Sports clothing maker Under Armour is getting into the gadgets business with a set of wearable devices, headphones and a wireless scale.
Though Under Armour isn't first with any of these, it's trying to make it easy on consumers by designing products that connect wirelessly to each other or to its smartphone apps. A new version of its UA Record app seeks to integrate all aspects of your health and fitness — including nutrition, sleep and exercise — though a few features will require a companion app, MapMyRun. The apps are free and will also work with competing devices, such as Fitbit and Garmin watches.
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Under Armour is offering a starter package, the UA HealthBox, for $400. It includes the scale, a chest strap to monitor heart rate and a fitness band to track steps and sleep. Each item is also sold separately. Beyond that, Under Armour is offering a shoe embedded with a chip to track exercise — even without a smartphone or any other GPS-enabled device for recording distance. The company is also making two headphones, including one that can measure heart rate at the ear.
Under Armour partnered with smartphone maker HTC for the HealthBox items and with Harman's JBL business for the headphones.
Most of the items will ship Jan. 22; the shoes and heart-rate headphones will come later.
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