Fitbit GPS Smartwatch Release May Not Take Place Before The Fall

Fitbit is best known for its activity trackers and fitness bands. It hasn’t made a proper smartwatch as yet but it’s said to be working on one. The company was expected to launch its first smartwatch early this year but according to a new report, it has now been delayed to the fall. Yahoo Finance reports that Fitbit’s first smartwatch looks very similar to the Fitbit Blaze activity tracker.

The company’s first proper smartwatch will be accompanied by its first pair of Bluetooth headphones. Both are said to arrive this fall. The company is reportedly having to deal with production problems that have pushed the launch window from spring to the fall.

“In one of the more final prototypes, the GPS wasn’t working because the antennae wasn’t in the right place,” said one of the sources mentioned in the report. This particular problem forced the company to go back to the drawing board and redesign the entire smartwatch just so that the GPS received a strong signal.

The company’s design team also reportedly ran into a few problems when trying to make the device completely waterproof. It remains unclear whether the Fitbit smartwatch will be dubbed as waterproof when it’s eventually launched later this year.

The technical specifications are slim but it’s believed to have a color display with 1,000 bits of brightness, a built-in GPS, heart rate monitor, contactless payments support, the ability to stream and save music from Pandora, and a four-day battery life.

All of this is said to be packaged inside an aluminum unibody design for close to $300. A pair of Bluetooth headphones may also be launched with the smartwatch, it’s expected to look similar to Apple’s Beats X earbuds in design.

Fitbit has not yet officially commented on any of this so we’ll have to wait and see when it decides to share more information with the press about this.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: fitbit, Smartwatches, Wearable Tech