The new Fitbit smartwatch is one of the most highly awaited wearable devices of the year. The first renders showing the smartwatch leaked Thursday, courtesy Wareable, a website specializing in wearable devices.
As per the leaks, the final version of the smartwatch looks somewhat like a mix of the Fitbit Surge and Charge — it has a Surge-like a dial and a Charge 2-like band. But Wareable also revealed other details of the product.
The Fitbit smartwatch is expected to come in three variants — a silver case with a navy blue strap, a rose gold case with a blue strap and space gray case with a black strap. The back of the Fitbit smart dial in the renders protrudes a bit, just like the one on the Charge 2, which seems essential for optimal heart rate reading.
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The most important feature that has been revealed in the renders is a new sensor. Traditionally, smartwatches such as the Fitbit Charge 2 use green optical sensors for heart rate tracking. However, the renders show red sensors along with a blue one which seem to be infrared sensors and an oxygen sensing pulse oximeter that will provide the user with blood oxygen stats. Infrared heart sensors are expected to be more accurate than the traditional heart sensors and might also be able to measure body heat and other such parameters.
Unlike previous Fitbit wearables, which came with either a single button or no button at all, the Fitbit smartwatch in the renders has three buttons. It indicates that the company is doing much more than just providing fitness metrics on the device. These seem to go along with Fitbit CEO James Park’s statement to investors in a recent earnings call that the smartwatch will launch with an app gallery. The company is also expected to make the SDK (software development kit) available to developers post the product launch, which would help create an app database for the device and help it move away from being just a fitness-centric product.
Unlike the Apple Watch 3, the Fitbit smartwatch is not expected to come with LTE support. But it is expected to come with onboard GPS, a feature fitness enthusiasts have been asking for long. Until now, Fitbit smartwatches came with connected GPS which meant that a runner or anyone who was performing a workout would need to carry along a smartphone with their wearable for GPS data.
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The smartwatch is also expected to be waterproof up to 50 meters, which means users will also be able to take the watch swimming and basically track all their movements. Earlier wearables from the company did not offer this feature.
“We can confirm that development of our smartwatch is on track and that it will be available for the holiday season,” a Fitbit representative told Wareable.