Tag: wearable device

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.

Health tracking wearable technology was important to more than half of survey respondents.

Based on the findings of a new report by ON World, 60% of the 1,000 consumers surveyed are likely to adopt wearables that have health and fitness tracking capabilities, revealing that these are among the top selling features of this tech.

ON World predicts that more than 260 million wearable devices will have shipped by 2018.

In addition to finding out what appeals to potential adopters of wearable tech, the report evaluated wireless personal area devices shipments, which includes mobile gadgets such as smart jewelry, smartwatches, proximity monitors, and child and pet trackers. The company forecasts that 265 million of these devices will be shipped in 2018.

Mareca Hatler, a research director at ON World, stated that “Mobile sensing is quickly becoming a mass market meme.” Hatler added that “Wearables are the largest and fastest growing segment with the most growth coming from general purpose smart devices that integrate multiple sensors as well as multiple communications capabilities.”

The firm predicts that while WiFi will grow the fastest, Bluetooth Smart will be the communication protocol that will be the most extensively utilized for wearables within the next five years.

Smartwatches were found to be the most popular wearables.

42% of survey respondents showed interest in becoming likely adopters of smartwatches. In addition, after evaluating product reviews, ON World learned that there are eight times more smartwatches on the market now compared to two years previous, and that there are four times as many other wearable devices. According to data found in a study the firm released in May, ON World predicted that 19% of Americans will own a wearable device by 2015.

The company was also curious to learn how much consumers would be willing to spend on a smartwatch. They discovered that 23% said they would pay $149 or higher if the watch had fitness and health features, such as activity, heart rate, and blood pressure tracking.

Data that was previously released from the same survey indicates that 49% of consumers would be willing to drop $99 or more for wearables with these features, but only 8% of respondents said they would pay more than $299. This statistic might make one wonder how popular Apple’s rumored smartwatch will be considering the device is rumored to cost $400.