Under Armour’s HealthBox is a sleek fitness-tracking starter kit — in a pricey box
LAS VEGAS — Under Armour’s answer to getting in better shape lies within this box.
The company revealed a smart fitness starter kit called HealthBox ($400) at CES on Tuesday, which features a web-connected scale, fitness tracker called UA Band (made in partnership with HTC) and a heart-rate chest monitor. You can buy devices separately — UA Band for $180, UA Heart Rate chest strap for $80, UA Scale for $180 — but the set intends to help consumers see a deeper look at their overall quantified health.
The company also announced at the conference wireless heart-rate tracking earbuds (with JBL by Harman audio) for $250 and Gemini 2 sneakers ($150), the first smart shoes that track steps taken, calories burned and distance without the need to be tethered to an iPhone.
While the heart-rate tracking earbuds and sneakers may be more for serious athletes and those training for marathons, HealthBox is all getting people on the fitness tracking bandwagon. It’s not exactly for casual enthusiasts; this is the real deal, and the company has put a lot of care into getting both the design and usability right.
The package itself is impressive — a box filled with sleek products born out of solid partnerships with tech giants like HTC — but it’s curious who exactly will be buying this. Sure, it’s targeted for tracking newbies, though it’s a costly collection for those who just want to get their feet wet. People already hooked on the fitness tracking space might not be so quick to pony up for the box kit (and likely already have similar gear). Of course, Under Armour wants you to forget about the other trackers already available and go all in on its own ecosystem. And it might just be worth it.
After some hands-on time (we’ll do a full review in the coming weeks), it’s clear these gadgets are carefully designed. The scale, available in black and white, has particularly fine attention to detail. It comes with a touchscreen display that recognizes who you are based on your weight, tells you your goals and provides information like body mass index.
It syncs up with the UA Band, the company’s first wearable device designed to be worn on the inside of your wrist. The band is splashed with Under Armour’s signature black and red colors. The display highlights the time, notifications, activity progress, workouts, sleep monitoring and heart-rate tracking. The battery is pretty solid, too; the company says it will last up to five days and charge back up at 25 minutes.
The box also comes with a chest heart-rate strap, which is still considered the most accurate way to see how your heart is handling different levels of workout intensities.
These three gadgets work alongside Under Armour’s updated app UA Record, which goes beyond sleep and fitness tracking to determine details like why you recently got sick. The focus is heavily placed on improving the way you feel by connecting all the data points provided by your body, such as sleep, activity and nutrition — it pulls in data from Under Armour’s MyFitnessPal app, allowing you to log meals by using a photo to analyze caloric intake.
While many apps and wearables collect fitness data, Under Armour holds users accountable for being more active by giving them a series of call-to-action prompts.
Although the kit seems to offer a lot in one box, fitness fanatics may only gravitate toward just one or two of these products to fill out whatever is missing in their existing tracking collection. For runners and athletes who have never tracked their workouts and health before and are looking for equipment to handle such a lifestyle, HealthBox will certainly resonate with that sweet spot.
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