When we wrote about the Whistle canine fitness tracker a year ago, we said "what this thing really needs is geofencing and geolocation." We met the folks from Tagg at CES earlier this month, saw their dog GPS collar with its geofencing and geolocation, and thought it might be a nice accompaniment for Whistle. Now comes word that we weren't the only ones who thought so: Whistle … [Read more...]
CES Day 1: New Garmin Smartwatch Updates
Garmin changed up its smartwatch line at CES, introducing three new devices. The Vivoactive is the most watch-like of them, a lightweight GPS-enabled watch with running and golf apps. It pairs with other fitness devices such as heart-rate monitors. It'll ship this quarter for $250. The epix is less a fitness device than a GPS map on your wrist. With a 1.4-inch color … [Read more...]
Timex Announces ONE GPS Smartwatch
Timex, the brand a lot of people think of when it comes to mass-market watches, is dipping into the smartwatch business, but with a well-defined and limited feature set. The ONE GPS+ watch is a GPS-enabled fitness tracker that can send and receive messages, upload your performance data to a number of tracking sites, and send emergency notifications. What's unusual is that the … [Read more...]
Omate Shows Off the Million-Dollar TrueSmart Wristwear
We caught up Sunday with Laurent LePen, the CEO of Omate, at Mobile World Congress. He was showing off the first production models of the million-dollar Kickstarter project TrueSmart watch. Omate raised a million dollars for the TrueSmart on KickStarter, and the plan is to ship within a couple of months. The watch looks pretty chunky, about the size of one of those old … [Read more...]
Shoes to Guide You On Your Way
A couple of Indian entrepreneurs are about to build shoe insoles that use haptic feedback to direct you to your destination. These insoles -- Lechal, from Krispian Lawrence and Anirudh Sharma -- will vibrate on the appropriate side of the shoe when it's time to change direction. Input your destination into your smartphone and the phone plots your route. The phone's GPS … [Read more...]
More Wearables from Austin
So, of course, as soon as we posted a piece about the Austin tech scene, we heard about another couple of startups worth mentioning down there: The Atlas wristband is a training tool that not only tracks your workout but can figure out what exercise you're doing: curls, squats, shoulder presses, and more. Because it tracks motion in three dimensions, the gear/software can … [Read more...]
Adidas Joins the Smartwatch Crowd
First Fitbit, then Nike. Now Adidas has announced its own smartwatch, the miCoach Smart Run. As its name implies, the Smart Run is aimed at runners, not a general fitness audience, so it competes more with products from Garmin or Basis than Fitbit or Nike. That would help explain its $399 price. The Smart Run includes a GPS tracker and a heart rate sensor (as well as a … [Read more...]