After a number of leaks, some self-inflicted, Samsung today announced its latest pair of fitness wearables at an event in New York City.
Leading the duo is the Gear Fit 2, the successor to the more than two year old Gear Fit. Featuring a 1.5-inch curved AMOLED display, the Gear Fit 2 comes with a bevy of sensors, including a barometer, accelerometer and gyroscope, as well as a dedicated GPS module and heart rate monitor. Powering the wearable, is a small 200mAh battery – smaller than the battery that came with its predecessor.
The fitness wearable also runs (as of late) Samsung’s operating system of choice, Tizen. With 4GB of internal storage, the Gear Fit 2 can also act as a standalone music player. Supporting the OS is 512MB of RAM.
The device will be compatible with any Android smartphone running 4.4 and above as long as it has 1.5GB of RAM. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it will be compatible with iOS devices. That said, it’s able to push SMS, call, email, app and calendar notifications from the user’s smartphone to the wearable itself.
It is also IP68 certified, making it dust and water resistant.
Should it come to Canada, the Gear Fit 2 will be available in three colours – black, teal and magenta. Moreover, the wearable will come with two different sized bands. The smaller of the two bands is designed to fit wrists between 125mm to 170mm, while the larger one is meant to fit writs between 155mm and 210mm.
The company did not announce pricing for the Gear Fit 2. However, according to CNet, the wearable will cost $179 USD.
The second device Samsung announced, the Gear IconX, is essentially a pair of in-ear Bluetooth earbuds that double as a standalone fitness tracker.
Set to be available in black, blue and white, each pair of Gear IconX earbuds will come with three different sizes of eartips and wingtips (see above).
The earbuds share 4GB of internal storage, allowing them, like the Gear Fit 2, to play music without an accompanying smartphone. That said, thanks to Bluetooth connectivity, they can also stream music from a smartphone. There’s even an ambient sound mode to to keep users safe while exercising outdoors.
The Gear IconX earbuds come in a nifty case that keeps them safe, and starts charging them as soon as they’re placed inside.
A touchpad on the back of one of the earbuds activates the fitness features. During a workout, they’re able to data like heart rate, distance, speed, duration and calories burned. After a workout, the data can be transferred, via Bluetooth again, to a smartphone and Samsung’s S Health app.
Like with the Gear Fit 2, Samsung did not announce pricing for the Gear IconX.
We’ve reached out to Samsung to find out if the two devices will come to Canada, so stay tuned. Check out Samsung’s website for a full overview of the device’s functionality.
Update: Samsung Canada just got back to us. Here’s what the company had to say about Canadian pricing and availability for the Gear Fit 2 and IconX: “Thank you for your interest in the Samsung Gear Fit2 and IconX. At this time, we do not have any Canadian-specific information to share about these devices. As always, we will keep you updated on and Samsung Canada related news as it becomes available.”
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