The partnership between HTC and Under Armour is no secret, and as of October 23rd this year HTC had announced that they will in fact, be releasing a fitness tracker with the sports company, but it wouldn’t see a launch until sometime in 2016. With no hard date to speak of, consumers are still left wondering about HTC’s plans. Fitness trackers aren’t their only focus, though, as HTC also mentioned details about an entire “ecosystem” of smart fitness products they will be launching in partnership with under Armour. Aside from the fitness tracker which may or may not still be called the Grip when it launches, it would appear the second device in this ecosystem may be a smart scale.
Documents discovered over at the Bluetooth certification website Bluetooth.org reveal a device called the UA Scale, which has the capacity to determine the body weight measurements of users such as body fat and actual weight. It’s also listed as a Bluetooth connected scale which would suggest that it could link up to smartphones and feed any recorded data to the mobile device, with details being viewable through the interface of an app, like UA Record for example, which is Under Armour’s health and fitness app for analysing activities like gym workouts and outdoor exercises. What’s more, is that HTC is also listed on the document alongside Under Armour so it’s a certainty that this is a device being developed by the two companies.
While there are no telling details like launch dates or pricing, the document does list a URL that leads to the “fitness devices” web page on Under Armours product site, so it’s reasonable to assume that at some point in the future the UA Scale will be listed here among the other products. The document details also list Bluetooth 4.1 as being the supported standard for this device, and with UA Record being compatible with other fitness trackers, the UA Scale will likely be able to integrate with them as well. As there is to be an ecosystem of products coming, a fitness tracker and a smart scale should be just the tip of the iceberg.