Despite a year full of exciting new smartwatches, tech-enabled clothing and jewelry, and fitness-activity trackers galore, the growth of the wearables market is still on the decline, according to a new report from the research firm eMarketer.
In fact, the category is being overtaken by smart speakers, or at least it was expected to be during the 2017 holiday season.
As useful as your activity tracker may seem in theory, it’s a whole lot less effective in practice if you’re constantly taking it off to charge the battery, protect it from your shower, or save it from your swim. After all, that represents quite a bit of activity that you’re tracker is not keeping tabs on. But here to solve for that inefficiency is Garmin, who has debuted the Vivofit 4. Promising a yearlong battery life and a sunlight-readable, always-on color display, this is one wearable that’s really meant to be worn — all the time. Capable of going in the pool and in your bath alike, this activity tracker also claims to have a comfortable band, so there really shouldn’t be a reason for you to ever take this guy off.
“An activity tracker is only as effective as how often you wear it, and this is where the Vivofit 4 really shines — you can set it and forget it,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of worldwide sales. “It’s the ideal device for customers who want something reliable that they don’t need to hassle with or take off to recharge.”
… Garmin is another wearable tech giant planning to make a showing. Last year, the company announced the Fenix 5 super-watch at the event. But more than that, the company has been very busy in 2017, dishing out a slew of new devices including the Vivoactive 3, Vivosport, and Vivosmart 3.
It is a fair bet Garmin will release some sort of announcement during CES 2018. The most likely candidate is the Forerunner 645 Music. Full specs have already leaked out and the device is expected to resemble a blend between Vivoactive 3 and Forerunner 935, but with built-in storage for music. The 5 ATM water resistant watch will feature built-in GPS, a heart rate sensor and barometer. Garmin Pay is also included, as well as multiple sports profiles and advanced performance metrics.
One other watch in the Forerunner series that is rumoured for a debut very soon is the 245. An upgraded version of the 235, it is likely to resemble the 645 but with fewer features and performance metrics. It is also possible Fenix 5 may receive a bump in specs at the event.
So you’ve got your Fitbit Ionic smartwatch and you’re starting to get to grips with what the Apple Watch and Android Wear rival is capable of. You’ve come to the right place to find how to make the most of your new purchase.
We’ve put together this ultimate Fitbit Ionic guide of guides to help you with everything you need to know from fitness tracking, the best apps to download to transferring over music. We’ll also be adding new sections as well helping you get the most of all the new fitness features on board the Ionic. For now, here’s what we’ve got for you so far.
I managed to get a ‘great deal’ on my second Garmin 935, with the price at the time coming in at GBP430, as shown below. That’s a low price for the UK but about the same as the US$499 current price on Amazon. But that price got me thinking.
It got me thinking on whether or not the Garmin 935 was too expensive or, perhaps, too cheap.
The classic nightmare of suddenly realizing you’re naked in public could soon get a futuristic twist: it might involve the horror of losing not just your modesty but also your pass codes. Scientists recently created magnetic garments that they say can store data, automatically unlock doors or control a nearby smartphone with gestures.
The concept of interactive “smart clothing” has drawn attention in the past couple of years. For example, Google and Levi’s created a touch-sensitive denim jacket that can operate a smartphone. This and other smart garments are made with conductive thread and usually require an attached electronic device.
To eliminate the need for such peripheral gear, researchers at the University of Washington recently took advantage of what they say is a previously untapped property of conductive thread: its ability to be magnetized. Using magnetic instead of electric properties of the thread “may seem like a small difference, but it’s what makes this work interesting and exciting,” says Chris Harrison, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, who was not part of the research. The new technique allowed the researchers to do something they say is unique among wearables: turn them into storage devices.
Wearables have an easier time measuring heart rate from the ear than the wrist. That’s one of the reasons companies such as LifeBEAM have turned to headphones, rather than watches, to detect heart rate and other information.
This is a growing market. A report released by Juniper Research earlier this month predicts hearable devices in use will increase by 500% during the next five years to reach 285 million. Biometric or fitness headphones are expected to drive a good portion of this growth.
… A few fitness startups are beginning to reward sweat with cryptocurrency, too. One example is Lympo, a blockchain app aiming to monetize fitness & wellness data by offering token rewards to be spent in a healthy lifestyle ecosystem.
Lympo will track workout data via smartphones and wearables, and reward users with Lympo tokens for hitting fitness & mindfulness targets — these can then be used to pay for health products and services.
Lower Extremity Review Magazine, Rachel Koldenhoven and Alex DeJong from
Wearable sensors allow for the collection of running biomechanics data outside the laboratory in natural training environments, enabling clinicians to collect a large volume of information in a relatively short time to help identify and manage individuals who may be at risk for running-related injuries.
In comparison to other industries, the use of customer data in the winter sports industry is still has significant room for development – models do already exist offering individual digital products for the athlete to use. We reveal what the future of winter sports may look like.
To determine the differences in the morphology of foot soft tissues between runners using different types of running shoes. DESIGN:
Cross-sectional study. METHODS:
Thirty-eight recreational runners were divided into four groups based on running shoe type, namely, neutral shoes, motion control shoes, minimalistic shoes and neutral shoes with custom-made insoles. An arch height index and a relative arch deformation index were calculated for each participant. An ultrasound device was used to measure the cross-sectional area and/or the thickness of selected intrinsic foot muscles (abductor hallucis, flexor hallucis brevis and flexor digitorum brevis) and extrinsic foot muscles (flexor digitorum longus, tibialis anterior and the peroneus muscles), and the thickness of the plantar fascia, Achilles tendon and heel pad. RESULTS:
Recreational runners using minimalistic shoes demonstrated stiffer foot arches than those using neutral shoes. Among the selected foot muscles, only abductor hallucis showed a significant morphological difference between shoe groups. Runners using minimalistic shoes had the thickest abductor hallucis. The minimalistic shoe runners also showed a thinner proximal plantar fascia and a thicker Achilles tendon than other runners. Insole runners had a thinner heel pad than neutral shoe runners. CONCLUSIONS:
This study suggests that the morphology of foot soft tissues is associated with running shoe type in recreational runners. A sudden change in running shoe type without adjusting training volume should be undertaken with caution, since it may take time for foot soft tissues to adapt to a new shoe condition.
We romped across every corner of New Hampshire’s iconic Presidential Mountain Range in 33 insulated jackets with eight testers across 220 miles, covering a combined 170,000 feet of elevation change, through conditions that ranged from frosty to wet to mild. After all that, we think Montbell’s Alpine Light Down jacket (available in women’s and men’s sizes) is the best puffy jacket for most people due to its lightweight warmth and weather resistance.
… [Michael] Joyner says there are certainly appropriate places to use this technology, and he doesn’t dispute the individual stories of success his colleagues tout. But he believes the best way to address the health concerns facing the nation is by studying — and treating — whole people, not by breaking the problems down to billions of genetic bits and pieces.
He practices what he preaches in both his personal life — his thorough exercise routine includes commuting by bicycle — and his physiology lab.
On the day I visited at the end of August, volunteer Greg Ruegsegger was outfitted with monitors, a catheter threaded into a vein and a mask to capture his breath. He would exercise to the point of exhaustion while scientists studied him. This is far more informative than any genetic test, Joyner says.
“People have looked at 3,000 elite endurance athletes — these are people who compete in the Tour de France and win Olympic medals in cross-country skiing and distance running — and [scientists] have been unable to find any genetic marker for superior performance.”
… In recent years, my life has echoed Bernd Heinrich’s to a degree. I, too, have reconnected with my own private Eden. In the autumn of 2014, after my only child left the nest, I moved from Portland, Oregon, to the countryside of New Hampshire with dreams of roughing it. I would heat with wood. I would spend winters without running water. The idea was to reinvent a rambling, 1790s-built summer home that has been in my family since 1905. My grandmother swam in the nearby lake as a child. I caught fireflies on the lawn when I was five. My new life there would be just like Walden, except with Wi-Fi.
One of my first moves came that fall when, for $400, I bought a used woodstove and hired two musclebound guys to hoist the squat, 300-pound iron box up over the door lip, around a corner, and into place beneath an ancient brick chimney. The air was warm that evening, but there was a gentle breeze and a dry rustling in the trees, and I shivered with the prospect that I would soon be ensconced in the cold, wintry brilliance of my adventure.
92 documents describing national parks climate action plans have been removed from the Climate Friendly Parks (CFP) Program website. The CFP Program, which is part of the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service (NPS) [1], helps national parks adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change, with approaches that include planning for the impacts of sea level rise and developing strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A prerequisite for becoming a CFP member is completing an action plan detailing how the national park is currently and will continue to respond to climate change [2].