While we’re not ones to share “shiny new object” posts regularly, when it comes to Fitbit, we can’t help but pay attention. The company is one of the most successful wearable products to date, accounting for 30% of the wearable tech market, according to reports from IDC.
The device that helped catapult the term “wearable tech” into mainstream consciousness recently upped its game with the Alta HR, a sleeker, thinner version of the wristable. In addition to the heart rate monitoring and activity tracking you’d expect from Fitbit, the Alta HR also tracks and measures your sleep, aligning it with wearable tech trends we’ve seen set by companies like Oura Ring.
Alta can tell the amount of time you spend in light, deep, and REM sleep, as well as how long you spend awake each night. The Fitbit app tells a data story about your sleep patterns, and based on these insights can provide guidance on how to improve your sleep for overall health.
“Alta HR and these powerful new sleep features demonstrate our continued focus on evolving our innovative technology to deliver deeper, more actionable insights to help our users improve their health,” said James Park, co-founder and CEO ofFitbit. “The miniaturization of our PurePulse heart rate technology opens up exciting opportunities for future generations of devices and new form factors. Our advances in sleep will provide millions of users around the globe accessibility to invaluable insights that previously could be obtained only through expensive lab tests.”
In the past few years, wearable tech trends have moved from just capturing data about the body (known as the quantified self) towards providing users with actionable takeaways that can be applied in the quest for wellness. So, for example, it’s not useful to know how many hours of deep sleep you get each night unless this is held against an ideal or standard you can work towards.
While Alta HR promises to present data in a human-centric way, Fitbit’s biggest challenge moving forward will be reinventing itself as a lifestyle brand rather than just a product. As a recent report from ABI on enterprise wearables suggests, wrist-worn devices are estimated to take a back seat to body- and head-worn wearables.
Further reading: The Sleep Science Behind Fitbit’s New Alta HR Fitness Tracker
