One way or another, the wrist is going to be a consumer battlefield.
In the world of health and fitness tracking, smartphone connected devices like Fitbit Flex, Jawbone UP, and Basis Band have scoped out the wrist as the ideal place for accelerometers, pulse, and galvanic skin response sensors to give people feedback about their workouts. In the mobile computing sphere, startups like Pebble and giants like Apple alike are developing smartwatches. A smartwatch is a wirelessly-connected watch that serves as a second screen for a smartphone, located on the wrist for easy access. Or, in the case of a few startups, the smartwatch is a whole mobile computer on the wrist -- no phone required. ABI Research predicts more than a million smartwatches will ship in 2013.
With only two wrists per person, which class of device is going to win out? Or, perhaps more likely, will the winning smartwatch be the one that includes health and fitness tracking capabilities? Here's a roundup of the some of the most talked about smartwatches -- on the market, coming soon, or rumored -- with a special emphasis on their health and fitness tracking capabilities.
The Pebble smartwatch was a Kickstarter sensation to which many tech writers have attributed the modern rise of the smartwatch. Making use of e-paper technology, the wristworn device connects via Bluetooth to Apple and Android phones to display notifications about incoming calls, text messages, emails, and social media notifications, among other things.
Pebble picked fitness app Runkeeper as its first third-party app integration, allowing users to stop and start tracking and get updates on their run statistics on their wrist. Another Pebble app turns the watch into a cycling computer. The watch itself does not include GPS or an accelerometer, instead relying on the user's smartphone.
"What are situations where it is more convenient to check a wristworn computer than to check a phone in your pocket?" Runkeeper CEO Jason Jacobs told MobiHealthNews at the time. "There are lots of situations where you don’t need a wrist computer, but this happens to be one situation where it does make sense. [Pebble chose RunKeeper as its first app partner] because it a showcase of the value that Pebble is building."
With over a million raised on Kickstarter, AGENT is clearly a smartwatch with some popular support -- and it's no slouch on the health and fitness side either. With a built-in 3-axis accelerometer and an integrated running app, developers Secret Labs and House of Horology seem to have that market in mind. Additionally, the makers promise seven days of Bluetooth-connected battery life thanks to innovations in power conservation.
A third crowdfunded smartwatch, the Kreyos Meteor, is currently wrapping up its Indiegogo campaign (although it has already raised over $1 million as well). The Meteor has an accelerometer, too -- and it doesn't just use it to track runs. The watch claims to enable gesture controls for the smartphone. But the watch does a lot for athletes, too, tracking a large number of run statistics including elevation, either using its built-in accelerometer and gyroscope or via the phone's GPS. And for other vitals measurements, like heart rate or weight, it can sync with devices by Withings, Garmin, Wahoo, and others. After reaching its $1 million stretch goal, the company promised to add sleep tracking functionality as well.
Due out in September 2013, Sony's Smartwatch 2 will likely be the first entry from a major company into the smartwatch field (the Smartwatch 1, launched in March 2012, was something of a flop). For Android users only, the device has a few features that might be attractive to the fitness crowd -- Bluetooth connectivity that could help it pair with certain health and fitness devices, and a claim toward longer battery life than most other smartwatches.
But the big draw is the company's announcement that one of the first apps for the new device will be Runtastic, another popular app. Runtastic makes use of the phone's GPS to track runs, with the Smartwatch on hand as a screen to view runs.
Italian startup i'm Watch makes a smartwatch which contains an accelerometer, and the company promotes it as a sports and fitness device. i'm Watch contains several native apps for sports tracking, including one that connects to a Zephyr heart monitor strap.
"With its integrated Bluetooth technology, you can link it up to heart-rate monitors, pedometers and other sensors," the company says on its website. The i'm Watch also sports a native calorie-counting app.
MotoActv is a good example of a device that toes the line between fitness tracker and smartwatch, but the now-Google-owned company is certainly focused closely on the fitness set. It does connect to Android phones, optionally, but only via wifi. On the fitness side, though, it can track runs, connect to a chest strap for heart rate monitoring, and it contains a GPS and an accelerometer. It also contains a smart mp3 player that can store 4,000 songs and play them via Bluetooth headphones.
Two smartwatches from startups take the paradigm one step further than their competitors, incorporating a whole Android phone into a watch and cutting out the middleman altogether. The downside is that the watches are a bit bulky, but they contain a camera and a GPS and give the user access to any app in the Google Play store, including running trackers, calorie counters, and sleep tracking apps. However, neither watch contains an accelerometer, leaving the user to rely on the battery-intensive GPS for activity tracking.
GEAK Watch
Chinese company GEAK, a subsidiary of online game company Shanda has an impressive smartwatch available for pre-order, simply called the GEAK Watch. Details on the device are spotty, but according to Engadget, the product can "monitor the user's sleeping pattern, pulse, blood pressure, body temperature, mood and number of steps walked" with a suite of sensors inside.
Toshiba prototype
Engadget snapped this photo at CES 2013.
Speaking of pulse trackers, Toshiba premiered a smartwatch at CES 2013 in Las Vegas this year which included a pulse tracker. However, little else is known about the device, which hasn't reared it's face again since CES. At the time, developers were only predicting a battery life of two days. Credit goes to Engadget for securing a picture of the elusive gadget.
Rumored Smartwatches
Of course, no one expects the big players to stay out of the game. Quartz wrote a comprehensive roundup, showing that just about everybody has at least a rumor circulating about a smartwatch -- including Qualcomm, whose rumored Zola watch will supposedly contain a Mirasol display. No word on health or fitness features, but Qualcomm is certainly involved in that space. And of course, all eyes are on Apple's rumored smartwatch, which MobiHealthNews has predicted might leverage its longstanding relationship with Fuelband-maker Nike+. And while most people see Glass as Google's wearable priority, there is evidence that the company is developing a watch as well.
To hear some fitness tracker manufacturers and analysts discuss the potential impact of the smartwatch on the fitness market, check out the latest MobiHealthNews podcast.
