There was a time when the term “wearable” meant nothing to technology enthusiasts, but with fitness trackers and smart watches taking up more and more real estate on the CES floor with each passing year it’s become a trendy buzzword. How do wearable manufacturers differentiate their product from one another in a market so saturated? The InBody Band tries to stand out with its ability to measure your body composition.
The sleek Band isn’t eye-catching, but it comes through in functionality. The Southern Korean company with which the Band shares its name adorned the snap-on device with a simple touchscreen display and four sensors located on the front and back of the device. It uses a series of electronic pulses to measure metrics such as your muscle mass and body fat percentage while simultaneously clocking your heart rate and tracking movement with the aid of a 3D accelerometer.
Though a bit buky, the Band is lightweight, and offers functionality for monitoring how well you sleep and setting specific goals for which to strive. Call and text notifications are also said to play into the device, with an option to set vibration notifications and sync your data with the InBody mobile app for Android and iOS devices. It’s water-resistant enough to withstand a quick bout in the shower, though not the pool, and supposedly lasts eight hours on a single charge.
The InBody Band is expected to arrive in March for $180. Although we didn’t have a chance to test the band’s accuracy at CES 2015, specifically when it comes to measuring body mass, it looked — and felt — promising. We’ll see in a couple months.
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.