Items tagged with fitbit
Google late this week acquired Fitbit for $2.1 billion, just days after the deal was first rumored. This acquisition not only gives Google access to a bigger slice of the wearable market pie, but a greater amount of information about users’ health and fitness. Many have argued that Google's agreement with Fitbit is more about the possession of data than technology. Rumors had cropped up at the end of October that Alphabet, Google’s parent company, had been in talks with Fitbit. This rumor was confirmed on November 1st in a blogpost by Rick Osterloh, Google’s Senior Vice President of Devices & Services. Osterloh stated that they hope to “spur innovation in wearables...
Read more...
Google is making a play to step into the wearables market with its parent company, Alphabet making an offer to purchase Fitbit. With the offer, Alphabet is looking to step into the wearables hardware market. Google has been selling its own tablets, laptops, and smartphones where it competes directly against Apple, Samsung and a host of other companies, but lacks a true first-party wearable device. It has left the wearables hardware market other device makers (while providing Wear OS to its OEM partners), but it appears that it wants in on a piece of the action. People familiar with the matter say that Alphabet made a purchase offer, but it's unclear how much was presented. The source also...
Read more...
Fitbit has some of the more popular and affordable wearables on the market today. It and Apple are credited with driving some of the growth in the wearable market. In order to keep that momentum going, Fitbit has now announced four new wearables that aim at different price points. Versa Lite Edition The first is a new product that slots into the Versa line called the Fitbit Versa Lite Edition. It's an everyday smartwatch that has most of the core fitness and smart features that the Versa is known for. The device can monitor your heart rate 24/7 and monitors Sleep Stages as well. Support for over 15 goal-based exercise modes is integrated, and the Versa Lite connects to a smartphone for notifications....
Read more...
Back in mid-February, we received some sales figures from NPD Group that showed the Apple Watch was the "clear market leader" in smartwatch shipments ahead of second place Samsung and third place Fitbit. Apple's position at the top came despite the fact that prices increased across the board for the Apple Watch Series 4. New figures have come in from Strategy Analytics, and it's more of the same. According to the research firm, global smartwatch sales increased by 56 percent during Q4 2018 compared to the same period in 2017. Mirroring NPD Group's numbers, Strategy Analytics showed that Apple secured 51 percent of the smartwatch market, putting it firmly in first place. Breaking down...
Read more...
The wearables market is booming right now thanks to smartwatches like the Apple Watch Series 4 that debuted in September, and other wearables like the Fitbit Versa and Samsung Galaxy Watch. When the wearables segment was young, devices were aimed mostly at technology loving people and were seen almost exclusively as a gadget for tech fans. Wearables are now making their way into other markets as a tool for fitness and to help people monitor severe health conditions like heart arrhythmias. Apple has focused its Apple Watch Series 4 wearable not only at tech and gadget fans but also directly at people with health problems and the elderly who are at risk of falls; the fall detection feature was...
Read more...
Fitbit and Google have announced that they have teamed up to innovate and transform the future of digital health and wearables. Fitbit will use Google's new Cloud Healthcare API to further integrate into the healthcare system by connecting Fitbit user data with electronic medical records (EMR). Fitbit says that combining its data with the EMR can give the clinician a more comprehensive view of the patient and improve care. Both Google and Fitbit also hope to help users better manage chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension using Twine Health, a company that Fitbit recently acquired. Leveraging the Google Cloud Healthcare API will allow Twine to make it easier for the user and the doctor...
Read more...
If you've bought into Fitbit's ecosystem of fitness-oriented wearables, then you might want to keep an eye on the company's next entry into the smartwatch space. After last year's $299 Ionic smartwatch launched to an unimpressed audience, Fitbit is reportedly back with an all-new design that is said to have "mass appeal". Leaked images of the smartwatch come courtesy of Warable, which show the device in a number of different colors with a multitude of band options. The smartwatch, which could be called the Blaze 2, will run an updated version of the Fitbit OS that debuted on the Ionic. The device is said to be smaller than the somewhat unwieldy Ionic, and more closely aligns with the original...
Read more...
Smartwatch maker Pebble recently sold itself to Fitbit, saying that it could no longer function as an independent entity due to "various factors," which we presumed to mean financial—the company previously laid off a quarter of its workforce and followed by an industry wide precipitous drop in smartwatch sales. That's obviously concerning news for Pebble smartwatch owners, though Fitbit has promised to support the Pebble experience through next year. "Fitbit is going out of its way to keep Pebble software and services running through 2017. To be clear, no one on this freshly-formed team seeks to brick Pebble watches in active service. The Pebble SDK, CloudPebble, Timeline APIs, firmware availability,...
Read more...
If you were hoping to get your hands on an next generation Pebble smartwatch, think again. The company has been acquired by Fitbit. This purchase includes Pebble’s personnel and intellectual property related to software and firmware development, but excludes the company’s hardware products.James Park, CEO and co-founder of Fitbit, remarked, “With this acquisition, we’re well positioned to accelerate the expansion of our platform and ecosystem to make Fitbit a vital part of daily life for a wider set of consumers, as well as build the tools healthcare providers, insurers and employers need to more meaningfully integrate wearable technology into preventative and chronic care.”According...
Read more...
Like many first generation products from Apple, the Apple Watch is far from perfect. It requires a smartphone tether to do more than basic functions like telling time, app load times can be excruciatingly long and battery life leaves much to be desired. Fitbit CEO James Park has taken note of all of these shortcomings of the Apple Watch and is still surprised at the attention that it is getting from not only the press, but also the public. In an interview with The New York Times, Park talks about how excited he was to reveal the Fitbit Blaze at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, only have it compared incessantly (and harshly) to the Apple Watch. “I was definitely pretty surprised when I looked...
Read more...
It didn't take long for Apple to leave its mark on the wearables market. With the introduction of the Apple Watch starting at $349 and going all the way up to $17,000, Apple gambled that buyers would line up to pay a premium for a smartwatch, and it was right. According to data compiled by International Data Corporation, Apple is the second largest player in the wearables market behind Fitbit and is within "striking distance" of the top spot. Apple shipped 3.6 million Apple Watch devices in the second quarter of 2015, which is just 0.8 million less than Fitbit. That gives Apple a 19.9 percent share of the wearables market, compared to Fitbit's 24.3 percent. "Anytime Apple enters a new market,...
Read more...
We can't deny that the wearable fitness tracker market is already congested. It probably jumped the shark after Razer -- a company known primarily for PC gaming accessories and bleeding edge notebooks -- joined the likes of Garmin, Apple, and Fitbit with the Razer Nabu Smartband. But after checking out the feature set and radically different design of the just-announced Moov Now, we think you'll agree there's room for one more. Especially at the absurdly affordable price of $59.99 if you pre-order it before it launches this fall. At its core, Moov Now is an activity tracker for athletes or those of us wanting to get in shape and shed a few pounds. It counts reps for you. It has a 9-axis...
Read more...
It still remains to be seen whether there's a lasting, lucrative market for smartwatches, though when it comes to devices like fitness trackers, there are plenty of buyers. This is evidenced by Fitbit taking the lead in a wearables segment that's just seen its eight consecutive quarter of steady growth around the globe, according to data compiled by International Data Corporation. Fitbit maintained its momentum from the fourth quarter of 2014 right on into the first quarter of 2015, the latter of which was boosted by the release of three new devices -- Charge, Charge HR, and the Surge. There also remains demand for Fitbit's older Flex wristband and One and Zip clip-on models. "Bucking the post-holiday...
Read more...
We don’t know much about Microsoft’s smartwatch efforts beyond the assumption that the company is surely making one if for no other reason than all of its competitors are, but a patent application granted to Microsoft a few days ago gives us a number of clues as to what its smartwatch will be like. First, according to the drawings, the smartwatch looks quite nice. The face is flush with the surface of the watchband so you wouldn’t snag it on clothing or gear. Further, the device itself--which boils down to a tiny, square computer with a built-in display--is removable from the watchband. In a sense, the watchband is a kind of dock, and the watch affixes to it with magnets and...
Read more...
