the otherwise similar Fitbit Charge HR. As with the Splurge watch, you'll have to wait until early next year before it hits the market.
All the new devices are compatible with Fitbit software the works across numerous Android, iOS and Windows Phone devices for presenting various motivational challenges. (For now, Fitbit doesn't communicate with the new iOS 8 Health app.) Through the Fitbit software, you can log in the foods that you eat. And Fitbit is teaming up with Microsoft on a feature that exploits the Cortana voice assistant on Windows Phones. You can log any of the 350,000 foods in the Fitbit database by using your own voice, with such phrases as "Fitbit, I ate spaghetti and meatballs for dinner" or "Fitbit, I had a tea with lunch. "
No comments:
Post a Comment