Sportswear brand Adidas has unveiled a new range of smartwatches designed to relay the wearers heart-rate by way of a built in sensor and touchscreen.
Taking on the other fitness smartwatches, the wearable Adidas fitness tracker and timepiece will arrive before the new Nike FuelBand SE – and it does a whole lot more.
The miCoach Smart Run can track your jogging route using GPS mapping, offers real-time coaching tips, and can store and play your workout music via Bluetooth.
Although you can’t make calls or receive messages, the device is arguably the biggest step forward a sports company has taken into consumer electronics, and will compete with similar devices launched by Samsung and Sony.
The price is more than three times that of Nike’s £92 Fuelband SE, which was updated this week, but offers a wider range of fitness features and sensors.
Adidas say athletes can use the watch to create coaching programmes and receive feedback via animated graphics, vibrations, and audio commands telling them to speed up or slow down.
Nike has gotten a lot of flak for not making the FuelBand SE compatible with Android devices. It’s much deserved criticism.
That could go double for the Adidas smartwatch, as its data doesn’t sync with iOS or any app.
It reportedly synchronizes with the Adidas’ existing miCoach fitness cloud, and it can stream music and fitness instructions to a pair of headphones.
Adidas is planning to sell the high-end sport watch for $399, whereas the new FuelBand is retailing for $150.
