CES-2015 (Consumer Electronics Show) - Garmin announces three wildly different smartwatches: Fenix 3, Epix, and Vivoactive. Garmin - The nagigation company announced their 3 new kind of Smart watches, which are smart multisport GPS watch Fenix 3, and moving map Epix and workout tracking Vivoactive. First up is the Fenix 3, which Garmin calls a smart multisport GPS watch. Thats a fair (if wordy) description: in addition to built-in GPS (Russia’s GLONASS is also supported for faster and more accurate reception), the watch features integration with a variety of sensors like heart rate straps for gathering data during runs, bike rides, pool laps, and so on. It’ll do basic step counting and hourly buzzes to remind you to get up and move around, but advanced athletes will find things like recovery time calculation, VO2 max, stroke count (for swimmers), and a good deal more. A feature called LiveTrack enables collaborative workouts by communicating run data to friends using the mobile app, which pairs to the Fenix 3 over Bluetooth. A compass, barometer, and altimeter could come in handy for hiking and other activities that can lead off into the wilderness. Next up is the Epix, which is basically a color moving map designed to be strapped to your wrist. It has a built-in world basemap for display on the 1.4-inch touchscreen — scrollable with a fingertip — plus 8 gigabytes of on-board storage for adding additional detail. An included one-year subscription to satellite imagery keeps the unit updated. It sounds a little bit like the old, disconnected GPS units of yore before smartphones took over, but updated in a much smaller package. Finally, theres the Vivoactive, which is the most affordable (and arguably the most normal) of the bunch. It trades in some of the rugged appeal of the other models for thinness, but still has a color display and supports wireless sensors like heart straps for tracking workouts. Like the others, it runs on Garmins Connect IQ app platform and will launch this quarter; look for it in black or white for $249.99, $299.99 with a heart rate monitor. -From the Verge
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 02:50:39 +0000