Adidas gave its fitness app MiCoach Train and Run a major update in October, adding some welcome functionality to the Fit Smart band. The band is now up to competing with all-day trackers.
Fit Smart has been around for about a year, and was a decent bet for athletes who are tired of chest bands and want a simple fitness monitor. Announced in July, the band has a built-in heart rate monitor, and LED side-lighting shows your activity level. Speed, pace, distance, and even stride are visible on the basic LED matrix display. Fit Smart connects to the Train and Run app for iOS, Android, and Windows (yes, even Windows) via Bluetooth.
Now, the app will show your daily steps, and the band will remind you to get up and get moving. The Fit Smart tracks your resting heart rate and uses the accelerometer to figure out that you’ve been sitting in front of the computer for two hours and should get up and move around if you want to meet the goal you preset on MiCoach Train and Run.
The Train and Run app helps make this band special. The $150 price — $50 cheaper than it was at launch — gets you the band, the USB charging station, and access to pro training plans in the app. The pro training lets you pick your aim, your workouts, and organize the days.
Train and Run works for more than running: rowing (both indoor and outdoor), skiing, and yoga are just a few of the workout options. Further, you don’t need a Fit Smart band to use Train and Run. People use the app without the band or with other sensors.
There is one band in particular not included in Train and Run’s upgrade: the Smart Run, Adidas’ newer and bigger, $300 fitness wearable. Boasting a 1.45-inch full color TFT LCD touchscreen, a built in GPS, and 4GB of memory, it’s brought brawn and flash to the Fit Smart’s more slender understated design. It’s the fitness smartwatch to Fit Smart’s fitness band.
For the increase in size and bling factor, the Smart Run gives you more options and independence. You can change what the Smart Run’s screens shown when you workout. Want to know your distance, speed, and heartrate? You decide where it appears on your screen. And since it has built in GPS, you can leave your phone at home.
On the downside, the size and built-in GPS keep it limited to your gym trips rather than use as an all-day wearable. It’s hefty compared to the Fit Smart’s slimmer form factor. That could be why the Smart Run didn’t get the activity tracking upgrade of the more slender and longer-lasting Fit Smart. Both the Fit Smart and the newer Smart Run are available on Adidas’ website.
The OnePlus Buds Clip are a new pair of open-ear earbuds built around a simple convenience. They join Sony’s LinkBuds Clip in the growing ear-cuff category, but either OnePlus bud can go on either ear.
Sensors recognize how the earbuds are being worn and route the audio channels accordingly. There’s no label to check before putting them on, and the feature also works when only one bud is used.
We buy fitness bands and activity trackers to keep tabs on our exercise, but it is easy to forget to start tracking or switch modes when moving between different activities. For Fitbit and Pixel Watch users, that could soon become a lot less annoying, as Google is rolling out a major upgrade to automatic activity tracking that can recognize more than 100 types of exercise, up from just 10 before.
Google first showed off the improved tracking earlier this month alongside the Fitbit Edge. It is now coming to Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, and Google claims the added context behind the system makes workout detection nearly twice as accurate while cutting missed activities by more than half. Fitbit Edge will support it too.