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Misfit Flash is an affordable, fun, and waterproof wearable
If you think that the world of wearables turned all Apple last week with the announcement of the Watch, you're wrong. Over the past few days TUAW has received information about a number of new wearables, including one that is incredibly affordable. The new Misfit Flash (US$49.99) is the second wearable from the same folks who brought you the Shine. Misfit, of course, is the company co-founded by none other than ex-Apple-and-Pepsi CEO John Sculley along with Sonny Vu and Sridhar Iyengar. Despite its low price tag, Flash is relatively full-featured. It's made out of a soft-touch plastic for comfort and it's waterproof down to 30 meters (98 feet). As you well know, the much more pricey smartwatch from Apple isn't waterproof... While the Misfit Flash won't run apps like Apple's Watch will when it arrives next year, it will track your activity and sleep, tell you the time, and sync with the Misfit App on your iPhone. Flash comes in seven colors, including "lemon-lime Zest, funky Fuchsia, and minimalist Frost." Like the Shine, you'll never have to charge the Flash -- it uses a common watch/camera battery to run for up to six months. You'll be able to buy one at Best Buy, Target, Amazon.com, and Walmart starting in October, or you can pre-order one today.
Misfit's wearable Flash tracks your moves and sleep habits for $49
Remember the Misfit Shine? It was yet another in a long line of crowdfunded wearables that won some points for its uber-clean looks and its activity tracking skills (not to mention the Klingon instructions on the box). $99 may have been a bit much to ask in exchange for an intelligent coin that lives on your wrist though, which is why the Misfit team just pulled back the curtain on a $49 version called the Misfit Flash. It packs the same sort of functionality as its more expensive brother -- it tracks your sleep motion, steps and tough-to-measure activities like swimming and cycling -- into a body that's a little less rugged than the original.
Misfit Shine teams with Lose It! calorie-counting to keep your diet on course
Just last month, another sleep-tracking option came to Misfit's Shine activity-logging app, and now, users can couple caloric burn with the intake. Thanks to a cooperative effort with Lose It! -- a nutrition monitoring app/service -- you'll be able to log what you consume and keep track of all the corresponding stats across the web, Android and iOS with the diet-minded outfit. From there, send over Shine's collected data to calculate your overall progress. As you might expect, Lose It! offers barcode scanning to enter foods and customized plans to keep things simple, but a $40 annual subscription is required to leverage the skills of the activity tracker (Jawbone's Up line, Nike FuelBand and Fitbit devices are already supported) or a fitness app.
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for July 10, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. The Daily Update has been moved to a new podcast host in the past few days. Current listeners should delete the old podcast subscription and subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
Misfit intros the Smart Bed System: the Internet of snooze
Are you ready to make your bed a smart bed? That's the question that will be answered by Misfit's latest "wearable", the Misfit Beddit Smart Bed System. Misfit is integrating its app -- which usually works just with the Shine fitness and sleep tracker -- with the Beddit Sleep Monitor. Although the Misfit Shine already tracks sleep quality by determining just how much you move during the night, Beddit measures many more physiological signals -- heart rate, respiration, movement, sound, and whether or not you are snoring. The Beddit monitor is paper-thin and is installed under the sheets on any mattress. The various readings are automatically and wirelessly transferred to your iPhone for analysis. Sleep is a huge part of the overall health story, since it's estimated that 70 million people in the US alone have sleep problems that can be associated with diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack and stroke. The Beddit Sleep Monitor can be purchased starting today from the Misfit online store for only US$149.99.
Misfit offers insight on your insomnia with the Beddit sleep monitor
Misfit tackled activity tracking with its Shine offering that looks more like a fashion accessory than a sensor. Now, the data gathering outfit is looking to wrangle sleep cycles with the Beddit sleep monitor. Claiming to be the "world's thinnest sleep sensor," the unit resides on your mattress as opposed to being tucked in between the sheets. From there, the gadget keeps an eye on heart rate, movement, snoring and ambient sound in order to gauge the quality of your slumber. Collected info is then beamed to your smartphone of choice for analysis within the Misfit app. If you're looking to quantify those Zs you catch, Beddit is available now for $150 -- half the price of Withings' Aura bedside system, but without the added sound and light show.
Grab a Coke and a Shine: Misfit's Coca-Cola Red Shine
Some products are known by their iconic color, and for Coca-Cola, it's that bright red stripe. Misfit, the company behind the Shine fitness tracker, has teamed up with Coca-Cola to create a version of its little device that's is that exact red hue that you've come to know and love. In honor of the 4th of July, Misfit and Coca-Cola introduced the Coca-Cola Red Shine (US$99.99), which comes with the standard black sports band and nifty little magnetic clip-on clasp. However, there's even more for you who salute the red, white and blue: the Star Spangled Set! Take a Coca-Cola Red Shine, a special white sports band, and a new navy blue t-shirt complete with a tiny pocket on the arm to house the Shine, and you have the Star Spangled Set. It's available now for a special price of $119.99, although you'll be able to purchase the white sports band and navy tee separately from Misfit in the future. The Misfit Shine is quite different from most fitness trackers in that it's good-looking and can be accessorized with everything from the magnetic clasp to beautiful necklaces, doesn't need recharging (there's a replaceable battery inside), and uses tiny white LEDs to not only point out your progress towards a daily goal but also tell you the time. The Shine is featured in Apple's "Strength" ad (it's the little round device being synced via placement on an iPhone screen), and rated well in our late 2013 review. And a final bit of trivia to end this post: one of Misfit's co-founders is none other than former Apple CEO and Pepsi President John Sculley, who Steve Jobs goaded into taking the Apple job by asking him if he wanted to "sell sugared water for the rest of his life". It's ironic that Misfit teamed up with Pepsi's arch-rival for this special fitness tracker.
Misfit's fitness tracker is now available as a Pebble app
We're calling this "wearable-ception." Misfit's Shine is a waterproof fitness tracker. With an accelerometer and 5 ATM rating, so (potentially) is the Pebble smartwatch. Color us surprised then, to find out Misfit and Pebble are partnering to re-imagine Shine as a Pebble app. Misfit's experience and bespoke fitness tracking software is being shoe-horned into a watch-friendly format, and will be available in the Pebble appstore today -- no Shine required. If you already have a Shine, and are an iOS user, an updated app will fold in support for Pebble watches, should you prefer to keep things separate. The updated app also includes some new metrics, such as calories burned, and distance traveled. Pebble already has a number of fitness apps, but the company claims this is the first stage in an ongoing collaboration with Misfit -- so expect even more fitness functionality in the future.
Misfit Wearables releases Shine Android app, outfits Bluetooth 4.0 devices with activity-tracking prowess
Until now, the dapper stylings of Misfit Wearables' Shine activity tracker have eluded the Android faithful for logging steps, calories and sleep. The outfit has announced a version of the Shine app for devices running Google's OS (4.3 and later) that also sport Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity to be used alongside the aluminum-clad gadget. This bit of software allows users to sync the $120 clip-on wearable, set goals and monitor visual summaries of their progress. Now that Misfit's mobile software is no longer iOS only, the holiday shopping list for those looking to quantify daily routines just got a bit more crowded.
