There’s no doubt whatsoever that Wearable Tech represents one of the biggest boom areas in portable electronics over the last few years. The innovations have been fantastic, and it seems that nearly everyone has experimented with at least one of these amazing devices—things like wrist worn fitness trackers and GPS watches. Many of us have even tried out multiple devices.
With this in mind, today we consider some of the great new wearable tech that was announced at this year’s CES convention in Las Vegas. As usual, there’s some really cool stuff out this year in this category, so read on to see a little bit of what we’ve uncovered.
The Current State of Wearable Tech
When I refer to wearable technology, I’m mostly talking about things like Smartwatches (including Apple Watches), Fitness Trackers, GPS Watches, and Virtual Reality gear. Of course, to be fair, we could also easily include things like traditional Wristwatches and Item Tracking Devices, but I think that the first four areas mentioned give us a pretty good starting point for today’s discussion.
As you can see, the world of wearable tech is a rather complex one, encompassing many different products with a variety of unique features and benefits. While some wearable tech is all about having fun, other devices are far more serious in nature.
For instance, while a virtual reality device is pure fun and games, there’s nothing more serious than having a wrist-worn GPS tracker help you to extract yourself from a messy ‘lost in the woods’ scenario.
Major players in the wearable tech game at the present time include Oculus and HTC in the virtual reality space (check out my review of the Oculus Go 64GB VR Headest from back in the summer), Garmin and Fitbit in fitness trackers, Garmin again in GPS trackers, and Fossil and Samsung in smartwatches, just to name a few.
If you would like to learn more about what’s currently available in any of the above wearable tech subcategories (or from the listed brands), simply click on the preceding links to their individual Best Buy category pages.
What’s New in Wearable Tech?
The first thing I’ll mention from this year’s CES is the new HTC Vive Cosmos Virtual Reality Device (shown above) that I wrote an announcement piece for early last week. This device is billed by HTC as a premium VR system that’s meant to be easy to use and comfortable to wear. It also boasts lifelike sound and crystal clear graphics, but I’ll let you read the remaining details on this one in the article linked above.
In the smartwatch realm, more and more companies are stepping up their game. Fossil, for instance, has announced the Fossil Sport—an upgraded line of smartwatches (with new tech) that runs on Google’s Wear OS platform and features a built-in GPS, a heart rate monitor, and Near Field Communication (for talking to other smart devices), among many other features. The Fossil Sport even allows you to personalize your dial with a cool image (see photo at right). Although Fossil is widely known for its seemingly endless stream of fun and attractive fashion watches, they’re certainly not satisfied to remain in that space, as is clearly evidenced by their already formidable selection of smartwatches available at Best Buy.
Finally, one of the major players in both the smartwatch and GPS realms—Garmin, announced at this year’s convention that they too are expanding their smartwatch family, this time with a new 4G LTE-enabled GPS smartwatch called the Vívoactive 3 Music that offers the full functionality of a smart phone (including the ability to take your tunes with you without bringing your smart phone along). In the United States, this particular release is being offered in partnership with cellphone provider Verizon Wireless. Thus far I have yet to ascertain whether or not Garmin has a Canadian cellular partner lined up for this one, but we’re bound to hear something in time, so keep an eye out on the Best Buy Canada Blog for future news and updates.
The future of wearable tech certainly seems bright, and we’re hoping to get some hands-on reviews of many of these devices for you throughout 2019. Stay tuned here, and we’ll learn all about these great products together.
For all your Wearable Tech wishes and desires, visit Best Buy Canada online today.
Table of Contents
