“Under Armour was founded on a simple idea: Make athletes better. To do that, it’s turning human performance into a big data problem,” David Pierce reports for Wired. “The company is betting on the notion that the right hardware, the biggest dataset, a lot of machine learning, and powerful motivational tools can make everyone better, faster, and stronger.”
“The centerpiece of that bet is a $400 kit, announced today, called Healthbox, that provides a scale, an activity tracker wearable, and a chest strap for measuring heart rate,” Pierce reports. “The company also is updating Record, its mobile app, making it a 24/7 real-time barometer of your fitness and health. These tools, combined with three apps Under Armour has purchased in recent years, provide the most comprehensive ecosystem of fitness products yet made.”
“Make no mistake: Under Armour is a tech company. That’s where this entire industry is headed,” Pierce reports. “The days of dongles and wristbands and straps are numbered. It won’t be long before our fitness trackers are built into our shoes, our shirts, our headphones. Everything will be a fitness tracker, and every fitness company will be a tech company.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Great. All we need is Archos controlling our clothing.
Except we can put our watch on every day to track our fitness. We’re not going to limit ourselves to a certain shirt, or shoes or pants for fitness capabilities.
People do that every day when working out. Are you serious?
UA is a cr@p company with cr@p products and has absolutely no idea how to be a “tech company”. they bought a few start up app companies – map my fitness, my fitness pal, etc – and think they can play the game against apple and facebook. their touted “Record” app is absolutely horrible to use and doesn’t do anything that i can’t get in the health app or facebook.
they proclaim to have innovative ideas – yes, maybe in shoes – but a chest strap?? WOW, how innovative (in 1990).
they need to stick to making their clothes better, stronger, with less chafe and leave the technology to the guys that know how to build technology.
I would disagree with this. If you ask me this is how we track fitness. The shirt and any other garment strapped around your body sounds like the perfect source to gather bodily information. Sure a watch can do a good bit, but a shirt should be able to do a lot more. It’s nice to know that a company is going down this road, and hopefully they can make something that is lightweight, feels like it isn’t even there, sewn into the shirt, and give you up to date information on how your body is doing. I would rather purchase a shirt that can give me metadata on my body then how green looks on me with my jeans.
Ha ha ha!! Great MDN Take!
So the company that says straps are a thing of the past launches a strap. I’m convinced.