While smartwatches in general continue to struggle the same cannot be said for fitness trackers. As someone who sees a lot of different people every single day the sheer volume of people who wear fitness trackers astounds me — but the manufacturers keep on having success with their new devices, and none more so than Fitbit.
Today Fitbit have announced the Fitbit Alta HR, a variation on the popular tracker the Alta. The Alta HR is the “World’s Slimmest Fitness Wristband with Continuous Heart Rate”. The Fitbit Alta HR is designed to be slim, stylish and versatile and can be customised to the wearer’s style.
The new Alta HR combines Fitbit’s PurePulse heart rate technology, automatic exercise recognition and sleep tracking and yet still provides battery life of up to seven days. It provides all day automatic tracking of your stats and has the ability to display call, text and calendar notifications.
The new sleep tracking, termed Sleep Stages has been developed by experts from Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University and the University of Arizona so you would expect it to be well researched. It uses the PurePulse heart rate technology to analyse light, deep and REM sleep (Sleep Stages) and can provide personalised guidance to the user to help improve their sleep (Sleep Insight), something I am sure we all want. The new Sleep Stages will be available also on the Blaze and the Charge 2 (it needs HR) while Sleep Insights will be available on all Fitbit trackers that track sleep.
One of the allures of the Alta trackers are the accessories that can be purchased with it. The Alta HR is no exception. The classic Alta HR comes in black, blue-grey, fuchsia and coral classic. There are Special Edition trackers with a soft pink classic band with a 22k rose gold plated tracker and black classic band with a matte gunmetal tracker. It also comes in a Luxe leather collection with various colours of leather and a Luxe stainless steel bracelet variety. On top of that, for the extremely fashion conscious, there are designer collections from various fashion design houses.
The Fitbit Alta HR is available for presale today from Fitbit’s website for $249.95. It lands on our shores in early April available online and from all major retailers where Fitbit wearables are sold such as Harvey Norman, The Good Guys, JB Hi-Fi, Rebel, David Jones and Myer. The Special Edition Alta HR will sell for $289.95 with the extra classic bands costing $49.95, the Luxe Leather bands $99.95 and the Luxe Metal Bracelet $169.95. For more information check out the Fitbit Alta HR website.
