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Gadget Rewind: Fitness and activity trackers
Tools for tracking and fine-tuning our fitness regimens are more abundant today than ever. And they're getting smarter, too. From the simplicity of mechanical step counters to ultra-smart digital devices that pack accelerometers and GPS radios to follow our every move, it's clear the wearable category has grown. These devices now collect data, provide a soundtrack, prod us when we're lazy and reward us when we've achieved our goals. They've also considerably scaled down in size, so we no longer resemble gadget-laden test subjects when tracking our workouts. In fact, wearables have become rather stylish. Join us in the gallery below then as we take a brief look at the evolution of the activity tracker.
CES 2014: Gaming roundup
Gaming is once again a thing at CES! Since splitting from the Consumer Electronics Show in 1995 and creating E3, the game industry has sat out much of the past 20 years. Between last year's big news from Valve and this year's reappearance of Sony's PlayStation, it's never been a better time to be a journalist covering gaming at CES. In case the resurgence of gaming news wasn't enough to solidify our belief, the first ever Engadget-hosted Official CES Awards Best of Show trophy went to Oculus VR's Crystal Cove Rift prototype. Gaming, as it turns out, is more innovative and exciting than the curved TVs and psuedo-fashionable vitality monitors of the world -- not exactly a surprise, but validating our years-long assertion feels so, so right. CES 2014 saw Steam Machines third-party support go official -- we even told you about all 14 partners a full 24 hours before Valve loosed the info -- a new, crazy/ambitious project from Razer and Oculus VR's latest prototype. And that's to say nothing of Sony's PlayStation Now and Huawei's China-exclusive Android game console, or the dozens of interviews we did.
Razer's Nabu smart band is your People's Choice Award Winner
No close call here: Razer's Nabu wearable accounted for nearly 50 percent of the 54,511 reader votes. We'd venture to say that Razer's promotion of its finalist selection had something to do with the overwhelming turnout, but the company couldn't pull off such a landslide victory without an extremely enthusiastic fan base. Though it didn't snag our award for Best Digital Health and Fitness Product, the Nabu is pretty cool; it sports two OLED displays rather than the standard one, and Razer's planning to add some of its gaming roots to the activity tracker with augmented-reality applications. Congratulations, Razer, and enjoy your 3D-printed trophy!
Razer's Nabu smart band is half fitness tracker and half smart watch (video)
Try as we might, it's hard to predict what a company like Razer might do. The firm has surprised us year after year with overpowered tablets, shockingly thin gaming laptops and OLED-adorned keyboard interfaces. When tasked with predicting what the outfit would come up with next, we never would have guessed it'd be announcing a fitness tracker in 2014. And yet, it did: the Razer Nabu. When company CEO Min-Liang Tan briefed us on the product, he was careful to dance around the word tracker. "It's not a smartwatch," he said. "It's not a fitness band. It's what we're calling a 'smart band.'" Min gave us an introduction to the device at CES 2014: read on a closer look at the band, and a video of the CEO demoing the product for the first time.
