Ars Technica does one of its signature deep-dive reviews on Microsoft's updated fitness tracker, the Band 2. The site is generally very enthusiastic, in particular liking the physical design and the built-in guided training. In fact, the reviewer was especially impressed with the Microsoft Health ecosystem in general. On the downside, the clasp came in for particular … [Read more...]
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MasterCard Wants to Turn Wearables Into Payment Devices
It's hardly a secret that MasterCard is hot on wearables; the company's been talking about it for years and has even published an API to let programmers access its tokenization and payment systems. But earlier this week, MasterCard started to get very specific, showing wireless payment systems in Nymi authentication wristbands, Ringly jewelry, TrackR device locators, and GM car … [Read more...]
Garmin Rounds Out Holiday Line with New Scale and Tracker
Garmin last week rolled out three new GPS watches; this week, it finish its introductions with a new vivosmart tracker and a connected scale. The vivosmart HR (the missing capital letter is how they want it spelled) is an update to its current touchscreen fitness tracker. The major change is the incorporation of an internally developed always-on heart rate monitor -- the … [Read more...]
Garmin Debuts New Top-End Forerunner Running Watch
Garmin is best known for its excellent GPS fitness trackers. Now, the company is getting set for the holiday season with a new top-line runners' watch and another unit adds a built-in heart-rate monitor for the first time. The Forerunner 630 is billed as having the company's "most advanced running watch technology." Among the new measurements the 630 can track are stride … [Read more...]
Fossil Announces Long-Awaited Trackers and Android Wear Watch
As long expected, Fossil announced an Android Wear smartwatch today, as well as three fitness trackers. The Fossil Q line comprises four models: the Reveler, the Dreamer, the Grant, and the Founder: The Reveler and Dreamer are display-less fitness trackers and notification devices, which vibrate and show LED lights when triggered. The Dreamer has swappable bands. Both … [Read more...]
Polar Intros Consumer-Level Heart Rate Monitor
Polar, best known by runners and endurance athletes for its chest strap heart monitors, has announced a wrist-based tracker aimed at consumers. The A360's swappable silicon wristbands will come in five colors and three sizes. The product is waterproof, and acts as a notification device paired with a smartphone as well as tracking the usual complement of heart rate, steps, … [Read more...]
Misfit Puts New Polish on Shine Wearables
Misfit, maker of the unobtrusive Shine fitness tracker, is freshening its flagship product with the Shine 2 -- smaller, with color LEDs and haptic feedback, and incorporating the control functions that the company's been rolling out with other products. The Shine 2 is 8mm thick at the center and about 3mm thick at the edge; the bad news is that it won't fit any accessories … [Read more...]
Pebble Time Apps to Get Dictation
Pebble's own apps on the Time series of watches have had the ability to respond to voice commands in a limited way. Now, the company is opening that capability up to third-party developers through a new Dictation API. Pebble underlines, by the way, that the dictation is powered by the very popular voice recognition company Nuance. … [Read more...]
Nighttime Flag Football
We generally don't write much anymore about crowdfunded products, but we're big fans of flag football, and this one looks too cool to resist: LED and fiber optics laden jerseys and balls for nighttime play. AfterDark jerseys come in Youth and Adult sizes and are lit with fiber optics and fiber optic flags. Balls and field definition cones are lit with LEDs. The jerseys have … [Read more...]
Tag Heuer Sneaks $1800 Smartwatch
You might want to mark your calendar for November 9, because that's apparently when Tag Heuer is going to set a new top price point for Android Wear watches. Several reports gathered by Ars Technica point to that date and an $1800 price tag for an upgradeable watch powered by an Intel SoC. There's a web site that counts down to the launch date, but have patience because it … [Read more...]