If you want to monitor your fitness during the day, there are a number of tools to do it. There have been plenty of smartwatches released in recent months but French company Withings has a different spin on that concept.
Withings has introduced the Activite and Activite Pop. These are actually analog watches with internal mechanisms that allow them to feed activity information to an app you have on your smartphone.
Two sets of moving hands on the Activite and Activite Pro tell the time in minutes and seconds, of course.
But a separate dial inset on the watch face indicates the percentage of your daily activity goals you’ve met via the mobile app, Withings Health Mate.
Based on the information Withings watches feed the app, the app will tell you whether you need to get on your feet more or spend more time in bed. It can also make other activity-based suggestions.
The Activite is actually a classic Swiss watch (though the company that makes it is French) and it comes at a premium price, as most Swiss timepieces do. It sells for about $450, according to a report from The Verge, but for the price, you get that famous Swiss timekeeping along with a stainless steel body and calf’s leather band.
See this video for a brief overview:
But Withings is also catering to the lower end of the market with the Activite Pop. You won’t get Swiss timekeeping but you do get all the features that turn a stylish analog watch into a device capable of tracking your daily activity as well.
Activite Pop is now available at BestBuy.com and will be sold in stores starting in March. Its cost is $149.95, according to a Withings press release.
Unlike the more expensive Activite with its stainless steel case and leather bands, the Activite Pop features PVD-coated metal on the watch case and a silicone band. The Activite Pop is sold in three colors: Azure, Shark Grey, and Sand.
In a company release, Withings CEO Cedric Hutchings explains(PDF):
“We’ve paired Activite’s elegant Parisian design with fun-to-wear materials and pop colors in order to create a very personal device that people would want to wear and never take off. It is time wearables step up to what they claim to be!”
Because it’s not a smartwatch, per se, it doesn’t require constant charging as some of the new wearable devices do. Withings says that Activite and Activite Pro can last up to 8 months on a common watch battery, no charging required.
Image: Withings
Aira Bongco
Fitness tracking is not a new concept. We have watches to track our heartbeats, our steps and others. I guess it is really convenient to get to know more about out bodies with a gadget attached to our bodies.