Nike just revealed its brand new FuelBand SE yesterday, and now it’s time for rival sports company Adidas to get in on the wearable tech
action: meet the Adidas miCoach Smart Run, a smartwatch that packs in GPS skills and pulse-based heart rate tracking to help boost your running game. Who needs a FuelBand now?
Adidas’ new miCoach smartwatch is aimed directly at joggers, thanks to the inclusion of built-in GPS tracking to chart your runs and provide real-time coaching, plus you can keep on top of your heart rate thanks to optical technology. There’s also an accelerometer crammed into the watch to count your every step, while the GPS measures your speed so you know exactly how fast you’re running, how many steps you ran and the actual route you took. Handy.
You’ll also be able to load up your favourite tunes on the watch too, and push them via Bluetooth to a pair of wireless headphones, while you’ll also be able to receive training suggestions from your very own digital coach, who’ll tell you speed up or slow down. There’s also visual guidance for specific workouts on the watch’s 1.45-inch screen too, to help make sure you don’t pull a muscle and do each exercise correctly. That comes in the form of workouts and training plans listed on Adidas’ miCoach website, which the Smart Run watch can sync to over Wi-Fi, checking off different workouts when you’ve finished them.
If you were hoping for the miCoach to hook up to your smartphone or tablet, you won’t be in luck: the watch is a standalone gizmo to help with your heart rate-based interval training, meaning you won’t be reading your notifications, emails or text messages on the touchscreen display. And with the watch going on sale next month for $399 (£249.59), it might be a hard sell for those who want their smartwatch to do everything and anything, like with Samsung’s Galaxy Gear – and Nike’s new FuelBand offering is much cheaper at £129. Still, Adidas is offering a competitive package for runners who want to maximise their training, and with the addition of a heart rate monitor built right into the watch, it could be the next best thing since dedicated running shoes were invented, round about the same time as sliced bread and the wheel.
Are you interested in Adidas’ new miCoach Smart Run watch or are you more keen on Nike’s brand new offering? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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