Adidas Joins Wearable Stampede with Fitness Tracker

Summary

          Adidas the footwear and apparel maker, is entering the so-called wearables market. Adidas is introducing wearable devices which happen to be flooding the market.

         However with this new devices being released there has been an expected arrival of a smart watch from Apple with health-tracking capabilities later this year. That release could significantly raise the bar on what people expect from the wearable's, especially if Apple comes anywhere close to recreating the impact it has on Mp3 players and smartphones. (Wingfield 2014).

        Paul Gaudio, the general manager of digital sports at Adidas does not seem worried. On Wednesday, Mr Gaudio is introducing the company's fit smart fitness tracker at a wearables conference in San Francisco (Wingfield 2014).

         The $199 wristband which will go on sale in mid-august, packs most of the same features as other wearables, including the ability to track distance traveled, pace and calorie-burning (Wingfield 2014). It also measures heart rate, which Mr Gaudio said was critical to its goal of providing training programs for people as they shoot for their fitness goals (Wingfield 2014).

        The benefits of Adidas's heart rate monitor will depend largely on it accuracy, which cannot be determined until the product is available for testing (Winfield 2014). Mr. Gaudio said however that Adidas's background in sports gives it a point of view that will help it in the wearable market. "when people set out to get fit, they really dont know what to do", Mr Gaudio said (Wingfield 2014). "They get hurt, get frustrated and quit. This is about helping people get better (Wingfield 2014).

Opinion

          In my opinion Adidas is making a great marketing decision, because think about it there are so many brands out there and there all competing, people cant even keep up with all the new technology that is coming out for example it feels like every 6 months a new phone is coming out and what are we supposed to do keep upgrading it every 6 months?

          The new wrist bands that are coming out i am very excited to go and pick one up because personally i am hugely into fitness. However there are so many of these fitness trackers out, and not only are sports brands making them but apple and Microsoft are also marketing. The new technology that is coming is insane

          Personally i think if Adidas trackers are going to have better quality and have more gadgets than any other fitness tacker currently on the market i see this gadget bringing sales through the roof. Also the price of the wristband is only $199 when most of the trackers cost two to three times that amount.

            Well im just going to have to go pick myself up one of those il be putting up another blog on my review of the tracker and my personal thoughts on it, let me know if any of you guys have tried it and what are your thoughts on the Adidas Fitness Tracker

Feedback

1. Do you think the new Tracker is going to be any different that the trackers already on the market?

2. Do you think this is going to be a bust for Adidas and do you think the Apple health tracker is going to have more increases in sales than the Adidas Fitness tracker?

Reference

Nick Wingfield (July 09, 2014)/Adidas Joins Wearable Stampede with fitness tracker/New York times

Images

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