Competition in the athletic/fitness wearable technology is heating up as Adidas has announced a fitness smartwatch with GPS in tow.
On Wednesday, October 16, Adidas announced the miCoach SMART RUN smartwatch, which is targeted at runners, at the GigaOm Mobilize conference. The Android-powered smartwatch is expected to hit the shelves on November 1.
Adidas' announcement comes close on the heels of Nike, which announced the FuelBand SE on October 14. The Nike smartwatch is also GPS integrated and has a heart-rate sensor, which wearers can use to get personalized fitness coaching.
Adidas claims that the miCoach SMART RUN is the "most advanced and intuitive wrist based running device."
"We're not trying to make a smartwatch, per se, but the smartest running watch," reveals Paul Gaudio, head of Adidas Interactive. "When you're out playing sports, you want less stuff -- only what you need to perform."
The miCoach SMART RUN will enable runners to track their runs thanks to GPS mapping. They will be able to monitor their heart rate from their wrist, as well as listen to their favorite music track. Moreover, a real-time coaching option is also available via the single color touchscreen display.
"By combining the latest innovations, such as the Mio Wrist Based Continuous Heart Rate Technology, design and ease of use navigation, we consciously broke the template that defines other running watches," says Simon Drabble, director of miCoach at Adidas.
The miCoach SMART RUN sports a 1.45-inch transflective TFT LCD (184 x 184) with a capacitive touchscreen. The strap 263.1mm long, 48.4mm wide and 15.6mm thick and the device weighs 2.8oz.
The device comes pre-loaded with Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1 and has a custom UI. The smartwatch has three battery modes which will be differentiated by the frequency of health data collection from various onboard sensors.
To illustrate, in the casual mode no health data is collected and the miCoach SMART RUN functions like a regular watch. Per Adidas, the 410 mAh li-ion battery will last runners 14 days in this state. A full recharge will take a maximum of four hours.
On the other hand, in the marathon mode, data will be captured every five seconds and last for approximately eight hours. In the training mode, data is logged every second and the miCoach SMART RUN is able to do this for up to four hours.
In addition to GPS, the device also has an accelerometer, an optical heart rate monitor, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support (for transferring logged data).
The miCoach SMART RUN hits the shelves on November 1 and will retail for $399, which is quite steep when compared to Nike's FuelBand SE's $149 price tag.
