Fitbit Announces New Activity Trackers, GPS Watch
Following last week's "leaks", fitness tracker maker Fitbit has officially announced three new wearable devices - the Fitbit Charge, the Charge HR and the Surge. Charge is a wristband that delivers all-day activity tracking, real-time fitness stats and Caller ID right.
The device tacks steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned and floors climbed. It has an OLED display showing time of day and real-time stats. Automatic sleep detection monitors sleep quality using motion analysis to understand sleep and wake times; also features a silent, vibrating alarm.
In addition, the wristband offers caller ID and vibrates and shows the caller’s name or number when a smartphone is nearby. It offers real-time exercise stats and summaries appear automatically on the Fitbit dashboard.
The water-resistan wristband has an up to 7 days of battery life.
The FitbitCharge HR, available in early 2015, is a tracker that delivers continuous, automatic wrist-based heart rate, Caller ID and all-day activity tracking. It features Fitbit’s PurePulse optical heart rate technology, which provides continuous and automatic wrist-based heart rate monitoring, without an chest strap. PurePulse uses safe LED lights to detect blood volume changes right on the wrist to deliver heart rate monitoring 24/7.
The Charge HR has up to 5 days of battery life.
The Surge (early 2015) is Fitbit’s most advanced tracker to date: the 'Fitness Super Watch' is featuring 8-sensor technology that combines all-day fitness tracking with GPS, heart rate monitoring and smartwatch functionality.
Surge includes all the features of Charge and Charge HR, plus:
- Built-in GPS delivers stats like pace, distance, elevation, split times, route history and workout summaries for smarter training
- Records multi-sport activities like running, cross-training and strength workouts; see comprehensive summaries with tailored metrics, workout intensity and calories burned
- Smartwatch features including Caller ID, text alerts and mobile music control let users train smarter
- Eight sensors-3-axis accelerometers, gyroscope, compass, ambient light sensor, GPS and heart rate
- Backlit LCD touch screen display with customizable watch faces, makes it easy to navigate through real-time stats, workout apps, sleep and alarms
- Up to 7 days of battery life
Fitbit Charge is available now on Fitbit.com for $129.95, and you can find it in retailers nationwide.
Fitbit Charge HR will be available in early 2015 in black and plum for $149.95, with blue and tangerine colors coming soon. And Fitbit Surge will also be available in early 2015 in black for $249.95, with blue and tangerine coming soon after.
In addition, Fitbit seems to keep distance from Apple's newest initiative, healthkit.
"For the past few years, we've been the leader in developing direct partnerships through our open API," the company said, adding that HealthKit is "really interesting to us." However, Fitbit is still not on board, citing HealthKit's lack of compatibility with Google's Android mobile operating system as its reason, something that Apple is unlikely to change.