Fitbit is a name synonymous with fitbands but they have been looking to expand their lineup into the smartwatch market. Their purchases of Pebble and Vector last year signalled this intent. Now it has been confirmed in their quarterly earnings report.
Our smartwatch, which we believe will deliver the best health and fitness experience in the category, is on track for delivery ahead of the holiday season and will drive a strong second half of the year
Fitbit CEO James Park confirmed the smartwatch and its timing with the above statement. Not only did he confirm timing but he also confirmed that it will be water resistant to 50m (allowing for swimming tracking) and that they would have their own app store. While they will have select app partners at launch they expect third-party developers to “stream in” after launch but with an entirely new SDK and developing tools it may take some time for these third-party apps to materialise.
The smartwatch is rumoured to come with a 1,000-nit AMOLED display, designed to directly take on the display of the Apple Watch. At this stage it is unknown whether the display will be a touchscreen, being a more fitness oriented smartwatch but we expect it will be given the fact that every other smartwatch’s display is.
The smartwatch is also expected to house a GPS chip and has been specifically designed around this being fully functional. Rumoured to be launching alongside the watch are Fitbit Bluetooth sports earphones, similar to the Apple AirPods.
Mr Park has also been quoted as saying:
We believe we are uniquely positioned to succeed in delivering what consumers are looking for in a smartwatch: stylish, well-designed devices that combine the right general purpose functionality with a focus on health and fitness
While not many (if any) smartwatches have been able to capture the health and fitness market to any great extent, it’s this market that is Fitbit’s bread and butter. They will not only be focusing on the fitness tracking side of things but also the health monitoring such as sleep apnoea and eventually hypertension and arrhythmia. We know that Fitbit already have high level sleep tracking on some of their trackers so we expect them to port this to their new flagship watch when it launches later this year.
We have reached out to Fitbit Australia to see if they have any news for us and will keep you informed of anything we receive. Would you consider buying a Fitbit smartwatch? I know I would.
Lets hope this is basically the next Pebble with some tech updates. The Pebble offers all you need in a smart watch but its sports tracking was not that great. If they can bring in the good sports stuff while keeping what made Pebbles great this could be a must get upgrade. I do not hold much hope this will be the case however as I am sure they are going to go with all the flashy gimmicky stuff and lack quality. I love my Pebble Time Steel but will need a replacement soon I think as the battery life… Read more »
I really like Fitbit for their fitness tracking, but I don’t know if they can do notifications better than Android Wear. Moreover, Fitbit going with its own app store could lead to a lack of good third party apps.
I’m in the Samsung, Google, and Fitbit ecosystems, but I can’t find one smartwatch from either camp that can do everything.
the notification implementation on my Pebbles is perfect from my perspective (haven’t used the current Fitbit devices or android wear much) but how much of the software IP fitbit bought from them and will actually implement remains to be seen. I’m hoping they replicate the battery life and or sunlight readability
EDIT : ‘entirely new SDK’ is not promising for them retaining much of the Pebble DNA..
‘entirely new SDK’ might be for the fitbit devs (eg something derived from the pebble SDK replacing it, with all those nice apps available). Probably makes too much sense for fitbit.
hope so! I agree about too much sense but then, they bought Vector as well and those were fairly nice watches, surely they won’t make something less capable (*finger crossing intensifies*) 🙂
and yeah, the Pebble dev community are waiting for a compatible ecosystem to bring their apps and watchfaces to, customers are looking for their next watch after their Pebble wears out and if they do it right existing Fitbit owners might upgrade to this instead of leaving the brand for a fully fledged smartwatch from the heavy hitters