Items tagged with wearables
Samsung is certainly looking to make a splash during its forthcoming Unpacked event on Wednesday, August 23. The big unveiling will be that of the Galaxy Note 8, the long-awaited successor to the Galaxy Note 7 that went up in flames (literally or figuratively, take your pick). However, a couple of other items will be joining the show, including a new GearVR headset and a new Gear Fit2 Pro fitness band.Do not let the name of the Gear Fit2 Pro fool you, it will actually be the third generation fitness tracker from Samsung. Its second generation model is simply Gear Fit2 without the "Pro" label at...
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The third generation Apple Watch will be even less reliant on having an iPhone device nearby. After adding GPS functionality to the second generation wearable, it's said the Apple Watch Series 3 will feature an integrated LTE modem so that it can connect directly to high speed cellular networks without going through the iPhone.This would be a big feature upgrade for the Apple Watch. The first generation smartwatch from Apple lacked independent GPS functionality, which meant maintaining a connection to an iPhone in order to track distance when jogging, swimming, or riding a bike. Apple addressed...
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Apple is already winning the wearables war, but it is the next version of the company's Apple Watch that could end up a real game changer. Tim Cook, the man in charge, was seen at the Apple campus in Cupertino, California wearing a prototype blood glucose monitor connected to an Apple Watch. If such a thing could make the leap from prototype to retail hardware, it would be a boon millions of people who battle diabetes. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 30 million Americans have diabetes. And in 2012, it was estimated that 86 million Americans age 20 and older...
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More often than not, when someone goes out shopping for a smartwatch, they end up purchasing an Apple Watch. That leaves second place up for grabs between Tizen and Android Wear, and for the first time ever the former overtook the latter in market share. According to data collected by Strategy Analytics, Tizen jumped ahead of Android Wear in the first quarter of 2017 to grab a 19 percent share of the smartwatch OS market, edging out Android Wear at 18 percent. Those figures give Samsung reason to feel vindicated in its decision to move away from Android Wear and go all-in with Tizen in the wearables...
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Apple warranties its Apple Watch for 12 months at no additional charge, though owners of the first generation (Series 1) wearable are getting two extra years of coverage to protect against swollen batteries, an issue that's been raised on multiple online forums. The extended warranty is specific to the battery and does not appear to cover other potential problems that might arise.It does not appear that Apple is notifying registered Apple Watch owners directly about the extended warranty coverage, and is instead making sure that its employees are up to date on the new policy."Apple has extended...
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I have a confession to make—I like smartwatches. Not the janky ones that are little more than glorified fitness bands and cheaply made (to ether their own), but classier looking timepieces. It took some time for me to come around to them, as I didn't see the point in slapping a clock to my wrist when there's a smartphone in my pocket. But I did eventually came around. The same can't be said for Huawei CEO Eric Xu Zhijun, who quite frankly is not a fan of wearables."I am always confused as to what smartwatches are for when we have smartphones," Zhijun said during Huawei's Global Analyst Summit 2017...
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Last year, we took a look at an early version of Hykso’s Punch Trackers. Just in case you missed our initial coverage, Hykso’s wearable devices are meant to be worn under the wraps or wrist tape of boxers, martial artists, or anyone else that trains in combat sports – whether professionally or for fitness – and are designed to track a variety of punch types. On some levels, you can think of Hykso’s Punch Trackers like a "FitBit for combat sports," but the data provided by the devices and their associated mobile app is laser-focused and specialized. The early version of the trackers we looked at...
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There are many different methods of hacking. Most of them involve some sort of software code, whether it is installing malware on a system or hacking a vulnerability to gain unauthorized access to a system or device. The Internet of Things (IoT) category is especially susceptible to hacking due to a surprising lack of basic security practices. However, researchers at the University of Michigan discovered a different way of wreaking havoc, and it involves sound waves. What the group of researchers found is that accelerometers can be manipulated through sound. This is called an analog acoustic injection...
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While college basketball teams around the country are gearing up for conference tournaments, which then lead into March Madness, the folks at Nike are working on technology that would make it easier for teams to keep track of athletes’ performance metrics in real-time, record stats and make informed decisions about player substitutions. As beneficial as this tech could be for teams monitors their multi-million dollar franchise players, it could be also be an [entertainment value] boon for fans to get an even more nuanced look at their favorite players. This information is provided to us...
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Are smartwatches going out of style? Google does not think so, and to help prove it to consumers, the Mountain View outfit plans to launch a pair of flagship smartwatch models running its upcoming Android Wear 2.0 platform sometime in the first quarter of next year. The smartwatches will be the first ones to feature the updated platform, according to Jeff Chang, product manager of Android Wear at Google.Though Google will be making a push to convince consumers that wearables are still relevant, and specifically smartwatches, the two flagship models it has planned will not bear its own branding...
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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...
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Cupertino, we have a problem. There has been a rash of complaints from Apple Watch owners that applying the recently released watchOS 3.1.1 update ends up bricking their pricey wearable, rendering it a still fashionable but non-functional wrist accessory. In response to those complaints, Apple has pulled the update offline, leaving watchOS 3.1 as the most recent version available.The issue seems to mostly affect Apple Watch Series 2 devices. Not everyone with a second generation Apple Watch who installed the watchOS 3.1.1 update ended up with a bricked wearable, though it is not clear why some...
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There are two things Google has to come to grips with. The first is that smartwatches might not be the next big thing, as recent data shows that consumers are more interested in fitness bands than time pieces. And secondly, those who do buy smartwatches end up selecting an Apple Watch way more often than one running Android Wear. Those are the cold, hard facts for Google, and its latest "Magic Minute" campaign probably isn't going to change things. The Magic Minute Project is a marketing campaign designed to bring attention to Android Wear. It consists of one-minute clips showing what is possible...
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Market research firm IDC put a damper on the smartwatch category noting that basic wearables such as fitness bands are taking over as the wrist accessory of choice among consumers. It also predicted that Apple's success in the smartwatch sector going forward "will likely be muted" as it comes off a down quarter with year-over-year decline in Apple Watch sales. If that's the case, then why is Apple CEO Tim Cook so high on the smartwatch category?Simply put, Cook views IDC's assessment of the category as being flat out wrong."Sales growth is off the charts. In fact, during the first week of holiday...
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