Fitbit unveiled a series of new wristband fitness trackers on Monday, marking its first major launch since the recall of its ill-fated Fitbit Force.
In line with rumors, the company has added three devices to its lineup: the Fitbit Charge (a reboot of the Fitbit Force), the Fitbit Charge HR (which comes with heart-rate monitoring) and the Fitbit Surge, a device specialized for runners (with some smartwatch capabilities). The products and the corresponding apps work with iOS, Android and Windows phones and come in small, large and x-large sizes.
Fitbit — which maintains 69% of wearables marketshare, according to NPD Group — will launch the Fitbit Charge in time for the holiday shopping season, but the Fitbit Charge HR and Fitbit Surge won’t be available until early next year. It’s unclear if the latter two were subject to any delays related to the supply chain or production, but CEO James Park told Mashable he isn’t concerned with the timeline.
“Everything might not be ready for the holiday shopping season, but we are focused on delivering the best products and won’t ship any before it’s ready,” Park said.
Fitbit Charge
Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard
The Fitbit Charge ($129.95, launching in mid-November) is the replacement to the Fitbit Force that was recalled six months ago after users reported allergic reactions to the wristband. Park said the company “took the Force issue very seriously” and “learned a lot from what happened.”
“It resulted in enhancing already stringent protocols,” Park said. “We tested the product at independent labs to make sure it meets the standards.”
While the reboot is strikingly similar in design to the Force, there are some differences: to start, the wristband itself is more texturized, with small ridges that form a subtle pattern. It’s also a bit lighter and the clasp has been tweaked too to avoid it from falling off the wrist, another complaint some users have had in the past.
From a tracking standpoint, it still monitors steps taken, calories burned and displays the time, but it also added a feature to track sleeping without needing to put it in sleep mode — it knows when you’re sleeping automatically know by keeping tabs on your movement.
Other additions include smartwatch-like alerts, such as showing you in real-time who is calling. This will likely come in handy when you don’t want to reach from your smartphone and can see the notifications directly on your wrist instead. Although Fitbit said this feature was going to be available as an update to the Fitbit Force, it never launched due to the recall.
It’s also possible to call out workouts now and monitor how many calories were burned during a specific period. Software updates to the app include a feature called Challenges, which lets you go head to head with friends throughout the week, weekend or daily to see how you stack up against one another. Considering those who have at least one friend hooked up to an account tend to be 27% more active, it’s no surprise Fitbit wants to make the app more engaging so users spend more time with it.
The Fitbit Charge will launch in two colors (black and slate) and will be available in burgundy and blue starting in 2015.
Fitbit Charge HR
Image: Fitbit
The Fitbit Charge HR is nearly the same as standard Fitbit Charge but it comes with one differentiator: a continuous heart rate tracker, which is where the “HR” gets its name. Fitbit is calling its heart-rate tracking technology PurePulse and lets users get a read on their heart rate at all hours of the day, not only during workouts but even when resting or sleeping.
This is definitely an attractive feature — while some fitness trackers monitor heart rate while you’re going for a run, it’s less common for a device to track it at all times. This creates a huge pool of information that can reveal a lot about your health — sometimes you’re resting heart rate is more telling than it during high intensity times.
Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard
While the Fitbit Charge ($149.95) lasts about seven days on one charge, this version will get you about five. But overall, the $20 added to the price for continuous heart rate monitoring is a good deal for those really looking to monitor their health.
It will come in black and plum when it debuts in 2015, with other colors like blue and tangerine coming later on.
Fitbit Surge
Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard
The Fitbit Surge, which the company calls a “superwatch,” is the closest to a fitness smartwatch that we’ve seen from Fitbit yet. While it might look like a smartwatch, with its rectangular-shaped OLED display, and act like one too — it lets you see incoming calls and text alerts — it’s still a fitness device at the core.
Fitbit’s demographic is typically people who want to track steps and calories, but athletes who are training for marathons would likely go for running-centric devices instead like the $130 Garmin vivofit. The Surge, which promises up to 7 days of battery life on a charge, may give runners more of a reason to consider the Fitbit brand for rigorous workouts and includes a sleeker design than other models on the market.
Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard
Like the Fitbit Charge HR, it comes with continuous heart-rate monitoring, as well as built-in GPS, sleep analysis and activity tracking. Under the hood, there are also eight sensors, a gyroscope, compass, ambient light sensor, GPS and an LCD backlit touch screen display. Users can also change their watch faces (of the display) and control their music via the device.
The Fitbit Surge will launch in early 2015 for $249.95, in black, blue and tangerine.
Looking Forward
While some experts believe fitness wristband trackers will be cannibalized by smartwatches in the future, Fitbit is holding on to its niche by offering both hardware options and strong software to its core user base. When Nike announced earlier this year it would be folding its Fuelband wristband tracker division and would be placing more emphasis on growing its software, which will likely integrate with the upcoming Apple Watch, it was unclear how Fitbit would evolving in the changing space.
A Fitbit spokesperson told Mashable that the company is continuing to invest in both hardware and software and plans to do so moving forward.
“It’s always what we’ve done, and it’s what we intend for the future as we see it right now too,” the spokesperson said. “It’s not very convenient to use a phone as a fitness tracker, so we still see a need for fitness bands in addition to software.”
Image: Mashable composite. Apple
Although some wearable companies like Jawbone have already integrated with Apple’s HealthKit platform, a hub that pulls i data from third-party apps, Fitbit has taken a cautious approach and continues to “evaluate” HealthKit to see if it would be beneficial to its users. While this news reportedly caused Apple to stop selling Fitbit devices at its retail stores, the spokesperson said the company is “excited” about its new presence in the wearables and health/fitness category.
“We welcome someone like Apple into the market because it’s going to increase so much broad awareness about the industry and drive a ton of interest in Fitbit products,” the Fitbit spokesperson said. “There are still a number of things that set us a part too, including the range of products, affordable price points ($50 to $249), longer battery life and cross-platform compatibility. Apple is focused on Apple products, but we work with many platforms and have a strong community of Fitbit users already, so we feel excited about them coming in.”
The spokesperson added: “It’s unfortunate about the news of not being sold in their stores, but at the end of the day, we are in 37,000 retail outlets and we’re comfortable we will have broad-scale distribution even if we’re not sold in their brick-and-mortar stores. We will very much still work with them as a company — we are the number one fitness app with Apple today and a lot of our users use Apple products, so we’ll have to have a strong working relationship with them.”
As for whether or not Fitbit will ever launch a true smartwatch (not focused on fitness) of its own, it seems unlikely for now.
“There will always be an element of fitness to our products; that’s what we were founded as a company,” the spokesperson said. “We can’t say inevitably where things will go and we’ll continue to learn about the market and make products relevant, but in the near future, this is the plan.”
