Fitbit aims to recover the lost ground against Apple with its own 'smartwatch'

Fitbit aims to recover the lost ground against Apple with its own 'smartwatch'

Ionic is the company's great bet to enter the world of smart watches, a market managed from Cupertino

Fitbit, the Californian company famous for its sports bracelets, has presented its first serious bet in the market of smart watches dominated today by Apple and, to a lesser extent, Samsung.

Ionic has everything the consumer can expect from a fitness device: monitoring and analysis of sleep and physical activity, heart rate monitor, GPS, notifications and autonomy that can give up to four days of use, compared to 24 hours of the Apple Watch, which is its main competitor in functions and price. The new Fitbit watch costs 350 euros.

It is a product made 100% by Fitbit, both hardware and software, and has several interesting additions for athletes as a sensor that measures blood oxygen level, personalized work routines and sports goals through a virtual trainer. It has an NFC chip to make payments wirelessly, is submersible up to 50 meters and can store up to 300 songs to play music paired with a Bluetooth headset.


The design is youthful and sporty, so characteristic of Fitbit bracelets, it remains on the watch, although its price is up to three times higher. The company is clear that it is a product by and for athletes, which can be dressed all day long and for which there will be several straps and colors available.

Its biggest incentive, beyond the sensors that can not be found in other  smartwatches , is its software. Unlike Android Wear watches and Samsung Gears, Fitbit has designed an operating system dedicated to physical activity that prevents users from getting lost in a sea of ​​options and menus that they will not use. In wearables , less is more.

"You can see how your marketing has changed over the years to sell it like a watch on your wrist to a fitness-oriented device," said James Park, CEO of TechCrunch, referring to Apple and its watch. "Android Wear, Google and the Google ecosystem, have great technology and great efforts made by many companies, but I think they are still looking for a use or application that makes them really attractive.

The clock is a cracking in front of Apple and Xiaomi

Fitbit has been for years the reference company in wearable devices during the last years, despite the sudden interest of many manufacturers to launch their proposals thanks to the possibilities offered by Google with the Android Wear ecosystem.

The fact of having a computer on the wrist did not finish, and Fitbit knew how to get ahead of that wave while maintaining its offer of smart sports wristbands.

But Apple came with a different proposal, taking care of the design, the size of the watch and offering an ecosystem of applications much wider than the competition.

At the same time, Xiaomi began distributing large volumes of sports bands at demolition prices. Fitbit is stifled above and below: its market share fell 38% year-on-year in the second quarter.

"Fitbit is in the midst of a transformation as the tastes of users evolve from fitness bands to watches and other products," says Ramón Llamas, research manager of the IDA Wearables team. "This allowed Xiaomi to accelerate the pace of sales of its low-cost devices within the Chinese market and for Apple to cement its position as the leading provider of smartwatch worldwide."


Fitbit will try to recover the lost ground with an almost identical proposal on paper to Apple and just in the Christmas period, when they succeed as a gift. It is a watch focused on physical activity too, the main interest of consumers.

Their similarities remain there; in the specifications and tasks. The Ionic has a more sporty design, following the tradition of the brand, and is significantly larger than the Apple Watch, so it could become uncomfortable for consumers who sleep with it on.

It is not trivial, since Ionic has several days of autonomy and you should not leave it charging every night on the nightstand. Its casual appearance could be a problem for certain consumers in certain occasions, since it is a device to wear all day.

"I guess it's going to appeal mostly to existing Fitbit users who admire its aesthetics, and it will probably do better among Android users who have relatively fewer attractive options than among iPhone owners," says Jan Dawson, an independent analyst at technology companies.