fitness band

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• Fitbit
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• Fitbit Alta
• Stylish fitness band

Fitbit announces fashion-oriented leather/metal fitness band, Alta

Ben Lovejoy Feb 3 2016 - 6:41 am PT

8 Comments

Fitbit didn’t exactly impress the market when it tried to launch a full-blown smartwatch last month, its stock price falling 11% in response to the idea of the company seemingly attempting to compete with the Apple Watch. It may have better luck with its latest offering, a fashion-oriented fitness band called Alta offering five days of battery-life. The emphasis here is on style, the $130 unit available with both leather bands ($60) and stainless steel bracelet ($100).

The Fitbit Alta will be available for pre-order from tomorrow at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart and other retail sites, with shipping in March or April, depending on configuration.

Via Engadget

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• Apple Health

The research that shows Apple is right to take its time over the iWatch

Ben Lovejoy Apr 2 2014 - 6:25 am PT

14 Comments

New research from Endeavour shows that more than half of U.S. consumers who have owned a wearable device no longer use it, and of those two-thirds stopped using it within the first six months of ownership. This is up from the 40 percent abandonment found by a similar survey by CSS Insight last fall.

The Guardian newspaper in the UK has a supporting piece in which it found more than 900 Galaxy Gear watches for sale on eBay, with asking prices as low as a third of the purchase cost.

While the data may be bad news for existing smartwatch and fitness band suppliers, The Guardian has an apposite comparison with early mp3 players, which also suffered high abandonment rates a decade ago.

So lots of those early MP3 players eventually ended up in drawers; but that didn’t stop the sector becoming huge.

And the company responsible for that shift was, of course, Apple: the company which took its time getting both the device and the user-interface right.

• iPhone
• Apple News
• Apple Health
• Tech Industry
• iWatch

Crowdsource update: SunSprite, the solar-powered wearable aimed at geeks

Ben Lovejoy Feb 25 2014 - 4:44 am PT

0 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLZ8CGOUg2w]

With all the focus on skin cancer caused by too much exposure to sunlight, you might expect a UV-measurement gadget to be designed to warn you when you’ve spent too long in the sun. But no, the SunSprite has the opposite goal: it’s aimed at those who spend all their time indoors, and don’t get enough time in the sun. Or, to put it more concisely, geeks.

Sunlight plays a role in both mood and sleep patterns. The SunSprite measures exposure to both visible and UV light, and uses LEDs to indicate when you’ve met your daily goal of having spent enough time outside. It also communicates with a companion iPhone app. The retail price is a rather hefty $149, but early bird Indiegogo backers can get one for $89.

A neat thing about it is the same sunlight it measures also powers the device. The low energy requirements of the SunSprite mean that just a few minutes of sunlight provide enough energy to power the gadget for a week.

With some rumors suggesting that the iWatch may incorporate solar panels, perhaps this is one more health-based sensor Apple could include?

There’s a longer video that goes into more detail below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsePn7icDuw]