Fitbit is readying a new flagship wearable, the Fitbit Force, building on its Flex fitness tracker with more sensors and a digital display for doubling as a watch. Yet to be officially announced, but spotted lurking on Fitbit’s site by Engadget and The Verge, the Force includes an altimeter with its motion sensors, which can […]
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
Via: The Verge
Does the world need another fitness tracker? SparkPeople thinks so, and the company’s $59.95 clip-on Spark Activity Tracker is the wireless gadget it hopes to sell. Effectively a rebadged FitLinkxx Pebble tied into SparkPeople’s online database of food, as well as health and fitness guides, the Spark hooks up to your PC or Mac via […]
Those who prefer to accomplish their fitness goals from the privacy of their own home can do so using a variety of means, of which the Xbox One will be an option. Microsoft has announced Xbox Fitness for the Xbox One, a library of fitness content from various big name trainers and fitness personalities. For […]
Microsoft’s initial Kinect sensor might not have been awesome for first-person shooters, but it rocked for fitness games. Redmond is taking this one step further for its next-gen console with Xbox Fitness, a subscription-based service for the Xbox One. Xbox Fitness promises “instant, personalized feedback” on heart rate and form (thanks to the new Kinect’s innards), and celebrity trainers include Jillian Michaels and Tony Horton. It’s bringing P90X and Insanity workouts, too. The service will be free until December 2014 — with Xbox Live Gold, of course — but after that, Microsoft could be locking it behind two paywalls, according to a leaked test-page spotted by NeoGAF’s ever-vigilant community. We’ve reached out to the company for confirmation on pricing and will update this post if we hear back. In the meantime remember: Shut up, focus and do the work.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Source: Xbox Wire
If you were placing bets on when the first app using the iPhone 5S‘ M7 motion co-processor would arrive, it’s time to cash in. Strava Run, the fitness application that lets you score your suffering (no, really), was recently updated to include auto-pause that relies on Apple’s new silicon, allowing a time-out on your activity when it senses you aren’t moving. The application also uses less juice now, which should make your iPhone a little more prepared for a marathon. You, on the other hand, may need to recharge somewhere during those 26.2 miles.
Via: The Verge
Source: iTunes
Asics has had personalized training plans on its website for a while, but they haven’t been much help for runners who’ve already laced up their shoes. Those plans are now much more accessible courtesy of the company’s new My Asics 2.0 for Android and iOS. Like its web counterpart, the mobile app builds a schedule around a runner’s abilities and goals, adjusting the difficulty level based on feedback. Accordingly, a new plan view makes it easier to see what’s next on the agenda. If you’ve ever needed more challenge in your morning run, you can grab the updated My Asics app at the source link.
Filed under: Cellphones
Via: My Asics Team Blog
Source: My Asics
Fitness tracker app Endomondo is weighing the potential of Apple’s M7 coprocessor in the iPhone 5s, the company has confirmed, though the latest update for iOS 7 does not make use of the motion-tracking chip. The company, which released a new version of the Endomondo iOS app on Wednesday with flatter graphics in keeping with […]
If you’re looking for guidance in creating a running plan, there aren’t a whole lot of ways you can go. You could cut something out of a magazine, you could use a stock program that comes with an app, or you could pay serious coin for a personal trainer. ASICS thinks it’s got a better way.
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Summer’s all but over, but it’s no less important to stay hydrated. According to the CDC 43 percent of Americans drink fewer than four glasses of water a day, and while the actual amount you should drink varies from person to person, four glasses probably doesn’t cut it.
That’s where Caktus, a neat Finnish hardware startup that presented at TechLaunch’s second New Jersey demo day, comes into play. Their mission? To fix that dearth of drinking with an app and a curious sensor that straps onto your water bottle.
The sensor (called, adorably enough, the Hug) is a foam-lined gizmo that wraps itself around a water bottle and quietly tracks its motion. It’s not just a pint-sized koozie though — the Hug quietly monitors the bottle’s movements so it can provide its user with a rough idea how much fluid they’ve imbibed so far. Think of it as a giant Jawbone Up that straps onto your water receptacle and you’re on the right track.
As always though, the hardware is only part of the equation. A companion app (iOS only for now) uses an algorithm to suss out which of those motions actually correspond to the user lifting the bottle to drink and which are just noise caused by random movements. The app also tracks ambient temperature and keeps tabs on what sorts of exercise you’re doing (you still have to punch that in yourself) so it can update your hydration goal in real time.
To hear founder Panu Keski-Pukkila tell it, the Hug (and the rest of Caktus) was born out of pure necessity. An avid extreme athlete, he grew used to his girlfriend reminding him to drink more water while he was out carving up slopes in the Alps. When she moved to New York, though, that useful feedback mechanism disappeared and Keski-Pukkila set out to create something that could fill that particular hydro-centric void.
And you know what? As downright kooky as the whole thing sounds, the combo of the Hug sensor and the app actually worked really well. In a brief demo, the sensor was accurately able to determine that roughly two ounces of water were squeezed out of the bottle, and the partner app updated almost immediately. With the Hug, you’re not quantifying yourself so much as you’re quantifying the stuff that goes in your body. That said, the team is taking a proactive approach when it comes to all those fitness-tracking gizmos floating around out there. They’ve already managed to bake in Fitbit support so users won’t have to punch in how many glasses of water they’ve downed in a day.
For now the device is still strictly in its prototype phase, but the team is eagerly working to get the Hug, its partner app, and a dev-friendly API ready for prime time by early next year. So far they’ve locked up $25k in seed funding from the TechLaunch accelerator, and they plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign in early 2014 to lock up the cash necessary to start producing these things en masse.
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