Fitbit Announce New Blaze Smartwatch at CES

CES is the ‘Consumer Electronics Show’, which is the biggest convention for new technology each year – it is held in Las Vegas. Fitness trackers are now an established category when it comes to new technology, so it is no surprise to see several companies announcing their newest products and apps at the show.

The Fitbit Blaze is the latest fitness tracking watch from the popular FitBit. This has a full colour screen, and many people are likening it (or at least saying that this is a competitor to) the Apple watch.

As an upgrade to many other FitBit trackers, this watch tracks distance, calories, heart-rate and also tracks your sleep cycle.  This also includes the FitStar guided workouts.

One factor which many commentators noted as missing is GPS. This does seem to be a shame as many of the previous FitBit models, including the FitBit Surge, did include this. I am wondering whether this was something to do with keeping the price under $200 (pricing outside of the US has not been announced as yet).

There are plenty of competitors in this space. The biggest question is whether the FitBit Blaze can compete with the Garmin VivoActive, which is in a similar price band. While the shares of FitBit did go down following the announcement, we will have to wait and see how the feedback from actual users looks.