Pebble and Misfit begin beautiful fitness-tracking friendship
Pebble and Misfit, climbing up a tree
The makers of the Pebble Steel smartwatch and Misfit Shine health monitor have joined forces to take on the wearables industry together.
Like Mad Men's Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and Cutler, Gleason and Chaough, both companies bring a little something to this partnership - though neither is shortening its name just yet.
According to the announcement, the collaboration will allow Pebble to integrate Misfit's "state-of-the-art activity tracking" in its smartwatches.
That means starting today Pebble owners can download the Misfit "watchapp," which counts steps and tracks other activities, from the Pebble app store. And the latest Misfit iOS app update, available soon, will connect with Pebble smartwatches to track additional metrics like burned calories and distance traveled.
More than a feeling
Add Misfit to a list of Pebble collaborators that also includes companies like RunKeeper, Strava, Puma, and others. But Pebble plus Misfit might go even further than these other partnerships have, the companies suggest.
"This is the first milestone in an ongoing partnership and collaboration between Pebble and Misfit that aims to provide intuitive health and fitness tracking for all," Pebble's announcement says.
Both sides have style, but their individual efforts up to this point have proved that style alone won't sell wearables.
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Unless that style is Apple's, since when the iWatch hits the scene it'll probably sell like popsicles on a hot summer's day.
Michael Rougeau is a former freelance news writer for TechRadar. Studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Northeastern University, Michael has bylines at Kotaku, 1UP, G4, Complex Magazine, Digital Trends, GamesRadar, GameSpot, IFC, Animal New York, @Gamer, Inside the Magic, Comic Book Resources, Zap2It, TabTimes, GameZone, Cheat Code Central, Gameshark, Gameranx, The Industry, Debonair Mag, Kombo, and others.
Micheal also spent time as the Games Editor for Playboy.com, and was the managing editor at GameSpot before becoming an Animal Care Manager for Wags and Walks.