LG Replicating Nike's FuelBand With Its Smart Activity Tracker

 

LG pulled the clone trick on us at CES 2013 with its shamelessly familiar Smart Activity Tracker. Like the FueldBand and Up, LG's Smart Activity Tracker is a feature-rich fitness tracker in the from of a matte rubber wristband designed a lot like Nike's widely popular FuelBand. But unlike the FuelBand's stealthy muted rubber looks, the Smart Activity Tracker clearly has a visible LED glossy display that's touch-sensitive to swipes with the ability to pair with your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.0 to display information and alerts from incoming calls and text messages - including music playback controls right on its little touchscreen display. It'll also display things like the time and whatever LG devices to call the motivating point scoring system.

It'll use its built-in sensors and GPS to accurately track your daily activities like the FuelBand and the Up wristbands; while also being able to sync with both Android and iOS devices using the companion app. By the looks of it, LG is completely dominating the smart watch and fitness tracking gadgets with the Smart Activity Tracker. The company is also planning to add a heart-rate monitoring feature. LG is keeping quiet on the pricing, but it plans to release its Smart Activity Tracker in the summer. We can already tell that the Smart Activity Tracker's glossy screen will prove difficult for users to read in broad daylight as opposed to the FueldBand's rubberised dot-matrix LED display.

Fitbit Flex Joins The Wristband Fitness Trackers

We never thought we'd see a wristband fitness tracker from the folks at Fitbit, but it seems that Fitbit was easily tempted by the success of Jawbone's Up and Nike's FuelBand wristband trackers. And that is why Fitbit just announced its first wristband offering called the Flex. It's a slim and rather stylish piece of smooth monolithic sculpted rubber you can comfortably wear all day and all night for the sake of knowing how well you've performed physically.

Hardware wise, the Flex is actually a small dongle much like Fitbit's One tracker that can be removed from its rubber wristband home and put into a different colored one including slate, teal, tangerine and black. The Flex wireless syncs with your iPhone, or Samsung's Galaxy S3 and Note 2 devices over Bluetooth 4.0 as it updates the companion Fitbit app with the data it has tracked like steps taken, calories burned, distance traveled, quality and duration of your sleep. Like the One, the Flex is water-resistant, has a 5-7 day rechargeable battery life and features a set of LED dotted lights replaced the One's small and informative OLED screen to represent your activity level against your goal and nothing more. The Flex also features a silent alarm that can be set to vibrate on your wrist.

The Fitbit Flex can be pre-ordered starting today for $100 in either black or slate, and it's expected to ship in the spring. It'll include two wristband sizes in the box as standard.

Fitbug's Orb Fitness Monitor Targets Fitbit, Jawbone, Nike

Activity trackers are it this year. Like many of its kind, a company called Fitbug is competing with Fitbit's One, Jawbone's Up and Nike's FuelBand with its new Orb activity tracker. Fitbug's Orb is a much cheaper $50 gadget that basically does everything the aforementioned trackers do, albeit it offers more flexibility with its modular design and support for iOS and Android smartphones. The Orb is a tiny little button device that can be slipped into various types of Fitbug accessory depending on where you'd like to wear it, like a rubber wristband, belt clip, lanyard and even a magnetic bra mount. It uses a motion sensors to keep track of your daily activity like tracking how many steps you've taken, distances traveled, how many calories you've burned. And it even doubles as a sleep monitor tracking your sleeping patterns and how well you've slept at night.

Fitbug's Orb features Bluetooth 4.0 in order to wirelessly connect with your iOS or Android smartphone and transfer data in real-time. Much like Fitbit's Zip, the Orb uses a button cell battery to draw its power. Only thing missing is an on-board display. Instead you'll have to rely on the Orb's app to see your data or tell time. Fitbug plans to release its wireless fitness monitor in the spring.

Nike+ FuelBand Now Available At Apple Stores

Nike's water-resistant Nike+ FuelBand fitness tracking wristband gadget is no longer being exclusively sold at Nike's online and brick and mortar stores. The FuelBand is now being sold at Apple online and brick and mortar stores for $150 in new color schemes that include a geeky looking transparent white, semi-transparent smoke and black colors. The FueldBand features a streamline bright LED dot-matrix display and can track your steps, calorie burn and display digital time amongst other things.

The Jawbone Up Is Dead

Remember Jawbone's uber stylish, waterproof wristband fitness and sleep tracker? Yeah... We've also forgotten about it. To help jog your memory, Jawbone's Up was short lived due to a massive fault with each and every Up device having its internal rechargeable battery fail after only a few days of use. After issuing a total recall which we must say, Jawbone admirably handled and controlled the situation by promptly refunding its early adopters, or what felt like a bunch of beta testers, and letting them keep their dead fashion gadget accessory to boot.

Since that very day, Jawbone ceased to sell the Up and put up a notice saying that the Up will be coming back. But after nearly a year of waiting for Jawbone to get their act together, the Up band was a no show. We only think it would be fair that we would be unofficially deeming the Up dead and gone.

But not for good. We expect the all-new and much improved, Up 2.0, to make a come back at CES 2013. Obviously Jawbone has had more than enough time to not only learn from its past mistakes, but to also catch up to some of the new fitness tracking devices that have made their way into the fitness conscience part of the tech world - post Up. We're thinking the purported Up 2.0 will bring with it a show-thru dot-matrix LED time, calorie and step activity stat display - a la Nike FuelBand, along with Android and Windows 8 mobile support at the least. Until then, you might want to check out some new fitness tracking gadgets like the recently announced Fitbit One.

Fitbit Outs Fitbit One, Fitbit Zip Fitness Trackers

It wasn't long ago since Fitbit released the Fitbit Ultra, and now it's time for a worthy replacement. The Fitbit One is the company's latest weather and sweat-proof fitness tracker which will track the daily amounts of calories you've burned, distance traveled, steps taken and even the number of stairs you've climbed. The Fitbit One features a vibrating alarm that silently wakes you up when worn on the wrist, and Bluetooth 4.0 that let's the One wirelessly sync your stats over to your iOS device, Mac or PC automatically. The Fitbit One is slimmer than its predecessor, has a built-in rechargeable battery that should last up to 7 days, and adds the ever so gimmicky sleep tracking feature that claims to help you sleep more soundly by tracking how long and well you've slept and in turn it'll throw your way a sleep quality rank and pattern stats. The Fitbit One is ready to be pre-ordered now for $100 in black and burgundy colors, and will ship in late October.

If tracking how well you've slept last night, staircase climbing and vibrating alarms aren't your thing, then the Fitbit Zip is the cuter chubby bunny, basic fitness tracker that does everything else. Unlike the rechargeable battery inside the One, the Zip actually includes a replaceable button battery used in watches that's said to last up to 6 months of use. And you're in luck too, because the Fitbit One not only comes in more color choices, it's available right now for $60. Both of these Fitbit trackers include a silicone clip that let's you wear them on your person.