If e-sports are sports, then it makes sense that e-sports players and enthusiasts should have their own e-sports gear. Garmin is looking to fill that niche with the Instinct Esports Edition, available now for $300.
A fitness wearable focused on e-sports might seem strange at a glance, but Garmin’s approach is clever. The Instinct Esports Edition ships with a PC streaming tool called STR3AMUP! that can synchronize the wearable’s biometric data with a streamer’s livestream. That data can be displayed or used to trigger events like sounds, images, and emoji.
It sounds like a gimmick, but it has great timing. Halloween is fast approaching, and streamers could pair live biometric data with frightening games to take the usual livestream scream-fests to a new level. I can even imagine serious competitive gamers using it to showcase their cool (or lack of it) during intense matches. How stressed is Shroud in the final fight of a battle royale? Inquiring minds want to know.
Garmin also thinks the Instinct could provide useful data for competitive players, whether they’re streaming or not. The wearable’s heart rate and stress tracking features might help a player understand when they’re focused, frustrated, or inattentive. And the Instinct’s “body battery energy monitor” can tell players when it’s time for a break.
E-sports features aside, the Instinct should benefit from the fact that it’s, well, the Garmin Instinct. This wearable first debuted in late 2019. We gave the Garmin Instinct a recommended award for its rugged-yet-comfortable design and wide range of activity tracking features.
The Instinct Esports Edition offers all the usual features of the Instinct and can track over 30 sports activities. The battery lasts up to three days in “e-sports mode” or up to 14 days in smartwatch mode. As you’d expect, it can sync with the Garmin app and deliver a variety of email, text, or phone notifications based on the owner’s biometric data.
Aside from unique software, the Instinct Esports Edition differs from the Instinct with a slightly tweaked red-and-black design and a high-contrast display that should be easier to read in dim lighting. Otherwise, it’s essentially the same, and its $300 price tag matches the standard Instinct.
The Garmin Instinct Esports Edition is available immediately.
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.