Are you ready for next week's Cybathlon, the world’s first ever international sporting competition in which disabled athletes compete using bionic assistive technology? It sounds seriously awesome.
The post Cybathlon, the world’s first ‘bionic Olympics, merges tech, disabled athletes appeared first on Digital Trends.
Sphero's Force Band lets you control the BB-8 Droid with nothing but gestures. It's like being a real Jedi! We used the Force to spin BB-8 around our office and talked to the Force Band's creators to learn more.
The post Sphero’s new Force Band grants you intergalactic superpowers appeared first on Digital Trends.
Google has pushed back the release of Android 2.0 from this fall to sometime in 2017. It's also released the latest developer preview, Developer Preview 3, with a major addition: a wrist-optimized Play Store.
The post Google delays Android Wear 2.0 to 2017, releases Developer Preview 3 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Can't decide between smartwatch ecosystems? The Magellen Echo Watch works with both Android and iOS devices, so you can focus on your workouts rather than compatibility. At $20, it's one of the most affordable, name-brand sports watches on the market.
The post Track your workouts with Magellan’s budget-based, $20 Echo appeared first on Digital Trends.
Qardio’s aim is to transform the healthcare industry with simpler, smarter and more effective solutions for everyone: patients, doctors and healthcare providers. We are happy to have them again as co-exhibitor at the WT | Wearable Technologies Show at MEDICA 2016 in Düsseldorf on November 14-17 in hall 15A23.
1) What are you going to present at MEDICA 2016? Can you give us a sneak peek?
At MEDICA we will be presenting our connected heart health monitoring ecosystem. Qardio offers solutions for both patients and their doctors with a single aim to improve health outcomes while lowering costs. We’ve done this by creating a suite of connected devices that allow for frequent home use and remote monitoring, paired with powerful analytics that frees up doctors’ time and maximizes patient care.
Our devices track a wide range of metrics such as blood pressure, weight, continuous ECG/EKG, respiratory rate, stress levels and more. Our devices work seamlessly with the users’ smartphone or tablet and allow for an automatic data sharing with their doctor or care provider.
This year, we launched QardioMD, a smart portal specifically designed for health practitioners. QardioMD not only collects patient generated data but uses powerful algorithms and groups sorting patients per priority so doctors know instantly who needs their attention and who is doing fine.
2) Who should visit your booth?
Qardio solutions are perfect for anyone interested in making healthcare simpler, easier, and more cost effective. Our products have been created to provide value to both patients and their providers, and actually close the gap between the two so they can work together towards better health. Our booth should be a destination for anyone interested in improving patient outcomes, lowering cost or growing their practice by incorporating medically accurate and innovative solutions Qardio provides.
3) It’s the second time you join us at MEDICA. What do you like about the trade fair?
MEDICA is a fantastic event to participate in because of its focus on the latest technologies in the medical field. As the leader in digital health solutions, Qardio looks forward to meeting more partners interested in cost effective, innovative solutions we offer.
4) QardioArm and QardioBase are sold now in Target’s “connected Care” sections. Can you tell us more about this cooperation?
Last spring, Target rolled out their “Connected Care” sections in a large number of their stores within their pharmacy department. We are honoured target selected Qardio as the category leader as we share in their vision of making important health data easily accessible to the consumer. In the past five years, there has been in a shift in the connected devices market from simple step counting to products that are able to provide medical grade data to a standard that it can be used in clinical treatment. Everyday technology allows us to do more, faster and with greater ease, and we are evolving connected medical devices to that level. It is a fantastic partnership, as you can imagine; Having a compact, easy to use blood pressure monitor that automatically stores your measurements readily available right where you pick up your hypertension medication provides an all-in-one solution.
5) What is your favorite wearable and why (besides your own)
Within the last year, the smartwatch has come a very long way, and it’s exciting to see where it will be able to go in the future. Now you can send a text message, make a bank transfer, or see your father’s latest blood pressure measurement, all without reaching for your phone or other device.
We had an interview with Marco Peluso, CEO at Qardio, last year about the importance of the ease of use and design aspects in the healthcare market. You can find the intereview here.
MEDICA is a “must” event for everyone busy in the healthcare market. We warmly invite you to drop by at our booth in hall 15 A23. Here you can find our co-exhibitors 2016 and some impressions from the previous years.
Every passing year sees a fresh lineup of commuter gear for cyclists. This year's notable additions? A collapsible helmet, puncture-proof tires, and a smart bell. If you're looking for a new ride, there are even smart bikes with as much built-in tech as a compact car.
The post The best biking gear of 2016 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Fitbit has got more than two new wearables today. Aside from the new Charge 2 and the Flex 2, you can also buy the Alta and Blaze in gold. The company is also unveiling a new mode in the its app called Fitbit Adventures.
The post Fitbit’s Alta and Blaze get cosmetic and software improvements appeared first on Digital Trends.
Tadashi Shimizu is the Project Manager of JINS MEME, which is the world’s first eyewear that actually lets you see yourself. You can meet him at our conference coming up on October 12 in Hong Kong! But first, we had the chance for a brief interview with him:
What’s the current status of the smart glasses market? Where is it headed next?
I see there are two major streams in the smart glasses market – to look outside yourself and look inside yourself. The former, for instance, Google Glass, is for you to see outside your world with camera and screen embedded/attached whilst our JINS MEME has managed to position uniquely where you can see yourself internally with sensing your bio-data. In both streams, the key is a fine balance between size/design and functional features.
Your glasses look super sleek but still have technology inside. In terms of miniaturization of the parts what was the biggest difficulty that you had to face while building this product?
We believe JINS MEME is the world’s first product that can keep monitoring eye movement (electrooculography) in your daily life if not other complex and high-tech look devices. Our biggest interest, which was also the biggest headache, was how to balance a form factor as ordinary glasses and functionality as sensor device so that users are willing to wear JINS MEME every day.
What can your product track and measure? Are you planning to add new features in the future?
JINS MEME with a style of ordinary glasses tracks eye movement and body posture. Firstly, the technology of eye tracking is known as electrooculography and it has been used for long. Yet the conventional devices of electrooculography are mainly for professionally medical use only and not really seen in daily usage whereas JINS MEME enables users to wear as part of your face and fashion. Secondly, with the position of being right above your spine, JINS MEME has a great advantage of capturing body posture and movement (accelerometer and gyroscope sensors are used).
We are careful in adding new features such as camera or display. This is because JINS MEME’s concept is “letting you see yourself”. In the next generation, we want the device to be smaller in size and bigger in performance as well as a wider variety of styles.
Curious about this product? Besides, Tadashi on our stage Jins will be exhibiting in Hong Kong in October. So make sure to stop by at their booth to take a look at their brand new glasses! Register to the WT | Wearable Technologies Conference 2016 ASIA today!
In a groundbreaking development for people with Type 1 Diabetes, the FDA just approved the first ever Closed Loop Hybrid insulin delivery system. Also known as an artificial pancreas, the system automates insulin dosing.
The post FDA clears artificial pancreas to help Type 1 diabetics monitor blood sugar appeared first on Digital Trends.
If you are a customer of Aetna, you could soon get a subsidized Apple Watch. Health insurance giant Aetna has announced a new initiative to make the Apple Watch available to its customers at a cheaper price than usual.
The post You could soon get a subsidized Apple Watch — if you are an Aetna customer appeared first on Digital Trends.
According to recent reports, Huawei may be looking to move away from Android Wear for its next smartwatch -- the company is reportedly testing building a watch with Samsung's Tizen instead.
The post Huawei’s next smartwatch could run Samsung’s Tizen instead of Android Wear appeared first on Digital Trends.
Verily, the life sciences division of Google parent company Alphabet, is reportedly developing a wearable that can accurately track heart rate, steps, and other biological markers.
The post Google’s parent company is developing a wearable that can track your health appeared first on Digital Trends.
GoTenna, a Brooklyn-based hardware startup, is out with its second product -- GoTenna Mesh. The device is on Kickstarter today, and it lets you communicate with another GoTenna user even when there's no cell signal.
The post No cell service? GoTenna Mesh keeps you connected in a pinch appeared first on Digital Trends.
The WT | Wearable Technologies Conference Asia will take place in less than a month on October 12 in Hong Kong. We proudly welcome on our main stage almost all the hottest topics covered by speakers from various fields in wearable ecosystem. Besides, you don’t want to miss the chance to see and experience all the products at our exhibition hall. Below is a glimpse at our exhibitors who are long standing supporters of WT as well as a few new rising star on the market.
Healthcare
Emfit provides a Safebed which is safety and wellness tracker designed for seniors. It’s the world first contact free sleep tracker with heart rate variability. It can analyse your recover, stress and sleep quality. Moreover, it detects seizure through our fast movements monitor.
Evena is a solution for clinic to improve medical care. Evena’s Eyes-On Glasses provide hands-free, cart-free imaging for vascular access. The Evena Glasses system is appropriate for pre-hospital, hospital, outpatient surgery centres and wherever accurate fast IV access is required.
For ones who are curious about how and where the smart glasses are. Having a style of or Wellington glasses JINS MEME offers smartphone apps that help you know your status of mind and body so that you can start changing your daily behaviours for “better me”.
Lifesense Group brings design and tech together to revolutionize healthcare. With Carin, Lifesense Group empowers women who suffers pelvic floor muscle damaged after having children and works on their health independently by giving exercises training and progress tracking.
Smart Clothing
AIQ creates innovative smart clothing. Their products range from gloves that interact with a touch screen, to body metrics undershirt. AIQ smart solution is where electronics merge with textiles to create fashionable, functional, comfortable solutions to meet your everyday needs; whether it’s in sports & fitness, outdoor & leisure, home & leisure, home care & health care.
Are you looking for the most effective and time efficient full body work out? Antelope is the best choice. It is ideal for both strength and endurance athletes as well as everyone who is willing to get (back) in shape. Be sure to check out their booth to see what tricks are hiding underneath their suits.
Safety On The Road
Babaali is the world leading helmet manufacturer. The use of the helmet can improve safety and performance not only on the road but also on every aspects of life. Babaali provides smart cycle helmet, smart ski helmet and smart construction helmet.
I-lume gives us a unique wearable LED technology that is simple to apply to clothing, apparel and any type of textile product or accessory. The small LED lighting device has strong power to keep you seamless and visible to increase the safety on the road, pathway, workplace and anywhere outside.
Smartcap is a product which is designed to monitor fatigue for vehicle drivers. The SmartCap is capable of reading electrical brain activity (EEG) and processing that information to determine an individual’s fatigue level. Data from the SmartCap is transmitted to an in-cab display via Bluetooth.
Parts & Components
Are you interested in micro molding? Our exhibitor Accumold has been an expert in micro molding for more than three decades. You can bring your ideal micro part design to their Booth, they can be your weapon for success.
Fitness
PulseOn offers highest quality wearable OHR solutions for sports, fitness, wellness and healthcare. PulseOn technology is based on optical measurement of blood flow under the skin. When the heart pumps, the blood flow varies according to the heart’s pumping frequency. PulseOn’s sensor detects this variation from the optical signal and translates the data into an accurate heart rate reading with its sophisticated algorithms.
For more details about the exhibitors sharing their wearable products click on the exhibitor overview link. WT | Wearable Technologies and the WT | Network are happy to meet you in person in Hong Kong!
Fuel3D, a 3D scanning company, has developed an impressive new smart technology for retail optical locations that makes finding a pair of spectacles that fit perfectly as simple as glancing in the mirror.
The post Want to find glasses that fit perfectly? Look into this 3D-scanning smart mirror appeared first on Digital Trends.
WT | Wearable Technologies will be exhibiting at MEDICA for the 7th consecutive year. One of our co-exhibitors this year is Vivalnk. We made an interview with Lucia Nguyen to discuss more about eSkin technology and so much much more.
eSkin technology is the culmination of over a decade of research and development. It is essentially a printed circuit board with sensors on a substrate that is thin, flexible, breathable and very comfortable to wear. With our eSkin™ technology, we’ve created a platform for wearables, apps, cloud and data services for continuous vital monitoring. eSkin™ is a building block that can be leveraged for future advances in medical technology.
We will be presenting Fever Scout. The Fever Scout a soft, wearable, stick-on thermometer that continuously updates parents and caretakers of their child or patient’s temperature. The device can be worn overnight, and help alert a caretaker of a higher fever — even if you are in another room, a remote location, or if your phone is asleep.
We are looking forward to meeting those interested in using wearables specifically for continuous vital monitoring, and are interested in API, SDK integration with our products.
In the coming years we see wearable technologies growing more in the healthcare industry and revolutionizing the way doctors engage with their patients. We also see wearable technologies enhancing the way parents and caretakers assist their sick loved ones.
Shortcut is a 3D-printed smart wristband, which works in conjunction with hand prostheses as a mouse substitute for amputees without the use of their hands.
The post 3D-printed smart wristband could help amputees use computers appeared first on Digital Trends.
Today was the second day of the Bits & Pretzels event in Munich. The event that lasts for 3 days finalizes with a Networking event at the famous Oktoberfest (the real one!). As at any other relevant event WT | Wearable Technologies CEO, Christian Stammel was there bringing sexiness with a very interesting panel, Sex, Self-Care & Tattoos on the Future Drivers for Wearables.
Not only one but two panels were hosted by Christian Stammel. Some of the companies at the wearables panels were : BaDoink, MysteryVibe, Elvie, VivaLnk. As part of the second panel, Apples Vs. Cheese, who will dominate the smartwatch world? was : Blinkked, Wotch, Shammane and Philips.
Along with WT’s CEO were also Kevin Spacey, Richard Branson, Mitchell Baker (from Mozilla), Nathan Blecharczyk (Co-Founder & CTO airbnb) and many more!!
Were you there as well? Don’t miss the opportunity to meet us tomorrow at Oktoberfest at the Sophisticated IoT area! Look for the WT’s Gurus!
A new wearable from healthcare startup BSX Technologies promises to measure your hydration level and heart beat in real time using infrared technology. It's launching on Kickstarter.
The post LVL doesn’t just remind you to drink, it measures your hydration in real time appeared first on Digital Trends.
A new Apple patent filing describes a novel use of the sensors in wearables to prevent 'butt dialing.' A paired phone, for instance, might automatically lock when placed in a back pocket.
The post Apple patents an ingenious feature to prevent ‘butt dialing,’ and it involves the Apple Watch appeared first on Digital Trends.
Evan Spiegel wants to record your memories, and everyone seems fine with that.
What if you had the ability to record everything you see, so you can see it again later, whenever you want?
If you’re Snap/Snapchat, that sounds like a really great idea — it’s the premise behind the company’s $130 Spectacles.
“Imagine one of your favorite memories,” Snap says in its rollout announcement. “What if you could go back and see that memory the way you experienced it?”
Another take: That sounds like a nightmare!
You can see how that one plays out courtesy of “Black Mirror,” the British series that updates “The Twilight Zone” with technological twists. The everything-you-can-see-you-can-see-again idea is the basis for “The Entire History of You,” the series’ third episode.
I think it’s my favorite of the bunch, and if you haven’t watched it on Netflix yet, I highly recommend it. (The entire episode also appears to have been on YouTube for more than a year. How does that work?)
You can get a sense of it here:
None of which is to say that Spectacles = dystopia. They sound pretty cool! I told my 6-year-old son about them, and he definitely wants a pair.
But it is interesting to see that in hot-take/first-blush land, no one seems particularly worried about the consequences of omnipresent, wearable video recorders.
Are they cool enough for Twitter users? That’s up for debate. Are they a problem for humanity? No one seems to think so.
I can hazard a couple guesses about why that may be.
One is that we’ve been headed this way for a while. You may not use a GoPro, but you get why someone might. Your local police department may already be equipping its officers with bodycams (even if they don’t always turn them on). And while Google famously failed when it introduced its Glass headsets in 2013, it still helped normalize the idea.
Another is that Snap/Snapchat has a lot more freedom to play around with ideas like this than other brands might have. Snapchat’s core messaging product has already established it as a company that makes things that are both confusing and cool.
So even if you think Spectacles are a terrible idea, you might wait to be proven right before you say so.
And at the same time, Snap still seems like a novelty to lots of people. Sure, it may command enormous media attention, and it could do a billion dollars in revenue next year, en route to an IPO.
But Snap still doesn’t generate the omnipresent fear/awe/respect that tech giants like Facebook, Apple and Google command. If any one of those companies came out with Spectacles, I bet you’d see a very different response.
Snapchat has finally revealed its first hardware product, and it's not what everyone was expecting (well not quite). “Spectacles,” as the company has branded them, are a pair of video-recording sunglasses that sync with your smartphone.
The post Snapchat unveils its first wearable: a chic pair of “Spectacles” that let you record snaps appeared first on Digital Trends.
Virtual reality is finally going mainstream, but which headset is right for your needs? Check out a few of our favorites, whether you want the best of the best or a budget-based alternative that's specifically designed for your mobile device.
The post The best VR headset you can buy appeared first on Digital Trends.
Gone was the time when one has to make a hard choice between functionality and fashion. The rapid development of technology has open many doors where fashion marvellously blends into functionality. The current market offers various choices for fashionable accessories both in terms of styles and performance that are suitable for most situations and events. Here’s our top wearable tips for tech-savvy fashionistas under circumstances.
Dating
Aries from Ringly is highly recommended to you when you are going on a date. This smart bracelet is gold-plated and feature a range of semi-precious stones. Behind a gorgeous and famine look, this is the smartest bracelet ever. It’s also a fitness tracker which can track your steps and monitor your calorie. Moreover, the battery life can last two or three days
Wedding
How about a wearable tech engagement ring for your bride? Luxury wearable wedding tech which can record all your best memories has truly arrived. Think of 50 years from now, and it has your proposal and your wedding vows and your baby being born and your saying. 50 years later, you can actually hand it over to your beloved and say “everything is in here”.
Business trip
An Apple watch with a wide variety of watchbands and release two versions, including one that’s a bit slimmer is a perfect match although you are on a business trip. Additionally, there’s speaker and microphone on the watch which allows you to make a business call. Moreover, it stores credit card information with a tap, you can pay your hotel bill. Besides, the new series of Apple Watch improved with internal GPS. The increased water resistance and brighter display are nice additions, too. However, it also a good fitness tracker.
Disco night
Fitbit Flex 2 is a slim, swim –proof fitness which can automatically track all-day activity, exercise and sleep. The special point is that it can transform by hiding inside bangles, bands or pendants, therefore you can also transform from an office lady to a queen at disco night.
Picnic day
When it’s picnic day, you will need Garmin Fenix 3. With a sporty style, Garmin Fenix is a perfect choice for an outdoor day as picnic. In addition, it allows you to monitor your heart rate, calories burned and to help you quantify the intensity of your fitness activities. Moreover, it is featured a 1.2-inch sunlight-readable Garmin Chroma Display™ protected by a scratch-resistant sapphire lens and PVD-stainless steel bezel with built-in EXO antenna with GPS/GLONASS reception.
Technology has taken a leapfrog to join fashion, which makes our lives much easier when we do not have to wonder whether we prefer good tech or good look.
Still playing Pokémon Go? Nintendo’s Pokémon Go Plus $35 wearable is now available to help with the grind of earning more stardust, and hatching more eggs.
The post Pokémon Go Plus review appeared first on Digital Trends.
South Korea doesn't have an Apple store, but the iPhone maker is trying to change that. While Samsung already is dealing with the recall of its Galaxy Note 7, it now has to worry about a possible physical retail presence from its rival.
The post Apple may open a store across from Samsung’s headquarters in South Korea appeared first on Digital Trends.
With $50, an iPhone, and a pair of glasses that look like Benjamin Franklin's bifocals, you can add some depth to your videos thanks to Elsewhere. It's a $50 iOS app that comes with a pair of spectacles.
The post Elsewhere’s app and glasses make videos pop out in 3D appeared first on Digital Trends.
The Apple Watch Series 2 brings some much-needed updates to the smartwatch, including a better processor, waterproofing, and a stunning bright display. Should you strap one on your wrist? Read our full review.
The post Apple Watch Series 2 review appeared first on Digital Trends.
The innovations of wearable technology quickly moved into a wide variety of sports. Even so, running is still the sport that´s longest associated with consumer-level wearables. Usually, gadgets like fitness-trackers and smartwatches to track all kinds of data are worn on the wrist, but in 2016 we’ve seen special smart shoes overtake this function. Shoes make standing, walking and running more comfortable and efficient. Let me introduce you in the most interesting smart shoes.
Altra-IQ
In cooperation with iFit, AltraRunning is the ultimate gadget in running technology. Altra IQ is a new wave of smart running technology, giving you running intelligence while moving. This smartshoe runs with a virtually undetectable sensor embedded right in the shoe´s midsole, and paired with iFit technology. Users get real-time coaching and feedback to improve and streamline their running technique. The IQ measures and coaches you on important facts like cadence, landing zone, impact force/balance and contact time, as well as the usual metrics like pace, distance and many more. The shoe links to iFit smartphone app, which compiles all this data. The app shows if you´re landing harder on one foot and whether impact concentrates on your heel rather than the mid foot or toes. Check out how it works.
IOFIT
IOFIT is the world’s first smart golf shoe which helps you improve your golf game. It measures the most important metrics in golf like balance, pressure distribution and weight shift information. Furthermore, it highlights your mistakes and shows you ways to improve via a smartphone app. Users can compare and compete with friends to maximize fun! The shoe’s waterproof sensors are designed to detect slight changes in the pressure distribution in a matter of milliseconds. This shoe can communicate with users via Bluetooth through their iOS or Android app, which includes optional video-syncing capabilities, a professional swing library, and many other features to help track progress. The shoe even allows you to send your analyzed data and videos to peers and coaches.
Hype8Kicks
Hype8 Kicks are the first ever truly connected shoes integrating Lucie Labs technology to offer an incomparable experience. With this smart shoe you can experience the best of breed interactivity, creativity and performance. Users are able to control their smart shoe from the smartphone and stand out. Hype8 Kicks generally have three main functions. When driving in the night Hype8 Kicks provide assisted navigation. With special vibrations the shoes show you the way. With hyper personalization you can choose the color, rhythm and order of lightning. Enhanced experience makes it even possible to vibrate and light up to the rhythm of the music. Check out which other functions these futuristic shoe got.
Digitsole Smartshoe
The Digitsole SmartShoe 001 claims to be the first connected, interactive, heated and shock absorber shoe with automatic tightening. Wearers can precisely measure and control the trainers’ temperature using their smartphone. They can also keep track of how far they’ve walked and how many calories they’ve burned. If you input your height and weight data, you can customize the shoes further. All communication between the smartphone app and the shoe is handled via Bluetooth 4.0 and works with IOS and Android phones. You can check the distance walked along with calories burned in both outdoor and indoor environments. You can also save your race track or your walking route. It is the first fully functional and connected tightening system for footwear. Above all, its futuristic appearance makes it a very exciting product.
The innovations of Smart shoes from the wearable market still stands at the beginning, however, we already have some interesting developments. It remains exciting which new products will come on the market during the coming years and which functions they will have.
Are the Fitbit Charge 2 and Flex 2 worth buying?
On a recent episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, Recode’s Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Lauren Goode talked about whether you should buy the new Fitbit Charge 2 or Flex 2.
You can read some of the highlights from their discussion at that link, or listen to it in the audio player above. Below, we’ve posted a lightly edited complete transcript of their conversation.
If you like this, be sure to subscribe to Too Embarrassed to Ask on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn or Stitcher.
Transcript by Celia Fogel.
Lauren Goode: So Kara, did you hear there's an Apple event next week?
Kara Swisher: I read about it on Recode dot net, yes.
Are you going?
No, I never go to them anymore.
You don't? I have a picture of the two of us sitting together at an Apple event.
That was like five years ago, right? I've been to many. It's sort of like Rolling Stones concerts, I'm pretty much done with them. I don't need to see them sing "Satisfaction" again.
You mean U2 concerts, if we're really relating it to Apple events.
No, I'm just saying, they're like the Rolling Stones, right? Okay, here comes Mick.
You were at the Watch event, I think.
I was. One of the computer events was the last one.
I think it's when they first announced the MacBook. Which is not the MacBook Air or the MacBook Pro, it's neither.
Whatever. That one. The skinny one they had hanging from the ceiling. Remember? It was so light and lively, it was hanging from the ceiling.
I guess.
I have not gone in a while. But Dan Frommer and Ina Fried are going from Recode and they will enjoy themselves.
And a whole bunch of us are going from The Verge.
I'm gonna sit out. I'm going to do a Facebook Live. I'm just going to sit there and watch Nilay Patel have his head blow off when they introduce something you didn't know about. "Ahhh!!! Scramble the jets, oh my God!!" I'm very happy you get a lot of traffic from it. It'd be nice if they came out with something interesting. But it's like a new iPhone, right?
You know what? Tim Cook is going to roll out in his car, and you're going to be so bummed.
He might roll out. Everyone's always speculating that the invitation has headlights.
That was my speculation.
Oh was it? That was good. That was a good story.
Thank you. Of course I was about 24 hours late, it took me 24 hours to think of that after I got the invitation.
I don't think he's going to roll out a car. Do you think he's going to roll out a car? That would be good. I would like that. That would be cool.
And you're going to be sorry you missed it!
Not really, no.
See, this is what we like to do. We like to set expectations really high, and then everyone comes crashing down to earth.
I'm thinking of cutting my toenails that day.
You're updating your iPhone.
I don't know what I'm doing. I'm organizing my sock drawer. It's going to be great. Oh my god, I forgot the socks today! I forgot to bring them for you.
Yeah, you forgot the Bomba socks.
I will bring them next week, sorry. I totally forgot.
Well, this week's episode, we're not actually talking about Apple, even though we may have led you down that path just now. So: My sincere apologies.
We're going to do a special guest. I will be on your show though. That will be fun.
You're going to be on my show? You're going to be on our show.
Our show.
Thanks, Kara. So next week we're going to talk about Apple and have some special guests.
Apple, endlessly. Dongle. I'm going to say the word dongle as much as possible and give it a sexual tone. Dongle.
I think dongle inherently …
You know what, all tech terms have that. You know what I mean?
What else?
All of them do.
I suppose.
I will think for next week, there's like ten of them.
Nothing gets me more excited than USB.
USB, no not that, but like ...
Type C.
Eject.
That actually sounds like a sexually transmitted disease.
There's a whole bunch. Someone was going over them at a party the other day. Like all the different …
Pixels. You know what I mean?
No. That's not sexual in any way. Anyway, let's move on. This week.
This week, we're going to be talking about wearables.
Yeah. Which I call unwearables.
Kara calls them unwearables. They are my favorite topic, they are Kara's least favorite topic, possibly.
They aren't my least favorite topic. I just think they're unwearable.
What are you wearing on your wrist right now?
A watch from Tissot. It's very nice, it tells the time.
It's an analog watch.
It's an analog watch, it tells the time. It doesn't have numbers on it, I just have to guess which one is 5 or 4, whatever. But I like it a lot, it works.
And it's pretty nice looking.
It's a nice watch. And I was wearing a Timex Indiglo the other day, and someone who was a little bit younger than me, it was ticking and they were like, "What is that?!" And I was like, "It's a wind-up watch, and this is the way we used to have it back in the day." So I like watches, yeah. But I don't like my Apple Watch. Here's what I've been doing lately with all of these unwearables. I found them all in a drawer and I put them on a table, and I'm going to go through them again and give them another chance.
I had the Apple watch, but I keep recharging them and never doing it. But I have them all. I've got the Fitbit, I've got the Jawbone, I've got the Apple Watch, I've got some other thing over there. And I'm going to try them on and wear each of them for a week and see if I don't hate them as much as I thought I did. Like old relationships.
You know, the Apple watch, you'll have to charge every single day. The others, you can get by for about five days to a week.
I know that. But I'm going to try them all, I'm going to see what I don't like about them, and then I'll report back.
Okay, well, let us know.
But it's like an old relationship. I know it's going to go sour right away.
Right, right. They just keep bringing you back.
Yes. But I'm going to try them. I found them in a drawer and I said, "I'm going to commit myself to trying."
By the way, if our listeners missed the earlier podcast that we did — this must have been six months ago now, it was a while ago — we did an entire podcast devoted to Kara's unlove of the unwearables.
Yes. So I'm going back. I'm going to try them just for you. That's what I'm going to do. Because I know how much you love them. So you're wearing one of those giant ones on your wrist.
I am! I'm wearing a new Fitbit.
It's enormous.
Two new Fitbits were announced earlier this week. This is the Charge 2.
It's ridiculously large.
What do you think about the Flex? The other one.
The one you showed me a picture of? It's fine. It looks the same. It's a little bit like a Jawbone.
That's the Flex 2.
I know they put it next to jewelry, but it's not jewelry. Let me just say that.
They're jewelry accessories. The Flex 2 is like a little pod that you can pop out and put into a fancy bracelet.
I gotta say, that's a big thing. I was watching "Elysium" last night with Jodie Foster and she had one like that on her wrist, because she was like blowing up the world with it and she kept like hitting it and killing people. And it was just …
Keep that one away from Donald Trump.
Yes, I know. It was eee-normous. It was enormous. It was just ridiculous. So it was a big square Bulova, that was the cute part. "Oh, ha ha — Bulova."
I just got a notification.
Did you? What did it say?
"Run away from Kara Swisher."
Oh my God. Why is that one better? That Fitbit?
So the Charge 2 ...
There's two, right?
There's two.
Okay, explain the easy one.
The easy one is the Flex 2.
So it's the same one they had.
That's the successor to the Flex, which was one of the simplest Fitbits you could get. There are more than half a dozen now, there's the Zip and the One, those are super simple, and then there's the Flex, which is the wristband, and this is the Flex 2. It's ... I don't know ... It has a bunch of LED lights at the top, so it doesn't have a display. It's really simple. It tracks your steps ...
So it just shoots lights that you don't understand, again.
I actually don't like that. I haven't used it enough yet to ...
Like, why is it lighting up?
The Misfit does that.
Yes, they all do. The Jawbone does it too.
I haven't used the Flex 2 enough to actually get frustrated with it. But generally, any wearable company that puts out a product and says, "It doesn't have a display, but it has a series of LED lights that will tell you when you've got a certain notification from Snapchat, versus your calendar, versus ..." It's morse code. I don't know about you, but I don't look down during my very busy day [and say], "Oh! Combination purple, green, red!"
So does it buzz at you? It doesn't show you text or anything else?
There are five LED lights, and one is color coded. And when that one lights up, it'll tell you a certain thing.
So that one, you like that it's smaller.
Well, I haven't really worn that one yet for an extended period of time, but it's small and it's for the type of consumer who says, "I like Fitbits, but I just want a basic $99 step counter."
What does it do? What does it actually do?
Steps.
Steps.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Calories burned. Distance traveled. But because you don't have the display, you're really going to have to open the app in order to see all of the stuff.
I see, so it coordinates with the app in your hand. Calories burned, whatever.
Calories burned, distance traveled ... So [it counts] your steps, which might be like 6,000 steps, but then you're going to open it and will say .29 miles, or whatever it might be. Some people actually look at those types of activity trackers as supplemental, which I know is crazy because you're such an unwearable person.
No, you know what? I use my iPhone a lot. I carry my iPhone. I just started this new Nike running club thing, and I've been using my iPhone, and I'm going to try to do it with the Watch. But I find out how many steps I do with my iPhone because I carry it everywhere, all day.
Let's say you have a dedicated Garmin, because you're training for a triathlon, or you have the Fitbit Surge, because you're a runner. And so you have this big, clunky thing that you're going to wear for your workouts, because you're very serious about those workouts. But then, you want something that's going to track you all day long, and you're not using an iPhone app. Some people might actually invest in something like a $99 bracelet-like tracking-for-that sort of thing. I still think that's not really the primary category. I think Fitbit wants to address the super-simple step-counting market, and this is that. The Flex 2 is that.
I just want an exoskeleton. If I could have an exoskeleton that would be useful.
And exoskeleton would just drag you down.
No, it wouldn't. I'd be able to punch out walls and also understand my step count.
You're talking about, like, a suit?
Yes, that just monitors everything.
I can't possibly understand how a person who does not want to wear something on her wrist would want to wear something on her entire body.
My whole point, which is a really subtle and important one, is that these things don't do enough. They don't do enough.
No, they don't.
They do just very little.
Well, they're not FDA-approved, and that's a whole other conversation. These aren't like serious medical devices.
All right, let's talk about the look of them. Because that thing is really ... I'm not wearing that to a ball or a nice restaurant, right?
Are you asking me to a ball?
No, I'm not, Lauren. Never. Never.
I hoped so for a second. My heart rate just spiked, can you see it?
Yeah, move along. Do you wear that too? Because it's big. It looks like you're in witness protection … Not witness protection. Like you drank too much and you got one of those things around your ... Like Lindsay Lohan. It looks like the Lindsay Lohan device. Right? Like they're watching you carefully.
[Editor’s note: She means a house arrest ankle monitor.]
Am I Lindsay Lohan circa "Mean Girls?" Or like Lindsay Lohan after she …
After she went off the rails. She's wearing, like, a tracker thing. Didn't she have to wear a tracker? That's what it looks like. It looks like something the court would put on you for misbehaving. Sorry, Fitbit.
Well, you're going to find this hard to believe. This one right here called the Charge 2, it's actually the follow up to the Charge HR, which has been the best-selling Fitbit of all time.
Wow, okay. So why did they need to do a 2?
So even though Fitbit now has more than a half dozen different Fitbits, and they came out with one this year that people call "the smartwatch" even though it's not a smartwatch, they improved it in a few different ways.
What ways?
The display is bigger.
Bigger and more clunky.
Before, it used to be a little strip, and now it's …
A hundred percent more clunky. Go ahead.
It's thick. It's pretty thick on my wrist.
It also sits above your wrist.
The other one kind of did that, too.
Did it?
Yeah, the Charge HR, the old one, had a heart rate sensor. So does this one. But this one actually tracks multiple specific exercises. So before the Charge HR, you [would] just say, like, "I'm going for a run," [and it would go] great, here are your steps. This one, you can like program it to say, "I'm biking, I'm running, I'm doing treadmill runs."
Treadmill runs never get recorded.
Yeah, this one, you can actually. There's a mode, and I've used it. You can lift weights. I've lifted weights with this a couple times and you just go to the weights option and then you hold the button down and it'll track your weight lifting session. Even though I think it doesn't actually know what you're doing. But yeah. Then there's also a breathing function. It's called "relax."
Meditation?
Yeah. You may remember that Apple Watch recently announced WatchOS 3 for the Watch and there was a breathing [app]. So this is like becoming the thing, right? The irony escapes nobody that we're relying on all these silly gadgets that tell us to calm our asses down. See it says "relax"? And then if I hold this button down, first it's going to take my heart rate.
Take a slow deep breath. You have to watch it tell you to meditate? You don't want to listen to it in your ear?
I think you have to just watch it. You look down and you breathe. And Fitbit is saying this is customizable breathing exercises, because they're taking your heart rate first and then …
You know I meditated in an Uber today?
How did that go?
It didn't work very well.
What did you do to meditate? What was your practice?
I'm trying these mediation apps out. We should do the whole meditation set, but I was just trying one of them out and it was exactly the amount of time to drive, where I was going to lunch. And so I see if it would work, in the car. It did. It was good.
It did work?
Yeah. It was fine. I mean, I was thinking of like a million things because I have a monkey mind, in case you're interested. That's what they call it.
A what?
A monkey mind.
What is that?
Read up on it. It's like people who can't stop thinking of things. It's okay according to meditative people, it's okay. You just bring it back to the breath.
Oh. Meditation is really all the rage. We had someone speaking at Code Conference earlier this year about the meditation app. It's very expensive, what is it called?
Headspace. That's what I was using.
Oh, you were using Headspace?
Yeah. It's not that expensive. I'm just trying them all out. I don't think it's a bad thing, I mean it's a good thing to calm down. I actually do. I like it.
I have an idea. Why don't we do …
But I don't want my Fitbit to tell me to keep breathing.
Why don't we do an entire podcast where we just meditate.
The whole time?
The whole time. Like 38 minutes.
No, I don't think so.
And then we'll take a break to talk about socks.
We're going to talk about Fitbit now. But anyway, I don't want my Fitbit to tell me to meditate.
This one's $149. Ships in a couple weeks.
Wow, okay, so how many Fitbits are there now?
There are more than half a dozen. There are I think seven different offers.
Seven. So you're confused in the Best Buy.
Two effectively replaced the old ones. This one replaces the Charge HR, the Flex 2 replaces the Flex.
Which is why you need the breathe thing, because when you go into Best Buy you're like, "What the hell?"
There are so many now.
Yeah, there's so many.
But it's the same strategy, a lot of these companies are taking the same strategy as Garmin, which is, "Let's throw new runners' watches at the wall." There's Misfit.
I can't even ... I have to go back to high school to understand those. It's past me. It's too many buttons and stuff. So what's the difference? Is there a real difference? They just have more features, each of them. For the 10 more dollars you get more features essentially, right?
Fitbit is very strategically trying to make a tracker that is just everywhere a consumer might be. Essentially.
Right. So they just go up in price.
Fitbit's a public company now.
Right. How are they doing?
They went public a year ago, and so last year they put out, let's see ... I think they put out three new devices in 2015. That was the Charge HR, what was the other one? Oh, the Charge, the Charge HR and the Surge, which was a performance one. This year, they've come out on a couple of earnings calls and said, "We're going to have more products this year than we ever had in other years."
And basically what they do is — if you look at their product line very carefully, you realize that, oh, this one will have GPS built in, but this one only has connected GPS. Or this one has heart rate sensors, but this one doesn't. Well, this one only tracks your steps, well, this one too, but this one looks more like a pretty bracelet and this one's like a rubber bracelet. And you realize that they're doing this really kind of classic product differentiation among all their gadgets and trackers, and they have incredible brand recognition, and they're trying to serve everybody in the market that they can. I have to imagine some of that is coming from sort of pressure on the investor side to put out more and more stuff.
Yeah, absolutely, until they run out of air.
Try to keep innovating because ...
It's a little bit like the Dropcams or GoPros. They've got to keep exciting their audiences.
Exactly, exactly.
So what's the competition? What's the biggest competition?
Well, that's a really good question. It depends on who you ask.
All right, I'm asking you. I said that to Steve Jobs once, did you know that?
How did he take that? Did he say, "It depends on who you ask," and you said, "Well, I'm asking you"?
Walt did that, "I'm asking you," yeah.
Oh, all right.
I can't remember.
Does that mean I should be very mercurial right now?
No, I need you to answer the question.
Okay. So if you look at the smartwatch, some people will say, "Well, Fitbit is competing in the smartwatch space."
With Jawbone?
No, with actual smartwatches. People like Apple who are making smartwatches.
Right, okay, yes.
And the Android Wear platform. And that's on a bunch of different smartwatches now.
I call them differently abled watches, but go ahead. They're not that smart.
Some people will say, "Well, Fitbit is still basically an activity tracking company and so they're competing with other makes of activity trackers."
Of which there are many.
Of which there are dozens. So many. Everybody has an activity tracker.
So what do you think?
Some analysts, when they're looking at the wearables market, whether just in the U.S., like the NPD group does, or the global market, like IADC does, they lump them all together. They'll position a Fitbit against a Xiaomi, against a Garmin, against an Apple, and they say, "Wearables are wearables, they go on the wrist and this is what they're doing."
Because analysts are so discriminating.
I just think right now, there actually is a pretty legitimate product differentiation between them. What smartwatches are trying to be is a new platform for third-party applications. Their battery lives tend to pretty much suck. They have different displays, they have touchscreen displays, and the value proposition is different: The value proposition is now: You're going to have this little mini computer on your wrist. Something like a Fitbit, they're offering some of those features, but I think at the end of the day, they're positioning themselves as a health and wellness company. And a health and wellness software company as well.
Which is what Jawbone's trying to do. Because I ran into Hosain the other day, and he was describing his company to someone, I was giving him a hard time as usual, and he was like, "Oh, we're in the health area now."
Right. And actually our Code Conference — not this past fall, I think it was the fall before, I forget exactly when it was — but Hosain did come onstage and [he] said, "We're not a hardware company anymore, we're a health and wellness software company." And so they've been saying that for a while. I think maybe there will be this convergence eventually where just something that you wear on your body does all of these things. They're a platform for apps, they do health and fitness, they do all this.
But right now there's still a differentiation. So Fitbit's competitor, it actually depends on the product in my opinion. If you're looking at a super simple tracker, then it's any other company that makes a simple tracker. It could be Xiaomi, which actually sells tons of their $15 trackers. It's super cheap. But if you look at Fitbit Blaze …
I think the Chinese government is also tracking you in that case, but go ahead.
Oh, conspiracy theories. We should do a whole podcast on that.
I like the Xiaomi one.
But then if you look at something like the Fitbit Blaze, people say, "Oh, Fitbit's trying to compete in the smartwatch market," because that's more like a watch.
So the Blaze didn't do well, right? That ugly Blaze.
It actually has done fairly well to the point that Fitbit says that the new Fitbit Blaze and Alta, which came out earlier this year, accounted for more than 50 percent of their sales last quarter. But the stock took a hit. It was received in a very unflattering way when it was announced at CES.
Because people thought it was ugly, right?
Well, because people thought that the Fitbit was trying to compete with the Apple Watch. They saw this watch-like form factor, and this bright, colorful touchscreen display, and the way that Fitbit was saying, "Oh, it does this, and it does this, and it does notifications, and it does this." And they said, "Fitbit is trying to be a smartwatch company now." And it wasn't as well received and so stock actually took a pretty big hit around that time.
And what's the future of Fitbit? And then we're going to get to questions from our audience.
Fitbit's going to try and do a few things at once. I think they're going to try and just put out more and more of these iterative products in the short term to maintain their market lead. Because they are by far the market leader in activity tracking and wearable devices right now. I think that they've also been trying to push their corporate wellness program. It's still a very small part of their revenue, but they do have partnerships with Fortune 500 companies where they say, "Okay, distribute Fitbits to all your employees," and you do, basically, employee tracking. Which I know you're going to have another conspiracy theory about.
No, you cannot do that. Again, exoskeleton. Everyone gets a little thing behind their head.
Yeah, with VR headsets on so you never have to leave your office.
Something. Or never go to your office.
So there's that. There's this idea of, "We'll become a wellness platform." But then I think at the end of the day, Fitbit, like every other wearable tech company, has to have some cool stuff up their sleeve — no pun intended — in working at R&D.
I like the Nike stuff, I have to say. The Nike stuff is pretty cool. Their different apps are pretty well done.
You're saying in terms of software.
They're useful. I'm actually liking doing a 5K thing because you and I are going to run a 5K together, I don't know if you know that.
Oh. That'd be great.
They have a training program, they have interesting articles. It's more — I use the app, obviously, and it records, but it also is more than that. I need more.
Well, that's the thing. All of these companies aren't just selling devices. They're trying to get people to buy into their ecosystem. And the way that they do that is through software. One of the things that Fitbit just announced with these new devices is they said, "Oh, we have this new feature on our app called 'Adventures' and now you go into the adventure section of the app and if you complete this trail in Yosemite, you set a personal goal or personal challenge for yourself," and all this stuff. And look at a company like Strava, which has huge engagement because of the amount of community they've built up. The amount of users that just go on there because they want to compete with their friends that are cycling or running or whatever it is.
As Mama Rose says, "You gotta have a gimmick."
I'm not saying that Strava is necessarily ... I'm not measuring out their success right now, but I'm just using that as an example of a software company, [it] doesn't have hardware, that has managed to build a community just within the app. I think all of the hardware companies ultimately wanted to do that, too, because the stickiness is in the software. I think Fitbit is going to have to figure out how they get people actually, you know, checking their app and being engaged, not just throwing these things in a drawer.
I like their scale, their scale is nice. Okay, this week we asked our listeners for their questions about Fitbit and really any other wearable or unwearable they might be curious about. Lauren, do you want to read the first question?
Absolutely, Kara.
All right then.
First question is from Roger Fingas, @LonesWords on Twitter, who asks, "What's the accuracy of the heart-rate tracking on Charge 2? Is it improved at all?"
Aw, so he's saying it was bad.
Well, he wasn't just saying it was bad, I'm going to read into this a little bit. I think he was referring to the fact that earlier this year, Fitbit was hit with a class-action lawsuit by a group of consumers who said that the heart-rate tracking claims were not accurate, especially when it came to things like intense exercisers.
That's a problem.
Yeah, and so that's something that Fitbit is still dealing with. I did ask Fitbit about this in regards to the Charge 2 and they said it's the same exact heart-rate sensing technology that they've used before. Fitbit calls this Pure Pulse because they say it's proprietary. But ultimately. it's the same exact heart-rate tracking you’re going to get in the other Fitbit devices. It's not changed, it's not improved, it's not worsened. It is what it is. I cannot comment on the accuracy of it yet based on my own tests, because I haven't done those tests yet. Usually what we do is we will wear a Polar chest strap and compare it to a reading that we're getting from that versus the wrist.
Right. Or just an old watch, with your finger, that works too.
Oh yeah, but who has time for that when your heart rate's at 150 and you're sweating and someone's screaming at you to spin faster on a bike. But Fitbit says in their view that the study that was cited in that lawsuit is meritless and they're going to continue to fight those claims and all that. And they always say that they're constantly improving on their technology, but at the end of the day, Roger — that was his name, @LonesWords on Twitter — it's the same heart rate technology as in prior models.
We have no idea if it's improved at all, in other words. It's ever improving, as Silicon Valley likes to tell us.
We don't know yet.
Next one, Ms. Lauren Goode.
What's the phrase...? I don't know...
They're lying most of the time. At least most people I cover. But go ahead.
No, "learning by shipping." Okay. The next question is from someone who has sent in a few questions over the past few weeks, so I think that's a good thing because it means you're listening. Thank you, David, for listening, but also we'll have to vary it up a little bit. This is from David V, @The0DD1: "My friend has a Fitbit, but I have a Watch." Watch is capitalized so I'm assuming he means an Apple Watch. "Is there a way to view each other's activity progress? #tooembarrassed" Kara, I don't know, what would you do? I'm going to ask you. Even though I know the answer, I'm going to put this on you. What would you do?
Well, cross watching. Cross watching.
See, you make everything sound dirty.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Everything in technology... [laughs]
Not that there's anything wrong. I feel, living in San Francisco, anybody should be able to watch anybody's activity.
[laughs] Oh, you actually meant watching-watching, like with your eyes. I'm such a dork, I was thinking watches.
No I'm making a pun, it's a little too hard for you, it's above your ability to be witty. But I'm sure that's possible. I bet you could sign into someone's Apple, you can share. There's probably some sharing thing on my Apple thing and vice versa, that would be my guess.
My solution ...
Okay, what's your solution?
Here's my solution.
You can always share. It seems like they always want you to share.
Fitbit actually does not sync on the back end of their software with Google Fit or Apple Pulse.
Oh, why not?
Those are back end software systems that both Apple and Google have come up with to allow third-party app developers to patch into, and then they share data. Well, Fitbit doesn't, because why would they share their data to their competitors?
Because it's helpful to consumers?
Well, yeah. It would be great for consumers. I think they just want people in their software ecosystem. And then Fitbit has some partnerships directly with third-party app makers. So what I would probably recommend doing, to someone like David who has this question, is I would choose an app, a third-party app that both Apple Watch and Fitbit share data to.
Oh my god, it's like the Mideast peace talks. We've gotta get this person in here to talk to this person because this person's not talking.
It is, it's super fragmented, it's crazy.
It's like a recent episode of "Madam Secretary," which is my favorite show. That Téa Leoni.
I love "Madam Secretary."
You know what? She does not wear a Fitbit, just saying.
She wears an Apple watch?
No, no, she wears just a regular classy watch.
I don't know. No, I've seen wearables on that show.
Really?
I've noted them before because I'm a dork like that. I think one of them might even have a Samsung Gear watch.
Interesting.
In either case ...
Maybe the hunky guy has one.
I know. He is hunky.
He always has an answer to the world crisis.
I know, he totally does. And he has no ego. He's like the perfect ...
"We should go to war with Russia and here's why." And everyone else is headed right to war and he solves it in like four seconds. "I don't like this memo." Anyway, go ahead.
Okay, so what's Switzerland for software in this case? I'm going to go with something like a Strava or a Runkeeper. So they both pick an app that Fitbit's going to share its data to and then Apple Watch is going to share its data to.
Do they care about consumers? It's so ridiculous.
Well, that's what we're here for.
I know, but it's ridiculous. You have to go to like Strava to get ... anyway. I noticed that, Fitbit doesn't coordinate.
They don't work with Apple HealthKit. But you can share directly to things like My Fitness Pal or Strava, a whole bunch of them.
I don't want to do that. Anyway, read the next question. I'm very irritated with these people.
Do you want to read the next one?
No, you go ahead.
This one is from Tim. He's @reitz37. He says, "Need speed tracker, GPS, heart rate, elevation and time splits without being tied to a phone. Possible? #runner #tooembarrassed." Kara, you're going down this route with this 5K stuff and Nike running and all this.
Yeah, whatever. I don't need all that stuff.
It's a slippery slope.
I'm slow. Speed tracker, slow. GPS, I don't know where the fuck I am. Heart rate, dying. Elevation, as flat as possible but there's so many hills in San Francisco and I don't even know what timed splits are.
There you go. Tim, my advice to you would be to go with a dedicated device like a Garmin or a Polar. You can get a Garmin Forerunner that does this stuff, you can get something like the Forerunner. The Forerunner 435, the Forerunner 735 XT if you're more into cross-training. Polar has a whole bunch. They have a line that's very basic, they have sort of a midrange line and they have a more serious line of wearables.
Wow, all those numbers.
Yeah, they're like the Ms and the Vs. Off the top of my head, their naming can go over pretty terrible.
Just go over to like an REI and look at them for a while, right?
Or go to theverge.com because we write about a bunch of them. And I'd say, Tim, that's going to be my answer for you.
Garmins. Those are the ones for really serious runners, right?
Yeah. I would say. And Polar too. And Suunto. There are a few out there.
I see them and I just walk past them very quickly.
I'm going to get you into one of them.
No, no, no, no, no. Never.
Yes.
Never. They're gigantic. You see my wrist lately?
You know what the best thing is about them? My Garmin lasts seven days on a charge. Which, by the way, a basic Fitbit will do, too. But a basic Fitbit is not going to do all of this stuff.
It's way too complicated. I had a watch like that once and it gave me a headache and I threw it at the wall.
Did you actually throw it at the wall?
Yes I did, I do things like that. Like throw things at the wall. I do it all the time.
Wish I put that on your Flip camera.
No longer. All right, next one, I'm going to read this one. Jamie Favazza, @JamieFavazza. Oh, I like that name. Favazza. "Favorite wearable recommendations for tracking walking fitness? What should a first-time wearable wearer know?" A wearable wearer …
Tracking walking? Probably a Fitbit.
Or just one of those cheap little pedometers, right? What do you need all of that for?
Oh yeah, but then you have to wear that on your hip.
So what?
It's like a clip on on your hip and it's super dorky and ....
Just carry around your phone right?
Yeah, but the thing about a phone is that you don't always have your phone on you.
Well, I do.
Yes, but you're special. Let's say you're the person that works in an office, and then her phone is next to her desk, and then someone says, "Hey, want to go grab a cup of coffee?" And you say, "Sure," and you run out and you leave your phone there. Are you're running around the house and you leave …
What about a tiny little Fitbit that you just put on your clothes, or in your pocket.
Yeah, you can do a clip-on tracker like that, which is, I think, the Zip or the One, right? Those are the simple clip-ons.
You can put them in your pocket, too.
You can do something like that. My advice to you, Jamie, is going to be this: The thing to know about these wearables, if you're a first-time wearable-wearer, and I love that you said that, is that you're going to want to check the software compatibility first, because not all these trackers are going to work with every smartphone, so you want to go with something that is either going to work with iOS or Android or both depending on what operating system you're on. You're also going to want to look at price, because if you are a first-time wearable-wearer, I do not recommend spending more than $100 on one of these things, because it might end up in a drawer.
Yes, it will.
You're going to want to look at the back end software integration, so if you're someone that likes to track your food or track other things with other apps, see if these devices work with those apps as well. And then just be prepared to basically charge these things a lot. Because a lot of them — I mean, you could get something like a Garmin Vivofit which uses a coin cell battery and that lasts up to a year, you don't even need to charge it. And that's a pretty good value proposition right there. A lot of them, though, you end up charging and they're like …
You don't want to think about it, is what you want to say.
Yeah, you want to get the simplest thing when you're first getting started.
Next one? We've got quite a few this week.
People really care about this stuff, Kara.
I see that, I see that.
Unwearables. This one's from Mark Riedy, @markriedy on Twitter, "What's the only wearable, wrist or other, that measures hydration in real time with cutting-edge tech?"
Hydration?
Oh, I have a feeling he's shilling for whatever this band is. Hey, you know what, here's my answer. Whatever yours is, it's not the only one. I'm going to tell you that. A lot of people make those claims and it's not. Second of all, I don't believe at this point any consumer wearable really does this or has done this effectively.
It feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
I know Jawbone, when they first introduced the Jawbone Up 3, for a while they were saying, "Oh some of our sensors are going to be able to interpret hydration in some way." I don't think that has happened yet. Back in January ...
Some Japanese toilets do that though.
Really?
They sensor everything. But I'm not going to go there right now. That's another show.
Like, your butt's wet?
A lot of stuff. Anyway, we'll get into that later. This is about sweat.
Apparently, Mark, you should just buy a Japanese toilet. Every so often we'll get a news report about a patch or some type of sensor that's going to do this. Earlier this year, in January, we heard about a new sensor from University of California Berkeley that was supposed to be able to measure electrolytes and sweat and things like that. We could get really deep and nerdy on this, but at the end of the day, I don't think there's anything out there right now that effectively tracks hydration.
They're going to have patches on everything and it'll be able to tell everything about you. Eventually.
Probably. It's how we'll authenticate. It'll be a series of patches. On our ... what are they called? The suit that you want?
Exoskeleton.
Exoskeleton.
That's different. That's only for the heroes like myself who fight the power. Next question is — I'm not even going to pronounce this — Swostik Satpathy, @swostiksatpathy, I'm sure I mispronounced this and I apologize. "Why have they placed the button on the inside, what about people with full sleeves? Pull up and use? Do they track that too?"
Oh, okay. So the button ... I actually just mentioned this to someone the other day, to a friend, and I said, "Why is the button on this side?" Because on Garmins, a lot of times the start button is on where your right index finger would be. And in the case of the Charge 2 that I'm looking at right now, the button is where your thumb is. So it's on the lower side of the band. I believe this is because you're more likely to trigger the button or cross some type of false positive when your wrist bends. Like you'll notice a lot of surf-tracking watches won't have buttons on that side near the top of your wrist and the other side of your hand because when you're popping up on the board you're doing this, and so you're more likely to hit the button on this side than …
I have no idea what you're talking about, but all right.
Kara is so interested right now. You want to go surfing?
No, never.
I'm actually not a very good surfer. Do you want to go paddleboarding with me?
I've done that. That's easy. That's for old people.
You're not answering my question.
Sure.
Okay.
Not with you, but yes.
That's my understanding for the person who sent in the question about the button, it's so you won’t hit it accidentally when you bend your wrist.
All right, next one.
The last question is from — this is actually an emailed questions. Joshua from Indianapolis, Indiana. Josh, thanks for emailing us.
So nice they named it twice, but go ahead.
Josh says, "My third Charge is on its last leg. Non-replaceable wrist band is being held together by superglue." He loves this thing.
Quality in our time.
"Fitbit would not replace the band, gave me a 25 percent coupon off my next Fitbit. I don't care for the questionable heart rate function on the Charge HR. More the slim design of the Alta. Should I wait for the new Charge or jump ship from Fitbit? I'm a Fitbit fanatic, keeping track of calories with Fitness Pal app, my weight loss with the Aria Scale, my daily steps with the Fitbit watch and app. I'm all-in with Fitbit but I'm disappointed with the durability of the product."
It sounds like you're kind of in for a dime, in for a dollar here, right? A lot of dollars.
So I actually, Josh, I wrote to Fitbit for you. And I said …
Wow, Lauren pulls at the strings.
I did. Well, I said we have a reader who has this question and I want to understand your return policy because it seems like he's very disappointed with the durability of this. They said that the warranty policy includes first a 45-day satisfaction guarantee. So you have that 45-day window to return something. It seems like you're out of that, Josh. Then a one-year limited warranty in which Fitbit will repair or replace a device with a hardware issue. But the problem is that they don't actually differentiate between what is a malfunctioning band versus what is just very worn and torn. So you're going to have to, it sounds like you've done this already, call customer service, get on the phone with them, explain to them there's something not functioning.
It sounds like he's beating the shit out of this thing.
Right, it sounds to me, Josh, like you've just used this thing a lot and unfortunately it's not keeping it together and now you're deciding whether or not you want to spend the money on a new one.
Yeah, so it looks like he's in the Fitbit universe. You should just stay there, Josh.
That's what I was going to say. Imagine if you paid for a gym every month. And you said, "I love this gym, it's in a great location, it's gets me motivated to go to the gym and all this stuff, but I'm bummed because the one bike that I really like to ride in the gym is broken right now." I would say, "Stay in the same gym, find a different bike." So my advice to you is if you really are all in in the Fitbit ecosystem ...
Seems like it, yeah.
… you're probably just going to want to buy another Fitbit.
Yeah, and maybe not be so mean to your wrist band. It sounds like you're ripping it off or something.
Try not wearing it ...
I'm not trying to blame you, Joshua.
Yeah, and I don't know if you're wearing it in the shower or anything else, but you may want to try to protect it a little bit more.
Be a little loving to your Fitbit. Be a little nicer.
Yeah, like Kara is to her Fitbits. I have an idea, hold on. Kara, you have a drawer full of unwearables, why don't you send Josh …
I could send one to Josh. I think I have the Charge, I think I have a Charge. It's black.
Well, if you find it let me know and we'll get Josh a …
I know where it is. It's sitting right there and I'm looking at it.
Kara's going to go wait in line at FedEx for you, Josh.
No I'm not, absolutely not. Anyway, this has been fascinating, Lauren Goode.
Are you really fascinated?
I am! I love your love of these things. You have like such hopefulness about this.
It's funny that you say that, because sometimes I think like five years from now I'm going to be looking back and saying — I tweeted this recently — like, I can't believe the amount of time I've spent just live-blogging, tweeting, writing about wrist Tamagotchis, with like stains down my shirt, not having slept for days.
It's an interesting challenge.
It is, and I'm fascinated by wearable technology. I think that between that and voice control and AI, this is all going to sort of be the next …
I think you're going to have a little thing behind your head that's going to monitor everything. Behind your ear. Something that's going to be embedded and it's going to do all this stuff. It's going to tell you how to exercise, how healthy you are, everything else, that's where I think it's going. So these things are pointless. You're not going to wear them when it's going to be your body, that's my feeling.
It's just going to be your body?
Something behind the ear, something very subtle that you can hear things, get messages, it'll talk to you, you talk to it. Like, "How am I feeling today?" "Oh you ate too many bagels this morning."
Someone at one of our Code Conferences, I think it was Benedict Evans, said something really smart in a presentation, which is: A lot of the technologies that end of being game-changing start out looking or feeling like toys.
Yes.
People wear them as toys and then they end up becoming pretty serious or disruptive technology. I'm not saying that is Fitbit, in terms of how it does as a company, I'm not like here to make projections about that. But I do call them Tamagotchis, right, because they just require so much of you right now, they don't give you that much back. But I do think there's something to be said about ... maybe we will be looking back one day and saying, "Oh remember when everyone wore Fitbits, and they were ugly and everyone looked so silly." But the next wave of big computing might be something in the veins.
Directionally it's correct. Operationally it's not. That's what I feel like. Directionally, it's absolutely right. That we want to monitor ourselves, the quantified self, I get that. And I understand why, I'm interested in it too. You know what I mean? But I just, at some level these are so underwhelming. That's the issue. And I think in some way when they start to really do neural networks and some of the stuff that Elon Musk was talking about at the [Code] Conference ...
... Injecting things in your veins ...
Why not? There's lots of issues why not, but it seems like something will be placed near or around you.
The human instinct for self-betterment will always be present in some way. It just may not be achieved through the particular devices we're wearing right now.
But you sort of want something that's like sitting behind your ear, and you go for the Doritos, and it says, "STOP! Put that down." And zaps you, maybe, if you want it to. "Don't eat that!" And you're like, "Oh yeah."
I need a smart belt.
Something like that.
I actually just got pitched one of those today. Another smart belt.
What, you're fat and then it just …
Yeah, I don't know, it tells you when your gut is hanging over your jeans.
There's smart everything. Anyway, this has been another great episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask.
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