HTC and UnderArmour’s HealthBox Is an All-in-One Fitness Tracking System
Just in time for your annual New Year’s resolution to get in better shape, Under Armour and HTC have debuted a new all-in-one, connected fitness-tracking system.
Called the UA HealthBox and designed with HTC, the $400 system comes with a fitness tracker, a connected scale, and a heart-rate monitor, which all feed information into a smartphone app to give you a better understanding of your overall health.
It’s also really good at making you feel bad about how out of shape you are — though that might just be my own experience.
UA HealthBox
The fitness tracker — which Under Armour and HTC call the UA Band — is designed for wearing 24/7 and can track the number of steps you’ve taken, your heart rate, and your workout and sleep habits.
UA Heart Rate is a band that your strap to your chest to get a more accurate reading of your pulse. Under Armour and HTC concede that the UA Band’s heart-rate monitor, like most wrist-worn monitors, isn’t super-accurate. So if you’re a hardcore athlete who wants an exact heart-rate measurement, you’ll have to strap on the UA Heart Rate too.
Then there’s the UA Scale, which measures your weight and your body-fat ratio.
UA Record app
The crux of the UA HealthBox system is Under Armour’s UA Record app for Android and iOS. It pulls in data from the fitness tracker, scale, and heart-rate monitor, then breaks it down into four categories: Activity, Fitness, Nutrition, and Sleep.
Related: More coverage of CES 2016.
Activity lets you know how many steps you’ve taken during the day, while Fitness lets you see how long you’ve worked out and how many calories you’ve burned.
Nutrition, meanwhile, shows you how many calories you’ve consumed by pulling in information you’ve input using the MyFitnessPal app. Sleep, naturally, tells you how many hours of sleep you’ve gotten.
The UA Record app also lets you select how you feel based on a scale of one to 10. So if you’re feeling awful one day, and you only slept for three hours and ate 4,000 calories’ worth of food, you’ll know why.
The UA HealthBox will be available Jan. 22, with preorders starting today at HTC.com, UA.com, and Under Armour Brand House locations. Under Armour and HTC says the HealthBox will be available through other retailers in the first quarter of 2016.
Each piece of the HealthBox will also be available for purchase separately with both the UA Band and UA Scale retailing for $180 each and the UA Heart Rate going for $80.
UA SpeedForm Gemini 2
In addition to the UA HealthBox, Under Armour also debuted its first connected shoe. The UA SpeedForm Gemini 2 has a built-in sensor that communicates with the UA Record app and lets you know how many miles you’ve run and what your pace was.
You don’t need to have your phone with you while using the Gemini 2, either, as the shoes can save data for up to five individual workouts and sync with the UA Record app the next time you’re close to your handset.
The SpeedForm Gemini 2 goes on sale Jan. 29 for $150.
Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley or on Google+.
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Ford Says It Will Have Self-Driving Cars by 2020, Smart Home Integration Coming Too
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