The day Fitbit announced the Blaze tracker at CES, a class-action lawsuit harshed the company's buzz. (That, and an 18 percent drop in its stock price.) The claim was the heart rate monitor on the Fitbit Charge HR and Surge were inaccurate enough to cause harm. Fitbit pointed to its disclaimers, saying the monitor wasn't meant to be a medical device after all. Maybe Fitbit … [Read more...]
OmSignal’s Sports Bra Talks to Your iPhone: CES
Seems as if everything these days tracks biometrics, either as a basic function or an added feature. Most of those trackers are not gender-specific, but when you’re talking sports bras, you’re talking a decline in gender diversity. But in a good way. We think. Canadian company OmSignal has developed the Om bra, a sports bra that tracks biometrics, calories burned, and your … [Read more...]
Pet Sounds: Canine Tech at CES
The idea of electronics on a dog or cat collar is not particularly revolutionary; pet doors that require collar electronics have been around for a while. But the world of technology never stays stagnant, so three companies have come out with fitness trackers for pets and one with a game console for dogs. (The cats feel this last is unnecessarily species-ist.) The trackers … [Read more...]
L’Oreal and MC10 Team Up on Beauty Tech: CES
The cosmetics firm L'Oreal is not one you'd expect to see at a CES, which skews heavily to the electronic. Yet here is Guive Balooch, Global VP of its Technology Incubator, sitting with MC10 Co-founder Roozbeh ("Rooz") Ghaffari, both of them sporting blue heart-shaped stickers on their hands. Those stickers, they explain, track exposure to the sun, but do it in two … [Read more...]
Fuller Brushing Experience from Grush, Kolibree: CES
Kids hardly ever want to brush their teeth. Let’s face it: It’s supposed to take a full two minutes and that cuts into valuable play time. Now two companies are addressing this situation with a great concept—combine tooth brushing and games—from slightly different angles. Both Grush and Kolibree toothbrushes monitor the position of your toothbrush head to determine how well … [Read more...]
Under Armour Teams with HTC and JBL on Integrated Fitness Hardware: CES Day -1
The fitness clothing maker Under Armour, already into the software business with its purchase of MyFitnessPal and Endomondo, is diving into the hardware business with a Healthbox suite of connected devices. Healthbox, developed with HTC (better known for its cellphones) comprises a band, a heart rate monitor, and scale, and is available for preorder for $400. (HTC previously … [Read more...]
Misfit Trades the Disc for the Tube with Its New Ray Tracker: CES Day -1
For all the product variations from tracker company Misfit, the core product has always been in the shape of a disc. Until now. At CES, Misfit, recently acquired by the Fossil Group, introduced the Ray -- a 12mm by 38mm aluminum tube. It performs the same function as the flagship Shine 2, but with a tubular form and a single multi-color LED instead of a flat disc with a … [Read more...]
Garmin Goes Tactical With New Tactix Bravo: CES Day -1
Garmin has done a great job segmenting the fitness band market from the most casual user to the most ambitious. At CES, it's debuting a device for the most hard-core audience yet: the tactix Bravo, a rugged device with a scratch proof screen and a display optimized for night-vision goggles. The tactix Bravo comes with "specialized software optimized for both aerial and land … [Read more...]
TempTraq Debuts 48-Hour Continuous Temperature Monitoring Patch: CES Day -2
Taking your temperature is a simple thing, but is essentially a one-time act that's repeated as desired. TempTraq, a $20 connected device from Blue Spark Technologies, deploys a surprising amount of technology to track your temperature for up to two days -- and make it sharable as you need it to be. The TempTraq is a patch that the user activates with a smartphone app via … [Read more...]
New WiFi “HaLow” Standard Uses Less Power, Has Greater Range
The WiFi Alliance, which controls the WiFi standard, has approved the 802.11ah version of the ubiquitous wireless standard, dubbing it "HaLow." WiFi HaLow operates in the 900MHz frequency band, below the 2.4GHz and 5GHz band. That lower frequency means lower bandwidth than the other bands, but greater range and less power draw. That makes it particularly well-suited for IoT … [Read more...]