I have a soft spot for gear that works with the Withings app; I’ll admit it. I lost 43 much-needed pounds while using the Withings app in conjunction with their Smart Body Analyzer scale, and I track my nightly sleep with their excellent Aura Connected Clock. So when offered the chance to review the Withings Steel HR, I gladly accepted.
Over the past month or so, I’ve been running exclusively with my RunIQ, the first ever Android smartwatch created by popular fitness cross trainer company New Balance. Announced earlier this year at CES 2017, the RunIQ has been putting my love for the Apple Watch to test in both practicality, and honestly… looks.
My wife always jokes that anytime someone wants to get me something, they cannot go wrong with either a flashlight or pocket knife. This is true; I absolutely love really bright, tactical flashlights. The ThruNite TN12 ($49.95) brings a strong, tactical design along with a super bright 1100 lumen Cree LED light. Let’s take a closer look!
One of the complaints I’ve heard many times about smartwatches is that they’re too thick, too large, or they look too masculine. That’s understandable, especially when the one complaining isn’t a larger person. Options have been somewhat limited for those who’d prefer a less massive watch with smart features, but now there’s Ticwatch, and it’s surprisingly impressive.
I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch since June 2015. I love the ability to know the weather forecast as well as the easy way I can measure and challenge myself with the activity app.
Fitness trackers are a dime a dozen, and we’ve seen out share out there, but at CES, New Balance announced a product launch that might just shake up the fitness world starting with us here in Vegas.
Misfit is determined to conquer every level of the fitness wearables market with devices that place style on the same level as function. They started with the Shine, then the Flash, and post-Fossil acquisition they’ve released the Ray and the Phase Hybrid. Now they’re looking to tackle the true smartwatch market with the $199 Vapor! Vapor appears to tick all the usual smartwatch/fitness watch boxes. It has GPS, can function as a standalone music device, tracks heart rate, and is waterproof for swimming. Where Misfit hopes to shine (no pun intended, given their flagship product) is in the style. The…
It appears that wearables aren’t as dead as suspected. That, or companies still had product in the pipeline and figured they would go ahead and release them anyway. In any case, Garmin, Casio, and Intel/New Balance have all thrown their hats into the tracking ring (wrist?)!
The Side Kick Rescue Tool caught my attention at the 5.11 Tactical website, and recently I spent time putting the multipurpose knife through its paces. While primarily for Fire, EMS, and Police, I found the handy tool to be perfect as an everyday utility knife as well.
If you’re sad to see the Pebble smartwatch go, Nomad, a company who prides themselves on their Apple accessories is offering up a kind farewell for the Pebble Users who just simply can’t let go.
Back when I had time to train for long races, I used a Garmin Forerunner GPS watch. I liked it, it was great, but there’s something to be said for the simplicity of a digital watch that goes from your workout to your everyday life with ease, even if you lose the GPS capabilities.
About 6 months after I purchased an Apple Watch, I stopped wearing it. While I’ve missed the convenience of wrist notifications, I never got comfortable with wearing what amounted to a microscopic and hobbled iPhone on my wrist. I prefer a more classic wristwatch style, but I also appreciate something smart; enter, the Engineered by HP Coach Bleecker Smart Watch.
As much as I hate to admit it, the holidays are fast approaching, and it will soon be time to figure out which gifts to give to our favorite friends and loved ones. For your consideration, I offer the new Huawei Fit. It’s not a full Android Wear smartwatch, but it is definitely smarter than the average fitness tracker.
I stopped wearing a watch around the time cell phones became small enough to always carry, probably around 2000 or so, with a Nokia chicklet phone or a Motorola Flip phone. Only when I started running long distances and trying to track my times and paces did I start to think it might be time to actually get a GPS running watch.
It’s easy to forget that with so many smartwatches available, there are still plenty of people who simply want to wear a watch that looks good and tells the time. But finding that watch doesn’t mean you need to give up your geeky edge; the Citizen Eco-Drive Watch line manages to roll true greek-credibility into a beautiful not so “dumb-watch”.
I’ve been wearing a Misfit Ray, and while it’s one of the prettiest and useful fitness trackers I’ve worn, I still wear a watch because I’m old-fashioned and like to wear one. With the introduction of the Misfit Phase Hybrid Smartwatch, I can have a fashionable analog watch combined with the Misfit technology I’ve come to appreciate.
The wearables market is becoming as crowded as the starting line at the NYC Marathon, with devices of every price and feature set floating around. Want a heart rate monitor? Need a color screen? A personal coach? Maybe just your steps?
When the Apple Watch Series 2 went up for pre-sale at midnight PST on September 9th, the lead-times quickly slipped from September 16th to a range of the 28th – 30th. All within one hour of being available to pre-order. That is what I got with my pre-order at 3:45AM EST. However, when Best Buy put up their pre-order availability they kept it set for September 16th throughout the day on September 9th – so I pre-ordered from Best Buy and canceled my Apple order. Pre-orders remained as ‘processing’ with an expected 9/16 release date until the night of September…
Apple had a lot of announcements yesterday, but the one that caught my attention was the new Apple Watch 2. It now includes GPS, waterproofing, and even a model cobranded with Nike, showing that Apple has the fitness market square in the crosshairs. These are all welcome improvements, but will it have an impact in the crowded fitness tracker/fitness watch market? Let’s start by eliminating one group that won’t be buying an Apple watch: the budget conscious folks have a plethora of options available to them that offer many of the same fitness benefits without the cost of the Apple…
Two of the things that smartwatches keep failing at are thickness and size; well, okay, battery life has been an issue, too. Withings, part of the Nokia family and makers of the great looking Activité health-tracking watch line, has just announced their new Steel HR; it’s a health tracker, and it’s a gorgeous, connected watch with 25-days of battery life.
Samsung’s newest watches, the Gear S3 smartwatches have just been announced; they are the natural successors to the Gear S2 line that was announced at IFA last year. There will be two S3 models available, the frontier and classic; the frontier is available in an LTE or Bluetooth model, and the classic comes in a Bluetooth version only.