Author: Dan Gendro

The brand has now added The Flash, a fitness and sleep tracker device to the mobile shelves.

Misfit Wearables has now announced that it is launching an even more affordable form of wearable technology that will function as a fitness and sleep tracker, and that will focus as much on the health of the wearer’s wallet as it does for his or her body.

The Flash is the second device produced by this company, which has already sold over 600,000 Shines.

The company, itself, was co-founded by former Apple CEO, John Sculley, and highly experienced hardware CEO Sonny Vu. Under their leadership, Misfit has been producing sleek and attractive wearable technology for the health and fitness space that have become very popular, called Shines. These quarter sized devices are worn to track the wearer’s activity levels and provide feedback online over mobile devices or laptops. Now, the company has released The Flash at a lower price point.

This wearable technology is produced in much more affordable soft-touch plastic.

The Shine is made with a burnished metal finish. The Flash is also available in seven different colors and is less expensive than the Shine. While the Shine is sold for around $100, the Flash is being sold at about half that, at $49.99.

According to CEO Sonny Vu, “We used to call it the Shine C,” making reference to the names used in last year’s iPhone releases of the 5s and its cheaper alternative, the 5c. However, he went on to explain that it isn’t actually a matter of being cheap, at all. The Flash has not been created to be a cheap version of Shine. “There are some people who love the sleek elegant design of the Shine and are fine paying $100 for that product. And then there’s a segment that wants a more colorful presentation with something more fun that they can afford to buy for their kids. That’s what the Flash is for.”

The two devices provide essentially the same types of features, from step tracking, sleep tracking, and estimated calories burned, in addition to swimming and cycling data. This is uploaded to a mobile device through a paired app. The devices will start shipping in October but are already being pre-sold.

“Gear Blink” could be the head mounted wearable that will rival Glass in 2015.

Although Samsung has recently introduced its Gear VR, which provides consumers with a new virtual reality experience, the latest rumors surrounding the South Korean electronics giant is that it may have another wearable tech gadget in the works that could potentially be competition for Google Glass.

The device may be launched next Spring and patent images reveal some of its potential features.

The speculated launch of the unofficially named Gear Blink (also nicknamed the Gear Glass) is sometime in Spring of 2015, possibly as early as March, and may be unveiled at the same time as Samsung’s Galaxy S6, according to a Tizen Experts report.

An augmented reality app that transforms the user’s hands into a virtual keyboard may be one of the Gear Blink’s features. The reason this is speculated is a filing from the KIPRIS (Korean Intellectual Property Rights Information Service) revealed patent images that show two versions of the keyboard, a one-handed variation and a two-handed one. The letters of the virtual keyboard are spaced out in a specific pattern, so that they correspond to different portions of the user’s fingers.

Additional patent images suggest the device’s potential design. Its appearance is not entirely unlike Google Glass, but it does look sportier. One image reveals an earbud and ear clip with a translucent display that curves in front of the user’s eye, similar to current Glass displays. Another image shows the device appears to be equipped with a microUSB cable for charging.

Innovative features like a virtual keyboard could give Samsung’s potential smartglasses a leg up over Google Glass.

It is expected that Gear Blink will be powered by a form of Tizen OS, but it is not known how these smartglasses would work with Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones or Gear watches. That being said, it is likely that connectivity will be possible among all of these gadgets.

Although there has yet to be an official announcement regarding a Samsung augmented reality headset, it would not be surprising if there was word about one soon. It will be interesting to see if Google Glass will have competition and how Google with respond to it.