Under Armour & HTC Team Up to Bring Complete Fitness Ecosystem of Devices

[dgstorm]

If you are a fitness fan at all (or even just a fan of fitness apparel), then you will surely have heard of Under Armour. They are one of the top makers of fitness clothing globally. In the recent past, Under Armour has also dabbled with wearable fitness tech, but these devices have gone largely ignored for various reasons. Their latest endeavor is likely to buck that trend.

Under Armour and HTC have partnered to create an entire ecosystem of connected fitness tracker devices that are all managed by a single app and hub. The whole product is called the Under Armour Healthbox, and it is actually three interconnected gadgets. This includes the UA Band, UA Scale and UA Heart Rate chest strap.

These devices are designed with various tasks in mind and will communicate seamlessly using Under Armour's mobile fitness app called Record that works on iOS and Android. This fully fledged fitness ecosystem is designed to help budding athletes track their workouts, daily activity, sleep, weight, body fat percentage and nutrition. The UA band will cost $180, the UA scale will also cost $180, and the UA heart rate monitor is $80 when purchased separately. You can get all three devices in the UA HealthBox for just $400. Pre-orders for any of these will supposedly be delivered on January 22nd, 2016.

That's not all that Under Armour has cooked up for the technological fitness world of the future. They also created something called the SpeedForm Gemini 2 smart sneakers. These fitness shoes include a sensor to track and store running data such as time and date, duration, distance and splits. These shoes also sync with the Record app. Supposedly the shoes never need to recharge because the battery will outlast the tread on the shoes. These connected fitness tracker shoes will supposedly be available February 29th for $150.

Finally, Under Armour also created a set of bluetooth earbud headphones. These headphones are actually
two different sets of wireless earbuds using JBL sound. Both are sweat-proof and will connect to any iPhone or Android handset. They also feature a no-slip design. The upgrade to the base model will feature in-ear heart rate monitoring. The headphones will launch sometime in the Spring of this year and will be priced at $180 for the base model and $250 for the model with built-in, in-ear heart monitoring.

Source: UnderArmour

 

[dgstorm]

Here's a picture of the actual devices:

 

[Mustang02]

$250 for earbuds?????

 

[cereal killer]

Likes: Products look very appealing and the entire ecosystem is very powerful
Dislikes: Do you need the heart rate monitor to get more accurate workout data?, No GPS

For $250 (Band 2) I get GPS, heart rate monitoring, tracking of different workouts from weigh lifting to yoga. I think its packaged really nicely and for that people will be swayed. MSFT Band 2 is the best activity tracker out there right now. Fitbit's blow and are inaccurate. I went through two of them because I thought the first one was defective--nope just inaccurate.

When a company comes along and puts together a package like the Band 2 I'll take a look, but the Healthbox just doesn't cut it for me.

 

[DougDroid]

Sounds like a good move for HTC!

 

[Mustang02]

Likes: Products look very appealing and the entire ecosystem is very powerful
Dislikes: Do you need the heart rate monitor to get more accurate workout data?, No GPS

For $250 (Band 2) I get GPS, heart rate monitoring, tracking of different workouts from weigh lifting to yoga. I think its packaged really nicely and for that people will be swayed. MSFT Band 2 is the best activity tracker out there right now. Fitbit's blow and are inaccurate. I went through two of them because I thought the first one was defective--nope just inaccurate.

When a company comes along and puts together a package like the Band 2 I'll take a look, but the Healthbox just doesn't cut it for me.

$199 now on amazon.

 

[LoneWolfArcher]

UA is really upping their marketing. They sponsored the latest version of Deer Hunter. You can see their UA gloves in the game.

 

[liftedplane]

that price though... seriously, there has to be a way to not have all of this be so expensive.

 

[Mustang02]

that price though... seriously, there has to be a way to not have all of this be so expensive.

Just found out why.

It has a heart rate strap
Has a scale
And a band

 

[liftedplane]

Just found out why.

It has a heart rate strap
Has a scale
And a band

no, each piece is ridiculously priced... they are keeping the prices ridiculously high on this stuff... kinda like how LCD screens were a few years ago even though they cost quite a bit less to produce.

 

[Mustang02]

They charge it and people will buy. Why short themselves? I agree they are insane prices.

 

[liftedplane]

They charge it and people will buy. Why short themselves? I agree they are insane prices.

Cause more people would buy

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

[Mustang02]

Cause more people would buy

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

Their marketing team doesn't think so obviously. Sell 10 boxes for $400 instead of 400 boxes for $10. More money quickly instead of lowering the costs and recouping it over time.

 

[cereal killer]

no, each piece is ridiculously priced... they are keeping the prices ridiculously high on this stuff... kinda like how LCD screens were a few years ago even though they cost quite a bit less to produce.

Yup $80 for a heart rate monitor is insane, and $180 dollars for that band is plain outrageous

 

[94lt1]

There are earbuds out that do all of this and probably sound better..they're called bragis they're finally in production..heart rate and transfer data..no phone needed to power them..