The creator of the first Wi-Fi-connected scale now has its eyes on the smartwatch world. Withings has announced the Activité, and yes, the accent there is intentional. If you ask the French health gadget maker, the Activité elevates the category to stylish new heights.
Crafted by a team of Parisian and Swiss designers, this timepiece forgoes a digital display and sticks to analog. How does that work? Well, there are two hand dials on the watch. One tells the time, like any wristwatch should, while the other displays percentage progress on a number of goals, like steps walked or hours of sleep spent in REM.
Now, here's the kicker: the entire watch face sits under a sapphire glass touchscreen. Just tap the touchscreen to cycle through a number of activity targets to measure your progress on the secondary dial. These figures are fed to the device through Bluetooth Low Energy capability.
The whole thing is water-resistant up to 5ATM, or up to 50 meters (about 160 feet). It even comes with a plastic strap for when you hit the pool. Oh, and the device runs on standard watch batteries – no need to recharge.
Haute couture is gonna' cost ya
The stainless steel watch case comes with either a black or brown leather strap. Fashion forward are the keywords here: The straps were made by "the ancestral 'Tanneries Haas', one of France's most successful tanneries used by some prestigious French design houses," Withings touted in a statement.
So, as you probably already figured, the Withings Activité does not come cheap. The price of admission to the most fashionable of wearables: $390 (about £229, AU$413). When you consider that the Samsung Gear 2 goes for $299 (around £175, AU$317), yeah, this thing is prohibitively expensive.
Rounding out the diverse feature set for the Activité is a sensor that automatically detects whether you're sleeping or active, and a vibrating alarm clock function. (Anything beats that iPhone ringtone that we want to forget every morning at 5 a.m.) Plus, it's designed to work with the established Withings Health Mate app.
Should you be smitten enough to get one of these on your wrist, you'll have to wait until this fall. Unfortunately, there's no word on financing programs.
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