Fitbit is one of the big names in the fitness tracking industry, and while they have put out a couple of fitness watches, like the Fitbit Surge and Blaze, they have not yet put out a true smartwatch. However, according to a report out of Yahoo Finance, that is actually due to a number of delays that have impacted production of this product. But they do report that the smartwatch will be launching this fall, along with a couple pairs of Bluetooth headphones. Originally, Fitbit had planned to launch these products in the Spring, likely alongside the Fitbit Alta HR, but these production issues made the company change the launch to the Fall.
A source told Yahoo Finance that one of the issues was with GPS on one of the final prototypes. It apparently wasn’t working, due tot he antenna being in the wrong spot. Something as small as this can be a huge issue. Put the GPS antenna in the wrong spot and it won’t be able to get a signal out and work properly, or work at all. And this meant that the team at Fitbit had to go back and essentially redesign the product. There’s also talk that the team had issues with making the smartwatch completely waterproof, and this is a feature that may not be present when the smartwatch launches in the fall. And depending on price, that could make the smartwatch dead on arrival.
The smartwatch is said to be a “very retro looking” smartwatch and actually resembles the Fitbit Blaze quite a bit. It’ll sport a pretty bright display, coming in at about 1000-nits, which is going to make it great for using outdoors. Of course, it’ll have all the usual features like a heart rate monitor and GPS, it’ll also support mobile payments and allow you to stream music from sources like Pandora. Battery life will be around 4 days, and as usual that will depend on your usage, and Fitbit is aiming to price this at about $300. Effectively making it their most expensive wearable to-date, seeing as the Fitbit Surge was priced at $249 at launch and the Blaze at $199.