Most mainstream companies who’ve made wearables in the past few years haven’t exactly paid attention to the fairer sex. Samsung’s first wearables weren’t the most attractive devices, but with the Gear S2 and the latest rose gold Classic version of the smartwatch, the company has started getting into fashionable wearables for women. Its latest concept device is an unnamed fitness tracker that can transform into a ring, bracelet, pendant on a necklace, or even a cuff link.
The tracker looks like a small, rounded square. It’s slightly larger than a dime, and it has a semi-glossy finish and chamfered edges that catch the light. It currently comes in three colors: a bluish-silver hue, a rosy tint, and something in the near-black range. The dime-sized module snaps into a slim silicon band, a metal ring, a cuff link, or a pendant to be worn as a necklace. The versatility is another first for Samsung in the wearable world, and this puts the device more in the realm of a piece of smart jewelry.
There’s an LED in the center that can light up with notifications, theoretically. It’ll sync up with your phone via Bluetooth and a companion app. In the app, you’ll see your distance walked, calories burned, step count, and so on. The app looks pretty much like every other Samsung fitness app that’s out and it syncs up with S Health. At this point, sleep tracking isn’t included, though it could be in the future. Samsung is still working out what it hopes to do with the tracker.
Another version of the fitness tracker concept is bar-shaped and has a vibration motor inside that could be used for notifications or an alarm in the morning. Both concepts charge wirelessly with a charging cradle. There’s no word on battery life yet.
Samsung didn’t reveal any official specs, price, or the release date for the wearable yet. We expect to see this information relatively soon, since it looks like a near-to-final product.
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.