CES 2016: wearables war hots up, and wake up to the smell of coffee ... from your alarm clock
Fitbit takes on Apple Watch with ‘smart fitness watch’, Samsung’s smartwatch gets more connected, Under Armour’s sports shoe tracks exercise, and if you don’t like that ringing sound in the morning, olfactory alarm clock wakes you by smell ... of hot croissants, lush jungle, chocolate and more
More technology companies have been unveiling new products ahead of the opening today of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Here are some that caught our eye.
Fitbit unveiled its “smart fitness watch”, aiming to get into the growing smartwatch segment with upgraded fitness tracking features, heart-rate monitoring, audio playback control and message notifications. But the company’s share price plunged amid disappointment over its prospects for keeping pace with rivals like Apple Watch.
The new Blaze won’t have a GPS built in, but it will be able to use the GPS from a companion smartphone to display pace and distance more accurately. It’s a similar approach to the Apple Watch. The Blaze will sit alongside Fitbit’s existing Charge HR, which monitors heart rate but has no ability to latch on to the phone’s GPS.
The Blaze is the first Fitbit model to have a colour display, and will sell for US$200 when it comes out in March. Fitbit chief executive and co-founder James Park said the new device “strikes a balance between fitness and style”.
The Blaze contains a module that can be linked with smartphones running Apple, Android or Windows systems and removed to snap into different bands for workouts, the office or nights on the town, Park said.
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