Reuters noticed late last week that all is not well in the world of Google Glass. Google CEO Sergey Brin recently walked into a high-profile event barefaced, they note. Glass is available on eBay for cheap and the project seems to resolutely to be resisting commercial release despite high-powered commercial partners. Seemingly released by the Reuters piece, bloggers spent the … [Read more...]
Smartwatch Pricing Tier Emerges As Withings Sets $450 Price for Activé Watch
It looks like smartwatches that put a premium on appearance are settling around a pricing neighborhood: $400 to $500. Withings has started taking pre-orders for its Activé watch -- an attractive timepiece that subtly measures your progress to a daily movement goal -- and pegged the price at $450. That's the same neighborhood as the Michael Bastian / HP watch, and in the low … [Read more...]
CNET Gets Hands-On with Fitbit Charge; Two Other Products Won’t Ship Until 2015
Details about the Fitbit Charge fitness tracker have been oozing out over the last couple of weeks. CNet briefly got its hands on one, along with word that the Charge HR (with heart monitor) and the Surge running watch won't come out until next year. The Charge is more or less a replacement for the ill-fated Force, which suffered from a hard-to-secure clasp that caused … [Read more...]
Details Leak on Fitbit Surge, a $250 Sports Tracker
We wrote last week about the Fitbit Charge line, a pair of fitness trackers that more or less fill the space left by the recall of the Force earlier this year. The Verge is now reporting about the Fitbit Surge, a (comparatively) high-ticket sports watch that includes GPS and goes more directly against products from Basis and Polar. According to marketing materials sent to … [Read more...]
Apple to Fitbit: “… And The Horse You Rode In On”
If Fitbit wanted to keep the Apple Store as a distribution channel, maybe it shouldn't have dissed HealthKit quite so hard. ReCode is reporting that the public anti-HealthKit stance will cost Fitbit its place in Apple Stores. We don't know how many units Fitbit sells through Apple, but we doubt it's a big number; BestBuy is probably far more important from a revenue … [Read more...]
Fitbit Preps Charge and Charge HR Wristware
Fitbit, by most measures the leader in the fitness band category, is getting ready to ship two new bands: the Charge and the Charge HR. Gizmodo has a lot of the details; the short version is that bands fill the gap at the top of the product line left when the company had to recall the Force because it was giving people rashes. The product specs look very much like the Force. … [Read more...]
Fitbit Doesn’t Plan to Play with Apple HealthKit
Fitbit is the world leader in fitness trackers, and does not appear to be especially interested in being part of the Apple HealthKit ecosystem. As our sister publication Health Tech Insider writes, Fitbit posted yesterday on its support forum that there are no plans to integrate with HealthKit. That's another piece of not-so-great news for Apple, which has had a rocky start … [Read more...]
Smartband Business Jumped 684 Pct This Year, Says Canalys
Fitbit, Jawbone, and Samsung are leading the smartband business, says the industry analysis shop Canalys, whose earlier work has impressed us. On a worldwide basis, the smartband market grew 684 percent from 1H13 to 1H14 -- although Canalys doesn't say if that's units shipped or revenue. Due to their relationships with distributors, Fitbit and Jawbone lead the basic … [Read more...]
Tory Burch Makes Fancy Wristbands for Fitbit
Misfit aside, no one ever accused wearable technology of being pretty, and it's that lack of glitz that's supposedly keeping women away from wearables. (We haven't noticed that, particularly, but let's go with it anyway.) Designer Tory Burch and Fitbit are collaborating on some bright shiny holders that the doodad for the Fitbit Flex can fit into. A metal pendant will run … [Read more...]
Next Moves From Fitbit?
We haven't heard much from Fitbit since it recalled the Force earlier this year because its wristband was causing contact dermatitis with some people. Given that by some measures, Fitbit owns half the fitness tracker market, the silence was noticeable. Now there's starting to be word of what might come next. The eagle-eyed Dave Zatz spotted three trademark applications from … [Read more...]