Hasta La Gadget!

Fitbit issued a voluntary recall of its Fitbit Force after discovering that prolonged use could lead to skin irritation likely due to allergy to some of the materials used in its construction, but now the recall is official with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, making it illegal to resell (like on eBay) the existing Force at all, and revealing some details about the scope of the… Read More

Personal fitness trackers and sleep trackers are officially mainstream, but deciding between the various devices out there can be tough.

That said, let me direct your attention to the Fitbit Force, the latest and most full-featured product from the quantified-self makers.

The Fitbit Force, unlike the lower-end Flex, has a nice little display on it that shows steps taken, flights climbed, calories burned, as well as sleep information.

It even shows the time of day.

Even better, the Force pairs with Fitbit’s nutrition app, letting you input food-intake information to track your health over time.

In our experience, there’s nothing on the market that is more accurate or robust.

However, the band isn’t my favorite. It’s caused skin irritation for some users, whom Fitbit refunded. Plus, it’s simply not as well-designed as something like the FuelBand.

But hey, you win some and you lose some.

The Fitbit Force goes for $129 and comes in slate blue and black.

Last year, the Fitbit One was our favorite fitness tracker. It had a great design, solid accuracy for steps and floors climbed, and a nice screen. The only problem was that it was so easy to accidentally leave in a pair of pants. To combat this, the company created the Fitbit Flex, its first wrist-worn product. Unfortunately, while aping the Nike Fuelband, Fitbit accidentally threw out everything that made the One so great.

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Fitbit, makers of the fitness tracking Flex wristband, announced Thursday that it will be releasing the Fitbit Force this fall. The Force is an updated version of the Flex with some additional features, most notably an OLED display right on the device.

The added display is a big advancement in the device. Not only will this allow the user to see their distance progress and calories burned as you might expect, but it can also see the names of incoming callers. The Fitbit Force will pair with your iPhone via Bluetooth and is the first of the wrist-worn devices to take advantage of the new Apple iOS 7 notification center. This way users on a run can track the calls that come in without having to pull out their phone and gives Fitbit a jump on the competition from Nike’s Fuelband and Jawbone’s Up. There is no integration for this with Android yet, but touching the Force to an Android phone (NFC equipped) will automatically launch the Fitbit application.

The Fitbit Force will track steps taken, distance, calories and sleeping habits as its predecessor did. It will also track stairs climbed through a built-in altimeter and total active minutes throughout a week. The Bluetooth 4.0 also supports pairing with your computer to avoid the need for the USB connection to sync up your data.

Fitbit already offers an small array of fitness tracking products including the Zip, and One that attach to your clothing, the integrated Aria smart scale and the Flex wristband. Fitbit is offering the Force for $129.95.

Not content with its current range of fitness wearables, Fitbit is set to unveil an updated version of its Flex tracking device called the Fitbit Force. As spotted by The Verge, the Force will introduce a number of features that were omitted from the Flex but are present in its popular One tracker clip. One such feature is an altimeter that calculates your current altitude and the number of steps you have climbed over a 24-hour period. The second is that the Force will offer a digital watch face, effectively turning it into a fitness-focused smartwatch. This feature will give it an edge over some of its wearable rivals — most notably the Jawbone Up.

Although Fitbit has yet to announce its new product, the company has been taking steps to update its website, uploading a sizing guide for black and slate models of the wristband, as well as early listings for replacement clasps (which have since been removed). We were able to access some of Fitbit’s promotional material, which highlights the Force’s different measurements metrics, and have included some of them in the gallery below. Apparently the Force will be priced at $129.95, $30 more than the Flex, when it goes on sale — but when that is, only time will tell.

Filed under: Wearables

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Via: The Verge