Fitness app Pact wants to help users reach fitness goals by using a cash incentive...or at least it says it wants to. The app works by charging users if they don't meet their weekly fitness goals and rewarding them with money if they do meet their goals. Allegations made by the FTC allege that things have worked differently in reality, and Pact will pay $940,000 as a result.
Huawei has launched a new budget-tier fitness tracker, the Huawei Band 2 Pro. This model is designed for fitness enthusiasts who want something they can wear -- and put to good use -- all day. The features are well rounded, including everything from GPS baked in to continuous heart rate monitoring and even sleep tracking. All of this is joined by a display for direct use.
Before IFA 2017 even started, Samsung already hit the mobile market strong with the Galaxy Note 8. But that didn’t mean it didn’t have anything to show for the gadget loving crowd in Berlin. Part of its focus was on wearables, announcing not one, not even two, but three fitness-minded companions for your smartphone. It has just kicked off the pre-order for one of those, the Gear Fit2 Pro tracker, and, if you get it early, you can have a Bixby-enabled headphone as well.
Garmin has taken the wraps off its latest fitness-centric smartwatch, the Vivoactive 3, debuting its own Garmin Pay mobile payments system. The smartwatch, launched at IFA 2017, has a circular color touchscreen and comes with GPS baked-in for tracking exercise sessions without needing you to carry your smartphone. With this latest model, you can also buy some cake mid-run without needing your wallet.
Samsung has a pair of new wearables for IFA 2017, the Gear Fit2 Pro and Gear Sport, each targeting the wrists of fitness enthusiasts. The two smartwatches each come ready for a variety of exercise types, including a new Speedo partnership for tracking laps in the pool. Unusually, each also includes onboard GPS.
Garmin's Vivoactive 3 smartwatch may have leaked already, but its only today that we're discovering its most unexpected feature. The fitness-tracking smartwatch was spotted earlier this month, with a circular face and the ability to flag notifications from your phone to your wrist. Now, we also know that it could replace your credit card.
You'd think that Fitbit would be content with revealing both a brand new smartwatch and a pair of new fitness headphones in one day, but it didn't stop there. The company also revealed its Aria 2 WiFi scale today, completing this trifecta of new fitness devices. As with the other two devices Fitbit introduced today, pre-orders for the Aria 2 are open now as well.
As expected, Fitbit has announced its first-ever smartwatch. Dubbed the Ionic, this new smartwatch keeps Fitbit's fitness tracking business at the forefront while offering all of the functionality we've come to expect from other smartwatches, making it a pretty tempting device for those who wear a smartwatch on a daily basis. The only question now is whether or not anyone will buy it.
Product is just begging to be called vaporware with the choice of its name and, for some interested buyers, it might as well be. The Misfit Vapor is not only more than half a year in the making, it is also going to arrive with less than what the company promised at the start of this year. According to the company’s own Instagram account, Misfit’s first full smartwatch won’t have standalone GPS, contrary to what it boasted back at CES in January.
While Fitbit is still taking its sweet time at releasing a smartwatch that would, in theory, save it from becoming a has-been in the wearables market, its rivals are taking advantage of its silence to grab a piece of the pie in the meantime. First it was Apple that overtook it as being the number one wearable seller, only to have Xiaomi overtake both of them. While quite far from climbing to the top, Garmin is planning to come out with a new Vivoactive 3 that, while not exactly a smartwatch, looks and acts the part.
Huawei might not be able to make heads or tails of smartwatches, but it seems to know exactly where it wants to go as far as fitness trackers go. After giving the first Huawei Band a confusing smartwatch design, Huawei has decided to go with a more conventional tracker look with the Band 2 and Band 2 Pro. And by “conventional”, we mean “looks like a Fitbit”, which is a fair comparison considering what the Huawei Band 2 is capable of.
Goodbye Withings, hello Nokia Digital Health. As planned, the company best known as a phone-maker has fully rebranded its Withings acquisition, adding a few new fitness tracking gadgets to the mix in the process. It's another step in Nokia's reinvention, something the storied Finnish company is no stranger to.
