Not a lot of lightweight fitness trackers are built for swimming, water and electronics being natural enemies, but Misfit and Speedo have teamed up to sell the Speedo Shine. Priced at $80 and available September 1, the Speedo edition of the well-known Shine will count pool laps and distance, and connect with Speedo’s smartphone app.
Like all Shines, the Speedo version will track other activity as well as sleep; the battery is replaceable but not rechargeable and lasts up to six months. It comes with a black sports band, a white sports band, a clasp and an Action Clip.
The Speedo Shine will be initially available at Misfit’s site and Speedo’s site, as well as the Apple Store. Misfit is one of the few fitness trackers that are still sold by Apple, with which the company has a long retail relationship.
Wouldn’t it make more sense for Speedo build a sensor directly into your swimwear? Then there’s no need to wear anything on your wrist, which swimmers probably aren’t going to want anyway. You get out of the pool and it syncs with your Apple watch.
There’s a clip that comes with, which attaches the device to a bathing suit; the device counts turns, not arm motion. Presumably, building a device directly into a suit adds manufacturing complexity (and expense) and would make it difficult to replace the battery. If I were King, I’d build a device with very limited functionality and power draw, while building some kind of energy harvesting into the thing to make it entirely self-charging. If I couldn’t get quite that far, maybe Qi charging…