Here’s the thing about traditional watch straps: The watch face is on the outside of your wrist, which is rather inconvenient. Unless you run like your wrists are broken, you’re going to have to turn your arm to look at your smartwatch and see your workout stats. In winter, you not only turn your arm to see the watch, but you also have to dig it out of layers of clothing to read it. After enough miles running or riding in windy cold weather, even pushing back a few layers of spandex is annoying. But not to worry — a new Kickstarter project has popped up to solve that problem.
With EdgeGear’s Shift smartwatch band, you’ll see part of the strap goes around your wrist, but the other part pulls the watch face forward onto the top of your hand. It’s infinitely easier to see the watch in that position, since this is the way our hands are actually attached to our arms. For those people watching their cadence or pace, Shift helps keep you in proper running or cycling form.
Although the band is not compatible with every single watch, it should work with any watch that uses a spring pin mechanism, which accounts for the vast majority of smartwatches and some fitness watches. The site lists the LG G Watch models, Samsung’s Gear S2 Classic, the 2015 Moto 360, Apple Watch (38 and 42mm), as well as Suunto’s Ambit, Core, Elementum Essential, Traverse, and Vector. Quite a few Garmins–like the Forerunners and the Vivoactive— and Pebbles — like the Time Round — also work with the Shift band.
According to the company’s FAQ section, the Shift can be worn over or under gloves. You could theoretically put the main smart watch band around your wrist under your jacket and bring the thumb strap up over your glove, thus having easy access to your watch without exposing your skin to bitter 20-degree wind.
Shift smartwatch band could work just as well for snowboarders, cross-country skiers, winter-runners, bikers, or anyone with a few layers on who wants to minimize the annoyance of checking their watch during an intensive sport.
EdgeGear isn’t asking a ton for the straps. The company is looking for $45,000 and it’s nearly there with 21 days to go. The super early birds were $20, and there are still double packs available for $40, or singles for $30. At time of writing, the campaign was less than $10,000 short of its goal. If you’re interested, you can check out the Kickstarter here.
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.