A week back, we checked out a leak that suggested a new smartwatch was on the horizon: not a new Android Wear model, nor Verizon wearable, and not the rumored Microsoft smartwatch, either. Instead, we were to see Fitbit move beyond more basic fitness trackers to offer a full-featured smartwatch to call its own, the Fitbit Surge. Sure enough, today the company goes official with the Surge, as well as two new fitness trackers, the Charge and Charge HR.
Considering how these models build upon each others’ feature sets, it makes sense to start with the most basic, the Charge. The company calls this the “reinvented” version of its Force tracker, and Charge similarly features an OLED display for keeping track of stats and sharing Caller ID notifications from your phone. The band tracks steps, calculates distance, and records workout data. It’s water resistant and offers up to a week of battery life on a charge.
The Charge HR takes all that and adds a round-the-clock 24/7 heart rate monitor. That comes at the cost of a little battery life, bringing things down to a five-day max.
And then there’s Surge, the “fitness super watch.” It keeps all those sensors, including the heart rate monitor, and adds new features of its own, like GPS reception. All told, it gets its data from an array of eight sensors, and displays information about what it learns from your exercise habits on its own monochrome LCD screen.
Only the Charge is going up for sale straight away, as Fitbit begins selling it for about $130. The Charge HR and Surge arrive in early 2015, for nearly $150 and $250, respectively.
Source: Fitbit
No comments:
Post a Comment